50 Dead, 53 Injured In Attack On Orlando Nightclub
An overnight shooting at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida has left 20 people dead and at least 42 injured.
At least 20 people are dead and 42 injured in an attack on a nightclub in Orlando, Florida:
About 20 people were killed and at least 42 people were wounded when a gunman armed with an assault rifle and a handgun opened fire inside a downtown Orlando nightclub about 2 a.m., Police Chief John Mina said.
The police said they had classified the attack as a “terror incident.” The gunman was not from the Orlando area and was organized and well-prepared, they said.
The gunman was found dead inside the Pulse nightclub, one of the largest in Orlando, about 5 a.m. after a shootout with the police, Chief Mina said.
The chief said it was difficult to assess the number of clubgoers who were killed because, as of 7:15 a.m., many of the bodies had not been removed.
The shooting began inside the club, the chief said, and continued outside when an officer working at Pulse attempted to confront him. The gunman then went back into the club, resumed shooting and took hostages.
At 5 a.m., Chief Mina said, the police decided to rescue the hostages, detonating a “controlled explosion” to help clear the club. At least nine officers were involved in the shooting with the gunman. One of them was slightly injured, the authorities said.
The police called it a “mass casualty” event. The wounded were taken to three area hospitals.
The police also said the gunman was carrying a “device,” and that officers were searching the club for possible explosives.
On its Twitter feed, the Police Department asked residents to “stay away from area” and said that it was seeking support from local state and federal agencies. Later, employees in the area were asked to stay home if possible.
The club itself posted a message on its Facebook page about 3 a.m.: “Everyone get out of pulse and keep running.”
Customers streamed out of the club into a chaotic situation with little idea of where to go. “Cops were saying, ‘Go, go, clear the area,’ ” Christopher Hansen told an Orlando television station. “You don’t know who’s what and who’s where.”
As the sun came up, helicopter-shot video showed a situation that seemed to be under control, although windows on one side of the club appeared to be shot out.
Phone camera videos shot at the scene show police cars, ambulances and other emergency vehicles outside the club on South Orange Avenue in downtown Orlando. Streets around the the club were shut down for several blocks.
In one video, shots could clearly be heard as men and women ran from Pulse. Some of the clubgoers told local television reporters that the music was so loud it was difficult, at first, to distinguish the shots from the pulsing beat.
More than 100 people were believed inside the club when the shooting began about 2 a.m.
Many of the wounded were taken to Orlando Regional Medical Center, about three blocks from the club, which was placed on lockdown after receiving several gunshot victims. “Only essential workers are being allowed access into the building,” the hospital said in a statement.
“Out of an abundance of caution, Arnold Palmer Hospital and Winnie Palmer Hospital have also been placed on lockdown,” the statement added.
On Pulse’s Facebook page, club officials promised to post updates as they came in: “As soon as we have any information, we will update everyone.”
“Please keep everyone in your prayers as we work through this tragic event,” the nightclub post0 said. “Thank you for your thoughts and love.”
More from the Orlando Sentinel:
Twenty people are dead at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub in what investigators are calling an act of terrorism, Orlando Police Chief John Mina said at a morning news conference.
A gunman took scores of people hostage overnight inside the nightclub; about 42 people were taken to area hospitals, Mina said.
Officers killed the gunman, who has not been identified, in a shoot out and referred to him as a “lone wolf.” He was carrying an assault rifle, a handgun and was possibly wearing an explosive ”device.” The Orange County Sheriff’s Office hazardous device team is now searching the area.
About 30 people were “saved during the rescue,” Mina said.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is assisting. Agents say they cannot rule this out as an act of domestic terrorism and that the suspect, who is not from Orlando, may have leanings toward extreme Islamic ideologies.
Dozens of emergency vehicles surrounded the chaotic scene at the club at 1912 S. Orange Ave. after the 2 a.m. shooting and rescue squads were transporting multiple victims to area hospitals.
Some victims were transported to Orlando Health, which established a family information center early this morning, asking family members to go to at 52 West Underwood St.
Several family members stood outside the North entrance of ORMC awaiting news. A relative of one victim, who did not want her name used, said she got a call at 3 a.m. about the shooting. Her friend and the friend’s brother-in-law were at the club.
“He got shot twice and he’s in there, but we don’t know anything about her. So we’re just waiting here.”
Florida Hospital wouldn’t confirm if any patients have been transported there this morning, but said they can check on names for families.
Witnesses said they heard at least 40 shots fired inside the club and estimated that at least 20 people had been shot.
Police reported just before 6 a.m. that the shooter inside the club was dead. Mina said his officers exchanged gunfire with the suspect in two shootings. Nine officers were involved in the shooting and one sustained an injury to his head and was saved by his helmet.
The Orlando Fire Department called for its bomb squad and hazardous material team to the scene after 3 a.m. Police K-9 dogs are searching the area around nearby Orlando Regional Medical Center with an armed deputy in head-to-toe military gear.
