Orlando

[nofi]

prayers for all of those involved in this horrible beyond belief tragedy.

[dadagoboi]

...just anticipating where this thread will eventually end up after the usual lip service.

[uwe]

Leaving the helpful and highly pragmatic idea aside for a moment how this might not have happened if from now on every visitor of a gay disco received a rental semi-automatic at the door plus a 10 minute shooting instruction to defend himself and his inherent right to bear arms, the tragedy in Orlando did hit me personally. Why? Because my daughter is considering to do her Master studies in Tel Aviv and my first thought as a father of course is: Does she really have to go to a place where people are regularly wantonly killed by terrorrists just for walking around and being assumed to be Jewish (as it happened there only recently)? (I accept that giving in to that concern is giving in to terrorist aims and that Ilan lives with that threat every day for pretty much all of his life, but would a gravestone inscription "She died unbowed by terrorism ..." make me feel any better?)

And when I heard about Orlando yesterday my thoughts were: Now if she had studied in Orlando and had given me a call on Saturday afternoon that she was looking forward to going to that hot gay disco in town, I wouldn't have been worried in the slightest and perhaps only wise-cracked some low-pc one-liner "Well, watch out for your butt then!" And a couple of hours late she might have been dead, it doesn't take Tel Aviv at all for that to happen.

I'm a child of the sixties, I lived a sheltered life under the Cold War and under the glorious concept of Mutually Assured Destruction, there were proxy wars everywhere and the Mid East was already a powder keg, we had terrorism in Germany, but what we did not have were these mass murder assaults on people totally unrelated to whatever the terrorist agenda might be as they have happened in New York, Madrid, London, Paris and now Orlando in the last decade-and-a-half. The prevalence of Global terrorism and how it can hit anyone anywhere - except, maybe, in North Korea - is highly disturbing.

[Dave W]

No matter what the media says, it's not the largest mass shooting in US history. The massacre at Wounded Knee, the Branch Davidian massacre in Waco... oh wait, I guess it isn't terrorism when the government murders its own citizens.

Restricting the rights of all gun owners because of the actions of a few makes as much sense as restricting the rights of all Muslims because of the actions of a few.

[Granny Gremlin]

With you on the first point Dave.   Nice whitewash on the inquest into that too.

I will refrain responding to the second, because that's too political (ban bait).

Anyway, back to Orlando - what is interesting is how the cops and media are trying to paint this as domestic terrorism and not a hate crime, which it obviously is. 

[dadagoboi]

...

[uwe]

With you on the first point Dave.   Nice whitewash on the inquest into that too.

I will refrain responding to the second, because that's too political (ban bait).

Anyway, back to Orlando - what is interesting is how the cops and media are trying to paint this as domestic terrorism and not a hate crime, which it obviously is.

It's both actually. Hate against gays, yes, but also against Western values (if you - like me - think that gay liberation is a good thing)/Western permissiveness (if you don't). Two strikes in one.

Wounded Knee is both a spot-on and a flawed comparison, Dave, even though it wasn't the government against its own people, but hereditary immigrants from Europe against the native population (and in that way akin to Orlando then, except that the murderer's parents came from a bit father east then Europe). But Custer wasn't by himself IIRC.

[uwe]

... the Branch Davidian massacre in Waco ...


Libertarian nonsense and conspiracitis, Dave, and you know it. Last I heard, the people in Waco weren't dancing with each other when some guy entered their premises and started gunning them down. Waco was a train wreck of a police action, yes, but comparing it to Orlando is inapt.

If you want to get into comparisons, I find Orlando most akin to the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995. Unless you saw that as citizens rightfully defending themselves against Big Government of course - which would tie in with your Waco comparison, but I'm sure you didn't mean it that way.

[Granny Gremlin]

It's both actually. Hate against gays, yes, but also against Western values (if you - like me - think that gay liberation is a good thing)/Western permissiveness (if you don't). Two strikes in one.

Yes, the case can be made (it is terror, in that it elicits that emotion), but under such a loose interpretation, just about any violent or merely destructive (including inconvenience causing loss of income) action could be called Terrorism.  This is exactly the kind of thinking I am trying to discourage, because then just about any protester is a terrorist.  It's a moot charge in most cases (unless it's also a conspuiracy, which this clearly isn't, where you need to charge the perp as well as the mastermind) because all those things are already crimes with appropriate punishments (would another life/death sentence on top of the 50 for murder really make a difference or serve any useful purpose at all?).

The fact of the matter is that there is no evidence to suggest that this was "calculated" to "influence" or "affect" policy (https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/terrorism/terrorism-definition) - only evidence that the guy just really hated gay people and was a bit off (which could preclude the calculated bit just as it could be grounds for not criminally responsible had he not died, and stood trial, though I'm sure they woulda found a way to fry him anyway).

Yes there was talk from the shooter that he was a member of this and that group (and the FBI investigated 3 years ago), but:

“First he claimed family connections to Al Qaeda,” which, like the Islamic State, is a Sunni Muslim terrorist group, James Comey, the F.B.I. director, said Monday. “He also said he was a member of Hezbollah,” a Shiite group in conflict with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. 

is just the sort of thing a crazy (unaffiliated/slightly out of touch with political reality) person would say.  He was mentally unstable, and hateful.  Since the man is dead (and any charges or jail time/death penalty completely moot) lets not let this turn into a pretext incident for new 'security measures.'  ... Though a few restrictions on guns down there (background checks; closing the gun show loophole) could really not hurt, IMHO, but I don't get to vote on that one.

