90% of the comments underneath any given news article about last night's shooting...

[Bicoastal]

...it almost scares me more than an a lunatic with a gun.

I know, I know--they're racist armchair warriors living in their mothers' basements; they're habitual trolls who delight in any occasion to tie a tragedy to their favorite political punching bag; they're pathological gossips who don't have any facts but nonetheless have an opinion already fully formed in their tiny, biased brains; they're ordinary people at ordinary jobs who are having a bad day/month/year and want to take it out on the world...I know that, in essence, they're almost completely harmless.

But Jesus Christ, do there have to be so damn MANY of them? And do they have to take such sheer delight in making everyone else angry?

Comment sections automatically placed underneath any and all mainstream news articles is probably the worst thing to happen to journalism in my lifetime. On a day like this, when the only sensible response to such a horrific incident is one of sensitivity and grief--they literally have no reason to exist.

[Blecht]

1. Amen - nt

[DCKit]

2. Would you rather not know they exist?

Sure it's ugly, but that's what keeps us working for change.

That's a double entendre, if anyone's interested.

[Bicoastal]

3. I don't need to see the cockroaches in the dumpster out back...

...to know they exist.

I don't think the comment sections benefit anyone--especially in situations like these. In no way shape or form do they reflect the thoughts of the American people as a whole--but they do an excellent job of letting us know what the dumbest, loudest, meanest, and angriest think.

[DCKit]

8. I never knew what a cockroach was, until I hit 18.

I never knew what a Kochroach was until I was 49.

[apocalypsehow]

4. Hell, we got a basement full of trigger-happy bobo's RIGHT HERE who think

the kind of replies you're alluding to in your OP are finely-honed specimens of dazzling logic. Just take a look around.

[Cali_Democrat]

5. You should check out the comment sections in stories about the Trayvon Martin case.

It's insane. The amount of racism is off the charts.

[Gold Metal Flake]

6. Comment sections bring page clicks.

The arguments they foster bring page clicks. The links and references bring page clicks. The anger and passions that the responses induce and reflect bring page clicks. Page clicks bring money. Money is the game.

Sucks when your media becomes totally profit-driven, don't it?

[Major Hogwash]

7. They had to go out and defend their hero, Rush Limbaugh.

Since he failed to show up today for his radio program, his minions went out on to the internet and did their damnedest to defend him.