Emergency workers were seen taking victims away from the scene in large trucks–in one case, an emergency worker was doing chest compressions on one of the victims.
Just after the shooting, Pulse Orlando’s posted a note to its own page that said, “Everyone get out of pulse and keep running.” The popular gay bar was full of people at the time of the incident.
Emotional witnesses and family members of those who were in the club surrounded the area around the club after the shooting, that one witness said lasted the duration of an entire song.
Javer Antonetti, 53, went out to the club with his brother. He was towards the back of the room when he heard shots ring out. ”There were so many, at least 40,” he said. “I saw two guys and it was constant, like ‘pow, pow, pow,’ ” he said. He said he ran out of the club. His brother is on crutches and was stuck inside. Antonetti said authorities were able to help save his brother, who he says is uninjured but still near the club. ”I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “Police told me he’s safe but he’s still stuck back there.” He’s waiting near Orlando Regional Medical Center. Antonetti noticed when he made it out safe that he has blood smears on his shirt. He said he doesn’t know how they got there and didn’t see how many were injured.
Another witness, Rosie Feba, said she took her girlfriend to the club for the first time Saturday night. It was near closing time.
“She told me someone was shooting. Everyone was getting on the floor,” Feba said. “I told her I didn’t think it was real, I thought it was just part of the music, until I saw fire coming out of his gun.”
Feba and her girlfriend ran out of the club. On the way out, they saw a man who had been shot.
Feba grabbed him. Others around her called 911. Some of the man’s blood stained the sleeve of her striped T-shirt.
Both Feba and her girlfriend were unharmed, but shaken. They waited in a CVS parking lot for more information.
Obviously, at this early stage of the investigation, mere hours after the hostage situation at the club had ended, it’s far too early to say exactly what kind of attack actually occurred over night. The fact that the attack is being investigated as an act of terrorism is, to a large degree, a procedural step that allows the Federal Bureau Of Investigation to step in and take over the investigation. It may turns out that the shooter in this case, who at least for now appears to have acted alone, was not motivated by a political or religious ideology but rather by a personal vendetta of some kind such as in the case of the countless work place shootings that we have seen over the years, or by some other personal situation. Given the fact that the nightclub in this case was known to cater predominantly to Orlando’s gay and lesbian community, it may be that this was an attack specifically targeting the LGBT community or that it was motivated by some perverted political motivation related to gay rights. Finally, of course, it may well be the case that the shooter in this case was motivated by jihadist terrorism in which case the next question would be whether he (or she, although the police seem to be indicating the shooter was male without specifically saying so as of yet) was acting alone or after having made contact with international terrorist groups of one kind or another. The answers to all of these questions will be revealed in the coming hours and days, presumably.
What we do know is that the shooter, apparently acting alone, arrived at the club shortly before closing time when the remaining patrons were ordering their final drinks or otherwise preparing to leave. Given that the club was described as being ‘packed’ at the time shooting started, this suggests that the shooter had planned to take advantage of the confusion of a large crowd already making its way toward the exits in order to inflict mass casualties, although that’s mere speculation at this point. We know that the shooter was carrying a rifle, a handgun, and was found with some kind of ‘device,’ which police are still investigating. And, we know that there was a hostage situation inside the club that lasted roughly three hours before police stormed the club and killed the gunman. A crime and terrorism analyst on CNN this morning suggested that the fact that the shooteer hunkered down for a three hour standoff suggests that this may not have been jihadist inspired terrorism, the unspoken truth being that both the shooters at the Bataclan in Paris and in San Bernardino took steps to kill as many people as possible rather than taking hostages and making demands, That’s just speculation at this point, though, and we won’t really know anything until the shooter is identified and we know more about their motivations. Beyond all of this, we know that 20 50 people are dead and more than 40 are being treated for injuries related to the shooting, and that’s it.
Update: CBS News is reporting, and The Washington Post and NBC News have seemingly confirmed, the identity of the shooter as Omar Mateen, a 29 year-old American citizen from from Port St. Lucie, Florida. CBS is also reporting that authorities are ”leaning towards Islamic terrorism” as the motivation for the attack.
MORE: Orlando shooter ID’d as Omar Mateen, U.S. citizen from Port St. Lucie, FL https://t.co/ekBHZaL2A8 pic.twitter.com/E0cw3YAMb3
— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 12, 2016
Update #2: Authorities are now reporting that there are 50 people dead, and 53 injured. That would make this the worst mass shooting in American history, surpassing even the Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook shootings:
Law enforcement says 50 dead, 53 hospitalized in Orlando nightclub shooting.
— NPR (@NPR) June 12, 2016
Orlando officials say at least 50 dead and 53 injured in the nightclub shooting https://t.co/TogVx762OS
— CNN (@CNN) June 12, 2016
I have updated the post title accordingly.
Update #3: From NBC Nightly News, comes the report that Mateen apparently called 911 to pledge loyalty to ISIS prior to the attack, as well as other news about what may have motivated the attack on this specific target:
The gunman who opened fire at a gay Florida nightclub early Sunday, shooting over 100 people, had called 911 moments before to pledge allegiance to the leader of ISIS, law enforcement sources told NBC News.
