It is and the more outrageous these demands become, the more division and anger they create. Or put another way, not only is the remove symbols stuff making it more difficult to facilitate healing and coming together, it's becoming counterproductive and sadly leading to exactly what Dylann Roof wanted.
There is a young man who is a student, I believe at a university in NC (could be SC) that sued the school and won, for his right to fly a confederate flag. Anyway, he admits that now may be the time to get rid of the famous flag with the Southern Cross on it. But, he also feels that removing the flag completely, removing all symbols and memorials, is only giving the power to terrorists like Dylann Roof.
And you are very right, it is causing a divide that is going to be hard to heal.
Actually, the below article points out the reason the racist responsible for this tragedy got a weapon wasn't because of any loophole in existing gun control laws.
It was because of government incompetence. The background check on Dylann Roof should have exposed his arrest for drug possession (which would have blocked his purchase), but didn't - because the record of that arrest was never inputted into the background check database.