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Shooting/attack on Michigan LDS Church

Mike!

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Mike!
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I guess this is still a breaking story, a guy drove his truck through the front doors of a Mormon church in Michigan, started shooting, and deliberately started a fire. At least one fatality, and the shooter, has been "neutralized'.

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www.cnn.com
 
stanfr said:
And it turns out he is a white man, veteran, who loved guns and had a pickup with American flags and Trump-Vance signs in his yard. I'm shocked I tell you...shocked. Waiting to see how they spin his as being a radical leftist.
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He was a radical leftist pretending to be MAGA. Deep undercover fake commie Chinese spy blah blah blah!
 
stanfr said:
And it turns out he is a white man, veteran, who loved guns and had a pickup with American flags and Trump-Vance signs in his yard. I'm shocked I tell you...shocked. Waiting to see how they spin his as being a radical leftist.
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Trump is calling it an anti-christian attack.
 
stanfr said:
And it turns out he is a white man, veteran, who loved guns and had a pickup with American flags and Trump-Vance signs in his yard. I'm shocked I tell you...shocked. Waiting to see how they spin his as being a radical leftist.
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A lot of Protestent Fundies really hate the LDS for purely religious reasons. LDS theology directly clashes with Traditional Christian thelogy big time.
Would not be surprised if this was a motive.
What is amusing is that a lot of Trump Fundie supporters are probably annoyed he refereed to the LDS as Christians, since they do not consider the LDS to be Chrisitan, but a bunch of heretics.
 
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JayUtah said:
Most importantly, he was a nut with a gun. What a rotten day, considering the Mormon prophet died last night too.
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At age 101. Maybe the automatic election of the oldest to the officer of President/Prophet of the LDS is creating a lot of problems.
 
dudalb said:
At age 101. Maybe the automatic election of the oldest to the officer of President/Prophet of the LDS is creating a lot of problems.
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My irresponsible speculation is that the shooter was LDS and had an axe to grind with the congregation.
 
dudalb said:
A lot of Protestent Fundies really hate the LDS for purely religious reasons. LDS theology directly clashes with Traditional Christian thelogy big time.
Would not be surprised if this was a motive.
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If only the shooter hadn't been "neutralized." Now people can speculate indefinitely what his motives must have been, and therefore what group to pin it on. It can't be just a nut with a gun anymore. That would send the message that guns aren't the problem. The nuttery has to be laid appropriately at the feet of whoever is then presumed to have radicalized him.

Officially, however, you'll see an outpouring of sympathy and support from other religions. Today they'll condemn the shooting (appropriately) and offer thoughts and prayers (appropriately) for the victims and survivors. Then next week they'll be back tweeting at each other with the renewed vitriol. The animosity goes both ways. Not only do Fundamentalists not care much for Mormons, but also Mormons (in large groups) tend to have a persecution complex. But that's not wholly directed at traditional Christians.

dudalb said:
What is amusing is that a lot of Trump Fundie supporters are probably annoyed he refereed to the LDS as Christians, since they do not consider the LDS to be Chrisitan, but a bunch of heretics.
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If holding a Bible upside down for a photo-op doesn't piss off the Fundamentalists, then I don't know what would. I'm not saying you're wrong. But I'm proposing that there might also be an amusingly tortured rhetorical gyration in this instance to let them continue thinking Donald Trump is their messiah but also that Mormons are still from the devil.

dudalb said:
At age 101. Maybe the automatic election of the oldest to the officer of President/Prophet of the LDS is creating a lot of problems.
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To be more accurate, the senior apostle almost always gets tapped. That's not necessarily the chronologically oldest person, but we're still quibbling over octogenarians. But it's according to the order in which they were appointed apostles, not how old they are. The heir presumptive is Dallin Oaks, a hard-liner on many of the social issues modern Mormons are facing. He's a former Utah Supreme Court justice. I read his book on the assassination of Joseph Smith, Carthage Conspiracy; it was largely supported by the most recent biography of Smith written by a non-Mormon historian (Joseph Smith: Rise and Fall of an American Prophet). We'll see how this turns out.
 
Trausti said:
My irresponsible speculation is that the shooter was LDS and had an axe to grind with the congregation.
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Possibly. His religious affiliation, if any, hasn't been reported. Mormons keep pretty meticulous membership records, so it would be relatively easy for them to confirm whether or not he was or had been a member. Their PR department seems to be heads-down on eulogizing their just-deceased prophet today, so they might not address this right away.
 
I just read about how the LDS president is elected. Not very dramatic. and very cut and dried.
You won;t be seeing anybody making a "COnclave" about elecitng a LDS Presient, Prophet and Seer.
T
 
dudalb said:
I just read about how the LDS president is elected. Not very dramatic. and very cut and dried.
You won;t be seeing anybody making a "COnclave" about elecitng a LDS Presient, Prophet and Seer.
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No, but I'd love to see Conclave's plot twist played out there. I wouldn't even really call it an election, from what I've heard. I don't think they vote per se. Apparently they all just sit in a special sanctum sanctorum in the temple until they decide the senior apostle gets the job—as he always does. I wonder how they're going to do it this time around because the Salt Lake temple is still under renovation.

More on-topic, Deseret News (the church's official newspaper) is reporting that there were "hundreds" of attendees. That's more than the typical Sunday service. This might have been the periodic conference where several congregations meet together, in which case we have to wonder about how this particular group was targeted.
 
Speculation, but LDS is known for quite effective proselytizing. To figure out what could turn a guy with a small child that nuts, it just may be that his wife had decided to join LDS. If so, she is supposed to ask her husband for permission. At least that was the rule decades ago. If he saw it as some sort of rejection of him it might have set him off. Clearly had some big issue with LDS.
 
marting said:
If he saw it as some sort of rejection of him it might have set him off. Clearly had some big issue with LDS.
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Or they might just have been targets of convenience. We'll know more as people do their jobs.

However, we know the shooter had a small child with expensive medical bills. If his wife had joined up, she might have been eligible for the Mormon church's significant financial aid programs. They have a prodigious internal social services network. Maybe not quite on par with the Catholics, but worth pursuing. So you can speculate in entirely the opposite direction and say that if Mom wanted to join up then that would stand a chance of paying the child's medical bills and he'd suck it up for that.
 
JayUtah said:
However, we know the shooter had a small child with expensive medical bills. If his wife had joined up, she might have been eligible for the Mormon church's significant financial aid programs. They have a prodigious internal social services network. Maybe not quite on par with the Catholics, but worth pursuing. So you can speculate in entirely the opposite direction and say that if Mom wanted to join up then that would stand a chance of paying the child's medical bills and he'd suck it up for that.
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LDS has excellent social services and support amongst members. Of course, what most people would do doesn't apply here. Something set him off. Big time. The stress of a child with the bills and medical problems just added to whatever triggered the SOB.
 
marting said:
LDS has excellent social services and support amongst members. Of course, what most people would do doesn't apply here. Something set him off. Big time. The stress of a child with the bills and medical problems just added to whatever triggered the SOB.
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Mike! said:
I wonder if there's a connection with Kirk's killer being Mormon and this guy shooting up a LDS Church?
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Until we know more, just a nut with a gun.
 
JayUtah said:
Until we know more, just a nut with a gun.
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He was a nut with a gun who also had some sort of big emotional issue with LDS. Possible it's a coincidence and just a place with a lot of people. I think that unlikely. Hopefully, we will know more and can somehow reduce this sort of insanity.
 
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