But as investigators try to determine if extremism motivated Omar Mateen, 29, to attack the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, his family believes he was pushed over the edge by pure hate against the LGBT community.
Various law enforcement officials have identified the shooter as Mateen, who was born in New York and lived in Port St. Lucie on Florida’s eastern shores.
The attack, which claimed at least 50 lives, is considered the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. While authorities are still investigating what motivated the gunman, the shooting is being considered an act of terrorism.
Mateen, who was carrying a handgun and AR-15-type rifle, died after a SWAT team stormed the club, police said. The shooter, who worked in security, according to the family, had active security officer and firearms licenses, records show.
Records also show he had filed a petition for a name change in 2006 from Omar Mir Seddique to Omar Mir Seddique Mateen.
Because of his name and heritage, there were immediate questions about Mateen’s possible ties to Islamic fundamentalism — but his father said it may have been a recent incident involving two men showing each other affection that set the gunman off.
“We were in Downtown Miami, Bayside, people were playing music. And he saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kid and he got very angry,” Mir Seddique, told NBC News on Sunday. “They were kissing each other and touching each other and he said, ‘Look at that. In front of my son they are doing that.’ And then we were in the men’s bathroom and men were kissing each other.”
“We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident,” Seddique said. “We weren’t aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country.”
Seddique added, “This had nothing to do with religion.”
Driving the point home that religion was a consideration in the mind of investigators, at a 10:30 a.m. news conference Saturday, officials brought a member of the Muslim community to speak.
Police did not explicitly say Mateen was Muslim, but Islamic groups put out statements against the carnage.
“We condemn this monstrous attack and offer our heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of all those killed or injured. The Muslim community joins our fellow Americans in repudiating anyone or any group that would claim to justify or excuse such an appalling act of violence,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations Orlando Regional Coordinator Rasha Mubarak said in a statement.
It’s also being reported that Mateen was “known” to the FBI and other Federal authorities, but apparently was not under any form of active surveillance prior to the attack.
Update #4: President Obama addressed the nation from the Briefing Room this afternoon:
Today, as Americans, we grieve the brutal murder — a horrific massacre — of dozens of innocent people. We pray for their families, who are grasping for answers with broken hearts. We stand with the people of Orlando, who have endured a terrible attack on their city. Although it’s still early in the investigation, we know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate. And as Americans, we are united in grief, in outrage, and in resolve to defend our people.
I just finished a meeting with FBI Director Comey and my homeland security and national security advisors. The FBI is on the scene and leading the investigation, in partnership with local law enforcement. I’ve directed that the full resources of the federal government be made available for this investigation.
We are still learning all the facts. This is an open investigation. We’ve reached no definitive judgment on the precise motivations of the killer. The FBI is appropriately investigating this as an act of terrorism. And I’ve directed that we must spare no effort to determine what — if any — inspiration or association this killer may have had with terrorist groups. What is clear is that he was a person filled with hatred. Over the coming days, we’ll uncover why and how this happened, and we will go wherever the facts lead us.
This morning I spoke with my good friend, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, and I conveyed the condolences of the entire American people. This could have been any one of our communities. So I told Mayor Dyer that whatever help he and the people of Orlando need — they are going to get it. As a country, we will be there for the people of Orlando today, tomorrow and for all the days to come.
We also express our profound gratitude to all the police and first responders who rushed into harm’s way. Their courage and professionalism saved lives, and kept the carnage from being even worse. It’s the kind of sacrifice that our law enforcement professionals make every single day for all of us, and we can never thank them enough.
This is an especially heartbreaking day for all our friends — our fellow Americans — who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. The shooter targeted a nightclub where people came together to be with friends, to dance and to sing, and to live. The place where they were attacked is more than a nightclub — it is a place of solidarity and empowerment where people have come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds, and to advocate for their civil rights.
So this is a sobering reminder that attacks on any American — regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation — is an attack on all of us and on the fundamental values of equality and dignity that define us as a country. And no act of hate or terror will ever change who we are or the values that make us Americans.
Today marks the most deadly shooting in American history. The shooter was apparently armed with a handgun and a powerful assault rifle. This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub. And we have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be. And to actively do nothing is a decision as well.
In the coming hours and days, we’ll learn about the victims of this tragedy. Their names. Their faces. Who they were. The joy that they brought to families and to friends, and the difference that they made in this world. Say a prayer for them and say a prayer for their families — that God give them the strength to bear the unbearable. And that He give us all the strength to be there for them, and the strength and courage to change. We need to demonstrate that we are defined more — as a country — by the way they lived their lives than by the hate of the man who took them from us.
As we go together, we will draw inspiration from heroic and selfless acts — friends who helped friends, took care of each other and saved lives. In the face of hate and violence, we will love one another. We will not give in to fear or turn against each other. Instead, we will stand united, as Americans, to protect our people, and defend our nation, and to take action against those who threaten us.
