Good evening, Netizens...

A brief review of Sunday's incident where Jim D. Adkisson killed 2 people with a shotgun before being wrestled to the floor:

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – A gunman opened fire at a church youth performance Sunday and killed two people, including a man who witnesses called a hero for shielding others from a shotgun blast.
Seven adults were also injured, but no children were harmed at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. Church members said they dove under pews or ran from the building when the shooting started. (AP Courtesy the Spokesman-Review)

"It appears that what brought him to this horrible event was his lack of being able to obtain a job, his frustration over that, and his stated hatred for the liberal movement," said Police Chief Sterling Owen.
Adkisson was a loner who hates "blacks, gays and anyone different from him," longtime acquaintance Carol Smallwood of Alice, Texas, told the Knoxville News Sentinel.
Also witnesses said the attack was cut short after some church members tackled the gunman and held him until police arrived.
The Unitarian-Universalist church advocates for women's rights and gay rights and has provided sanctuary for political refugees. It also founded a chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, according to its Web site.
Owen said authorities believe the suspect had gone to the church because of "some publicity in the recent past regarding its liberal stance on things."
(AP Courtesy of Seattle Times-Intelligencer)

From all this we gather a picture of a sadly angry man looking to kill people who advocated beliefs which he found unacceptable. Had some brave people, including one man killed by Adkisson, not acted when and how they did, it is doubtlessly true that many others would have died.

We have a Unitarian-Universalist and several Unity Churches in Spokane who share many, if not all the church's beliefs in Knoxville that appears to have driven Adkisson to commit such a henous act.

The question remains, could this have happened here in Spokane?

Dave

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