My wife pointed out this concise, but harrowing account of one person in the church at the time of the Unitarian Church shooting: Salvador Dali's LiveJournal. A fuller account can be found on numerous news sources, like Reuters at "Two Dead, 7 wounded..."
The gunman was tackled by church-goers and taken into custody by police. He was charged later with first-degree murder, but police declined to give a motive for the shooting and the Tennessean newspaper said his motive remained unknown.
The gunman apparently concealed a 12-gauge shotgun until he entered the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church and then fired several shots before being subdued, police said.
Maybe I am missing it but there seems to be precious little coverage, blowback, or analysis of this particularly horrible incident. There also seems to be (unless I am really missing it) almost no reflection on the heroism of the churchgoers, their ability to end the incident without using guns of their own, or the total underestimation of their strength of character by the right-wing extremist that perpetrated it.
Jim D. Adkisson, 58, of Powell, Tennessee, was being held on a $1 million bond at the Knox County Detention Center, said Randall Kenner, communications coordinator for the city of Knoxville.
Endless idiots opined on the Virginia Tech massacre about arming students and whether the teachers or students could have stopped it. But I don't hear these same voices remarking on the heroism of Greg McKendry, who gave his life to save children or praising the group of unarmed churchgoers that overwhelmed the shooter and saved the rest.
Owen said Adkisson specifically targeted the church for its beliefs, rather than a particular member of the congregation.
"It appears that church had received some publicity regarding its liberal stance," the chief said. The church has a "gays welcome" sign and regularly runs announcements in the News Sentinel about meetings of the Parents, Friends and Family of Lesbians and Gays meetings at the church.
I guess it doesn't fit the supposed "liberal media's" agenda that a Unitarian Church congregation, offering sanctuary for couples and families of all types, meeting place for a local ACLU chapter, would display the alacrity to attack and disarm the cowardly Adkisson, agent of the Savages and O'Reillys that were his reading material and fed his twisted view of the world. He, like his mentors, is a coward that would rather attack unarmed children than face up to his own responsibilities to the world. And now he sits in jail, waiting for a mercy that he tried to deny others.