May God bless the Americans we lost this morning. May He comfort their families. May God continue to watch over this country that we love. Thank you.
Cue the idiots shrieking about this incident being “necessary for the security of a free state” in 3…2….1….
I should look away… momentarily…
Trump demands ban on gun sales to Muslims, rises 5 points against Hilary.
@Mu:
And your local biker gang or meth dealer just uses straw purchases to give guns to Muslims at a hefty profit. Or hell, they just buy guns at a gun show, where no one cares.
So for Doug and the rest of the 2nd Amendment worshipers, the “well-regulated” clause can be thrown out, the “free state” clause was just a fig leaf too. Apparently anyone on US soil can “keep and bear arms,” even if they are foreign agents, terrorists, mentally disturbed, express a desire to kill their family, cops, or politicians, or even all of the above.
You idol worshipers are now stuck with defending terrorists. So defend them. Protect their 2nd Amendment rights to kill you and your family.
“No, this isn’t our fault! It’s the gun salesman! It’s all the fault of the guy at POS.” HA HA HA HA! Silly conservatives/libertarians. Guns exist to make a profit. You aren’t against that gun salesman’s right to make a legitimate profit off of a gun-crazed populace, aren’t you?
So what are you for, Doug? Guns and profit, or public health and safety?
Wait. Don’t answer.
50 dead. 53 injured. One shooter.
Just like the San Jose Police directing Trump supporters into a ambush by “protesters”, sitting back, doing nothing and laughing, this is Donald Trump’s fault.
I have my favorite theories and solutions to these problems as others do as well. However, let’s give it twenty four hours before making any conclusions. Also, let’s try to see clearly without the lens of our prejudices which we all have. Using this event to make some political point before anyone can possibly know what actually happened is distasteful. Yes, we all have opinions and can and should have a chance to express them, but all I’m asking for is that people get a bit of information and think a little before talking.
I hope all join in offering our respects and sympathies to the next of kin and speedy healing to the wounded.
@Slugger:
Well said. Often these shooters leave manifestos behind that provide insight into motivation. If that is the case here, it will help.
Awful.
so i guess it wasn’t a t-party guy who hates gays and such? if y’all think white christians are something, how ’bout them muslims?! i’m sure the narrative from the white house will be something about the nra, gay rights, bathrooms, trump and such but nothing about importing more muslims who will not assimilate into our communities.
@James Pearce: “50 dead. 53 injured. One muslim shooter.”
fixed that for you.
@Lit3Bolt: so meth should be illegal too…….and murder via guns are pretty low historically. but never miss a chance to ramble on about how inanimate objects can kill people. remember those planes that flew into those buildings years ago- did we blame planes?!
Comment by shooter’s father on possible motive.
If true, will be interesting to see how the usual blowhard ranters on the right react.
@Lit3Bolt:from npr- “The search shows that Mateen had a firearm license and he received a security officer license in both 2011 and 2013. The search did not turn up any criminal record”
so how would banning guns have stopped this wack job?
@bill: Read the link I put up.
@Lit3Bolt: …but I guess another idiot cue beat them to it.
I am going to make something very, very clear…
The terrorist attack in Orlando last night was a terrorist attack against AMERICANS, on American soil. I don’t care who those people slept with, where they were, what they believed in, or what they were doing. They were AMERICAN CITIZENS.
Until we, as AMERICANS, unite against those who want our nation to die…we will be an easy target.
Conservative, liberal, gay, straight, black, white…it simply does not matter. Exactly like 9/11, this was a mass murder of AMERICANS. These terrorists cannot be reasoned with, cannot be talked to, cannot be changed. “Tolerance” of radical extremism will not keep us safe. The pathetically weak capitulation strategy has failed, yet again.
They want us dead. They want our nation, and our freedoms to be wiped off the map. They want to conquer us, kill us, enslave us. If you are dumb enough to think that this happened because the victims were gay…think again. Terrorist want us dead, simply because we are AMERICANS.
It is time for AMERICANS to stand together, united. One nation, standing together against a common enemy. It is the only way for us to defeat these disgusting savages.
The name of our great nation is THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. It is time for ALL of us to remember why, and stand together
@grumpy realist:
So the father says his son was so enraged by the sight of two men kissing that he had to plan and commit the murder of fifty people, plus injure another fifty-three in an LGBT nightclub?
You have to ask why this enraged him. Usually there’s some kind of religious/ fundamentalist conviction behind it. In this case, it could be Islamic fundamentalism, which is notoriously opposed to homosexuality. I’ve read far too many news stories about gay people being murdered in hideous ways by ISIS to dismiss a religious motivation out of hand.
So first the police take an entire hour to respond, and then once they set up a perimeter, they left the hostages inside the club with the shooter for THREE HOURS?
Why they hell do we spend all this money on SWAT teams that seem to love going all mall ninja busting into the houses of unarmed people in the middle of the night to serve drug warrants, but it seems like every time there’s a situation where we actually need a SWAT style response, they just sit outside cowering behind their vans?