[Dave W]

....

Wounded Knee is both a spot-on and a flawed comparison, Dave, even though it wasn't the government against its own people, but hereditary immigrants from Europe against the native population (and in that way akin to Orlando then, except that the murderer's parents came from a bit father east then Europe). But Custer wasn't by himself IIRC.

Custer was 14 years dead before Wounded Knee.

... the Branch Davidian massacre in Waco ...


Libertarian nonsense and conspiracitis, Dave, and you know it. Last I heard, the people in Waco weren't dancing with each other when some guy entered their premises and started gunning them down. Waco was a train wreck of a police action, yes, but comparing it to Orlando is inapt.

If you want to get into comparisons, I find Orlando most akin to the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995. Unless you saw that as citizens rightfully defending themselves against Big Government of course - which would tie in with your Waco comparison, but I'm sure you didn't mean it that way.

You're completely missing the point. It's not about comparing the specifics, it's about the fact that it was a mass shooting, and a deliberate one at that. The government's stated pretext was to arrest David Koresh, but they were well aware that he jogged outside the compound every day. They knew they could have arrested him without incident. They consciously chose annihilate as many men, women and children as possible.

[Highlander]

In the 1940's we had guns all over London to protect us from people called Germans...
In the 1970'2 we had tanks outside the entrances to London Airport (Heathrow to you) to protect us from Irish dissidents...
In 2016 we have cameras everywhere to protect us from everything...

A bear can not fight a flea because it just does not know where it will bite... it just knows that it will...

rip...

[Pilgrim]

No matter what the media says, it's not the largest mass shooting in US history. The massacre at Wounded Knee, the Branch Davidian massacre in Waco... oh wait, I guess it isn't terrorism when the government murders its own citizens.

Restricting the rights of all gun owners because of the actions of a few makes as much sense as restricting the rights of all Muslims because of the actions of a few.

I read this earlier and it has been bothering me. There is no comparison between military and law enforcement actions gone bad and the actions of a single crazed individual. The argument is meaningless, regardless of how misguided or reprehensible Wounded Knee or Waco might have been (I lived near Waco at the time that happened, and my opinion differs, but that's not relevant either.)

If you will, this is the largest mass shooting in the history of the US by a single individual. Better?

And as a firearms owner of long standing, I believe it's time to do something. I offer one bottom line: THE SOLUTION IS NOT MORE GUNS. I reject the NRA line that everyone should be armed. While serving as a reserve Deputy, I met many idiots and bad actors who I hope never own a firearm. They won't do anything good with them. 

The answer to public shootings is not for everyone to go armed and generate a public firefight, either. There would be as many or more casualties from panic and execrable shooting, and when the police do arrive, they're as likely to shoot the self-appointed "good guys" as they are the bad guys.

Somehow, by some method, we need to find ways to keep people who are mentally ill or driven by hate from getting firearms. This is one position the gun lobby has refused to even consider. They won't allow universal background checks, which are only a tiny part of the answer, but still a positive part of it. Police even back this idea: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-guns-police-idUSKCN0SK2RR20151026

They won't allow police to trace firearms firearms history across all states, thanks to the Tihart amendments, which currently prohibit ATF from releasing firearm trace data for use by cities, states, researchers, litigants and members of the public, except in aggregate form.  http://smartgunlaws.org/maintaining-gun-sales-background-check-records-policy-summary/

Want a summary of the problems? http://smartgunlaws.org/gun-trafficking-straw-purchasing-policy-summary/

Now remember, I own multiple handguns and rifles. I've been shooting since I was 12. I'm not eager to give them up, and I see no reason that I need to.  But I'm neither a hate-filled fanatic or (other than the evidence provided by tweaking Dave with this post) subject to mental problems.

We need to figure out that some people are not worthy of owning firearms. Period. And we need to find a way to limit their access to firearms. I'd like to see the gun lobby contributing to that simple approach instead of trying to arm cats, dogs and infants.

I feel like Viper in Top Gun, facing Maverick and saying (paraphrased as necessary):

"The simple fact is you feel responsible for these deaths and you have a firearms problem. Now I'm not gonna sit here and blow sunshine up your ass. A good citizen is compelled to evaluate what's happened, so he can apply what he's learned. In a democracy, we gotta regulate ourselves. That's our job. It's your option, citizen. All yours."

[Aussie Mark]

Supposedly the shooter was on an FBI watch list, and had been investigated twice.  Yet he could still buy guns despite that?

[uwe]

My bad mixing Little Big Horn and Wounded Knee up!

As for the much toted gun discussion: America is America, keep your hunting rifles and hand guns, but where in the Second Amendment does it say that semi-automatics and other military weaponry are to be taken to dancehalls to mass-shoot people there? And how can someone who's on a watchlist of the FBI with repeated investigations and who openly supports ISIS walk into a gun store and come out an hour later fully equipped for the Orlando onslaught? Lenin is on record for saying "the capitalists will sell us the noose with which we will hang them".

[patman]

Exactly.  Nowhere in the second amendment is the word semi-automatic.  Use common sense.