Because mundane lives are less important than the lives of the police.
@CSK:
“In this case, it could be
IslamicChristian fundamentalism, which is notoriously opposed to homosexuality.”FTFY
@bill:
Yes. If you need an AR-15 for “self-defense,” you are officially a loon and a threat.
I hate the nihilism that events like this are something Americans have to endure, because freedumb.
Nothing could be done about Columbine.
Nothing could be done about Sandy Hook.
Nothing could be done about Virginia Tech.
Nothing can be done….nothing can be done…nothing can be done…nothing can be done…
You DO know you’re just repeating propaganda at this point, right?
@Lit3Bolt: You do know you are suggesting that guns be confiscated from 120 million Americans, right?
@Slugger: Very admirable, but guess who isn’t going to do that?
These guys:
“Once again a terrorists doing what they do best ,and Bernie and Clinton still want open borders”
“What the f–k ! When is enough enough these terrorist mf ‘ers deportation is the answer I don’t give a shot how radical this should we true PATRIOTS MUST TAKE A STAND…. this piece of shit needs to be turned over to the families of the victims.”
“This is the shooter from Orlando, his name is Omar Mateen, a muslim (US citizen) whose parents immigrated to the US from Afghanistan. He went yesterday to a bar and killed 20 human beings. Now let’s wait for Obama or Hillary or Bernie to condemn it. I bet with you that Trump is the only one to condemn it and take action.”
Just a random sample from Facebook of stuff that was posted in the last few minutes. So yeah, let’s allow this crap to spread unchecked for the next twenty four hours as we wait for all the facts…
@dennis:
Yeah, it’s the Christian fundamentalists setting gays on fire and throwing them from tall buildings. You are completely mental.
Trump campaign already blaming Obama for failing to admit there’s radical islamic terrorism (all caps on twitter).
Shooter had passed enhanced background checks for security personnel.
The father claims it wasn’t Islam that made him a anti-gay.
Somewhere some people will have to seriously adjust their narratives to make this one fit.
@Mu:
What else is the father going to say? The Tsarnev brother’s parents claimed it wasn’t their sons who committed the bombings.
@Jack:
Nah, just the terrorists and spree killers. I know, I know. It’s just soooo hard to tell the terrorists and the spree killers from the “law-abiding gun owners.”
We shouldn’t even try.
@Lit3Bolt: You do realize that someone could replace AR-15 in your post with Muslim, and Columbine with WTC, Sandy Hook with 9/11, Virginia Tech with San Bernadino etc. And be just as right (or wrong) as you are?
@James Pearce:
Is your neighbor a terrorist or spree killer? How about your best friend? You local cop?
Please point out all the terrorists and spree killers for the FBI to locate, arrest, and disarm.
@Mu:
So when terrorists attack with storebought guns, you have nothing to say besides “The system works?”
@Stormy Dragon:
1st Rule of Policing:
@Jack:
Yes, but we’re discussing events that occur in the U.S., not overseas. And here in the U.S., it’s fundamentalist Christian aggression that rules the day. I am completely sane; however, you full-of-fear conservatives sure get up in arms and create your own narratives. That’s no surprise, though. Have a great day, Jack!
Hack and billJack and Jillshit damm auto correct.Jack and bill have already settled on their narrative. What say the rest of us, will it be:
bigotry, intolerance and promiscuous gun laws
or
Islamic terrorists, sharia law and promiscuous borders?
h/t BJ
@dennis:
Typical liberal. Pick and choose only the facts that support your position and exclude everything that doesn’t fit your narrative.
Obama is importing these people from overseas you dolt!
Has some gun nut Neanderthal been by here yet to correct the Orlando police chief’s statement describing the AR15 as an assault rifle? According to the gun worshipers, it’s just a “modern sporting rifle.”Orwellian, but that’s gun nuts for you-more interested in naming things,rather than focusing on what things can do.
Meanwhile, let’s ponder the fact that one guy armed with one of these(which we are constantly assured are “tools, just like a hammer or chisel”) was able to kill 49 people and injure dozens more. (He would have bagged 50 too, if one of the police officers wasn’t wearing a Kevlar helmet).
Let’s ponder that he bought his weapons legally too, after passing the ludicrously inadequate background check allowed by the gun lobby ( No criminal record? Why here’s your AR-15 right here , plus unlimited ammo. Who cares if you are crazy as a bedbug and have been investigated by the FBI?).
I remember predicting last year that aspiring terrorists would shift from using high explosives, which are difficult to get hold of thanks to sensible regulation of that type of “arms”, to using firearms, which are easy to get, thanks to gun worshipping morons who oppose better background checks. I seem to have been right, but boy I wish I had been wrong.
This tragedy sure puts Doug’s earlier post crying about the loss of “gun rights” in California into perspective, doesn’t it?
@Jack:
Hey, thrall of the Gun Lobby, how does it feel to defend the rights of an Islamic terrorist to buy guns to kill you and your family?
We’ve created a uniquely American problem here. Lax gun laws and a free multicultural immigrant society. Either one or the other is going to have to go. Can’t have both…
@Lit3Bolt: Hey, thrall of the ISLAM Lobby, how does it feel to defend the rights of an Islamic terrorist to preach hate and instill values that kill you and your family?
We’ve created a uniquely American problem here. Importing terrorists combined with American freedoms which they hate. Freedom or Radical Islam. Either one or the other is going to have to go. Can’t have both…
FTFY
@James Pearce:
The system works! Nothing can be done! The tree of gun ownership must be watered with the blood of the innocent bystanders!
@Jack:
Don’t set me on an impossible task and then cite me for failing to accomplish it.
Since pointing out all the terrorists and spree killers isn’t feasible, how about we ban certain types of weapons and ammunition?
So looking around the intertubes, it looks like this is turning into a “ban all guns” vs. “ban all muslims” contest to see which Team can most beclown themselves responding to it.
@Jack:
So wait, are you saying this guy shouldn’t have owned guns? Blasphemy Jack. Blasphemy.
Are you saying only white Christians men can be trusted with the ability to kill indiscriminately at will? Judging by the record of conservatives shooting abortion clinics or shooting up churches or targeting women because they couldn’t get laid, or hell, considering the police departments in this country, I don’t think you want to run with that argument.
This is what lax gun laws lead to Jack. Terrorists can buy guns at will thanks to the NRA. This is your freedom. Love it, Jack.
The demographics here are going to twist our ‘conservative’ friends in knots. Do I hate the gays more than gun control? Do I hate Muslims more than gays? Should Muslims be able to buy guns as freely as I can? Is my religious fervor that much different from the other guy’s?
That’s the problem with constantly working to divide the country. Eventually your house of cards comes tumbling down.
RIP the 50 souls lost because some nut was able to get his hands on a weapon of mass destruction.
‘Murica!
@Paul L.:
Well of course this all gets back to violence at Trump campaign rallies … It’s not too early to get help.
@Stormy Dragon:
Versus the “do nothing and snark” crowd, don’t forget them.
@James Pearce: Since pointing out all the terrorists and spree killers isn’t feasible, how about we ban certain types of weapons and ammunition?
You mean like California, and Chicago?
How’s that working out?
@Lit3Bolt:
Oh, I do.
@bill:
Gun advocates are always telling us that we needn’t those fear people who have no criminal record. I agree, until they use their weaponry to acquire a criminal record, there is nothing to worry about.
To your point, we’re awash in guns, there are hundreds of million of guns in this country, and from supply standpoint, there isn’t much we can do about it.
@Paul L.:
Sadly, I remember when the first rule of policing was:
@Stormy Dragon:
No the question is which one hues closer to our ideal as a country:
Banning people based upon their ethnicity/religion
or
Banning unregulated usage of a tool that has proven to be deadly
—–
Which side do you fall on Stormy?
@al-Ameda:
Timothy McVeigh only needed to acquire fuel oil and fertilizer. In a free country, you cannot stop those intent on murder. More laws will not prevent that.
@Jack:
Omar Mateen was born in Florida, the US state, and he used one of those “American freedoms” he supposedly “hates” to shoot over a hundred people.
Please tell us more.
@Stormy Dragon:
Holy false dilemma, Batman!
Well, SD, fortunately there is a solution-rational gun safety regulation.It seems to work elsewhere, albeit imperfectly.
Let’s try that.
@Loviatar:
Guns and ammunition have more regulations than the nuclear energy industry.
@James Pearce: Do you not understand that radical Islam which is so adamantly supported by CAIR and leftists creates terrorism? Importing those who share those beliefs and allowing it to spread is the problem.
@Jack:
Good. that means adding a few more shouldn’t be a great burden or shock.
– Lets start with improving the background checks.
– Doing away with the gun show loophole
– Reinstate the Brady Bill
—–
Anyone else who wants to jump in with additional regulations please do, Jack has indicated that a few more regulations on guns and ammo wouldn’t be a problem.
@Jack:
As I said, there are hundreds of millions of guns are out there. It’s inevitable that were going to have periodic mass shootings in any year.
And, I suppose that one could make the case that leftists created Dylan Roof and Timothy McVeigh …
@Loviatar:
None of which would have prevented this tragedy. Please give me one law that would have prevented this and we can discuss.
@Jack:
If as being reported this person was on the FBI watch list, how was he able to purchase a weapon. If he previously had purchased a weapon, how was he able to keep such weapon.
Improvement means not only is the background check wide ranging and intensive, it also means if you’re flagged by an American Law Enforcement Agency, YOU DON’T GET A WEAPON until its been cleared.
@Loviatar: Well those are the two major politically driven viewpoints, however, I wouldn’t be surprised if at least 5 of the reasons mentioned weren’t partially involved. I’m not sure if the borders aspect comes in to play in this case.
@Loviatar: That’s not an improvement on background checks. If he was on a “FBI Watchlist”, then the FBI who are primary participants in the NICS check would have denied the sale.
Next?.
@Jack:
Radical anything creates terrorists, up to and including radical gun nuts, who have nothing useful to offer when it comes to mass shootings, terrorist or otherwise.
@Lit3Bolt:
Crap, they’re on to me!
@Stormy Dragon:
SWAT teams shoot dogs and unarmed civilians. Terrorists? In a gay nightclub? Let’s step back and reassess, men. Bill, you go get coffee. Dave, you go get donuts. Gonna be here for awhile.
@Jack:
Nope. The gun folks lobbied the Republicans to keep allowing people on FBI watchlist to be able to buy guns.
You were saying?
@Lit3Bolt:
Moving in prematurely risks innocent overtime pay getting caught in a crossfire.
In the near term this atrocity does not fall into any established narrative.
The Muslim connection is of little use to either side. Liberals insist that the only religious dogma that can be questioned is Christian dogma. Conservatives reject criticism of any religious group except Muslims. Both sides are hypocrites. Both positions are dishonest.
Immigration is irrelevant since this particular prick was US-born. Given that he is 29, one can surmise that his parents immigrated long before 9-11, prior to 1987, which would suggest the parents came during the Soviet-Afghan war, a war in which we sided with the Afghans.
The gun issue is somewhat mooted by the fact that the shooter evidently complied with the law. (We may learn differently, later) and had apparently passed standard background checks.
“Common sense” gun control would have cut the casualty count – you can kill a far higher percentage of targets with a high-powered, rapid-fire, large capacity assault rifle than with a shotgun, or a regular long gun, or a handgun. But under virtually all gun control regimes the shooter would at least have been able to obtain multiple handguns, so arguably you’d have fewer deaths, not none.
So, my take is that this event will be twisted to fit pre-existing narratives, but not do much to help either side.
@Jack:
Please point out to me where it says “the FBI who are primary participants in the NICS check would have denied the sale.”
Under NCIS
A prohibited person is one who:
– Has been convicted in any court of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year;
– Is under indictment for a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year;
– Is a fugitive from justice;
– Is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance;
– Has been adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution;
– Is illegally or unlawfully in the United States;
– Has been discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions;
– Having been a citizen of the United States, has renounced U.S. citizenship;
– Is subject to a court order that restrains the person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner or child of such intimate partner;
– Has been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.
In fact President Obama mentioned in a recent town hall that the FBI was watching a guy, but was unable to deny him access to guns.
Why restrict ‘good’ gun owners, resident asks President Obama at town hall
@James Pearce:
Silly James. The answer is of course, “Buy more guns.”
Always. For everything.
Mass shooting? Buy more guns!
Fired from your job? Buy more guns!
Divorce? Buy more guns!
Thinking of starting a terrorist cell? Buy more guns!
People kill people with guns in this country because they can.
If I wanted to have a poster child in favor of gun ownership, Jack wouldn’t be my first choice. Or my thousandth.
The CBS affiliate in West Palm Beach has reported that on June 8 an iSIS-inspired group released a “kill list” of 600 Floridians (there are 8000 names on the list, mostly Americans). Although a connection between Mateen and this group has not been established, it would be foolish to deny the possibility that he was influenced by them, or a similar organization. .
@Jack:
Bullshit. You comment history shows otherwise, cupcake.
@michael reynolds: seems like a pretty sane analysis
@michael reynolds:
What? No “act of war” rage? No insane “nuke ISIS” rant?
It says something about the conditioning we get in the United States when 50 bodies from 1 killer gets a collective shrug.
Although a connection between Mateen and the National Rifle Association has not been established, it would be foolish to deny the possibility that the shooter was influenced by them or any similar organization that campaigns to oppose restrictions on gun ownership in the United States.
@Lit3Bolt:
I don’t think anyone is suggesting a collective shrug. I was offering political analysis. I have the same revulsion any other decent person has. I have people very close to me – very close – who could easily have been in that club. I despise guns and the people who worship them. I despise the ideologies, whether we call them Islam or Christianity, that demonize gay people.
But when I am analyzing an event I do not consult my emotions.
@stonetools: The FBI watch list and the no fly list are different lists. I guess reading comprehension isn’t your strong suit.
@Jack:
What I don’t understand is why the Illinois Department of Homeland Security and its customs officials don’t stop all of these guns at the border. Surely they would find these weapons while they’re checking passports at the Indiana state line.
Oh, wait a minute…
@rodney dill:
Some of it.
Some of it is utter crap. Like this in particular:
Oversimplified BS is taken too often for wisdom in this country. No need to go applauding it.
@James Pearce:
Can you explain why you think that’s crap? Is it not true?
NBCNews is reporting that the shooter called 911 before the shooting:
Orlando Nightclub Shooter Called 911 to Pledge Allegiance to ISIS: Sources
This makes the fact it took the police an hour to show up even more, WTF.
@Mister Bluster:
Well, he did pledge allegiance to ISIS. That being the case, it is reasonable to assume he was influenced by ISIS.
@michael reynolds:
Because you are not toting the liberal line. You are to blame the NRA, you are to blame gun owners, and you are to blame Christians or you lose any credibility with liberals.
@michael reynolds:
Is this a new thing for you?
I seem to recall you making maximalist gun-grabber arguments in the past. And we all remember your Paris-induced freak out over refugees. But now you’re the unemotional one?
@michael reynolds:
I think a gun control regime that would have cut the death toll to say, 10 instead of 50 is a gun control regime worth pursuing.
Canada has a gun control regime where the purchaser of a handgun or assault rifle has to
1. pass a criminal background check.
2. wait 28 days after purchase to pick up the weapon
3. Take and pass a safety training course
Now it’s possible that the shooter in the present case could have been screened out by 3(Hopefully, the lone wackos would reveal themselves to a trained instructor or just not be able to pass a properly designed safety training course). He may have have screened out by 1 if the background check was more a barebones criminal record check and included such factors as being on the FBI watch list.
The point is that we can do a lot better if we write laws that weren’t designed to make it easier for gun fanciers to buy any number of guns any place, anywhere, anytime they want, no questions asked ( or only one question asked-criminal record). That would be OK if we lived in some libertarian paradise and weren’t facing a significant terrorist threat. But unfortunately, we don’t live in that universe. Time for us to grow the f%^k up.
@michael reynolds:
See this is your problem michael reynolds; since your little rant a few months ago, I no longer trust your analysis with anything that has a connection to Islam. It has something to with your advocating nuking several billion people. kind of have an issue with that.
Also, in a gun thread if Jack is an advocate of your point of view it means you’re losing.
He pledged allegiance to the National Rifle Association with every shot he took.
@Stormy Dragon:
To be honest, I’m not sure we can second guess and snark at the police in this situation from behind our keyboards. In the absence of more information, I’m inclined to give the guys who have to storm a suicidal terrorist with an AR15 and hostages the benefit of doubt-and I am no friend of SWAT teams.
@michael reynolds:
If the shooter was a white I’d agree with you. The fact that he’s of Afghan descent will change the narrative in Donald Trump’s favor. Now instead of his Muslim ban sounding racist, an uncomfortably large percentage of Americans will instead think it sounds “sensible”.
This shooting is horrific no matter who the perpetrator was. It seems rather obvious that the sexaul orientation of the victims was the primary motive, and also likely that the gunman was “mentally disturbed” … but since he’s a muslim, we will actually refer to this as a terrorist act.
… and since the American people are not at all rational about these sort of things, a terrorist attack on American soil will hurt President Obama’s approval rating, and probably give Donald Trump a bump in the polls vs.. Hillary Clinton.
That’s the realistic political analysis with no emotions involved. :-/
@Jack:
And the gun lobby stopped legislation that would have prevented someone from purchasing a gun if they were on either list. My reading comprehension skills are just fine. Try again, gun nut.
@michael reynolds:
No, it’s not.
Liberals do not actually believe that “the only religious dogma that can be questioned is Christian dogma” and Conservatives do not actually “reject criticism of any religious group except Muslims.”
Those two statements are not accurate descriptions of the varying beliefs, but parodies intended to make them sound even more ridiculous than they actually are. That’s not very helpful, man.
And I admit, I am a bit surprised to hear this from you, specifically:
Am I wrong in sensing that this is new for you?
@michael reynolds:
the contradictions aside, I think this is Xmas in July for the Right. Brown killer means access to guns cannot be blamed. Trump will make hay from it.
@James Pearce:
Your memory is faulty.
In fact, my position on guns is and always has been, that this is a hearts and minds battle, that gun owning should be stigmatized and discouraged and that nibbling at the edges was irrelevant.
And what you are pleased to call my freak-out amounted to pointing out loudly and repeatedly that a terrorist incident in the US that could in any way be tied to the politics of Syrian refugees would be politically devastating. You want to tell me I’m wrong? Turn on the news, see the reactions.
@Loviatar:
If you can show me where I advocated “nuking several billion people” I’ll give $1000 to your favorite charity.
I did suggest that a tit-for-tat exchange with terrorists was pointless and that “proportional response” essentially puts a market price on American lives and invites terrorists to pay that price. I don’t think responding to a foreign, hostile government (and ISIS claims to be that) by escalating is a bad idea (when necessary). If you disagree, I assume you’d also hold that our war against Japan was an overreaction to Pearl Harbor.
You’re suggesting I must be wrong if someone from ‘the other side’ agrees with me. That’s just stupid. It’s also rather silly since I’ve made it abundantly clear that I despise gun nuts.
@Todd:
I think that’s a possibility, but I suspect rather that it will simply confirm Trump’s 40% in their pre-existing beliefs.
@michael reynolds:
Agreed. This is one of those time when “how we could have prevented this” is not as obvious as we’d like. The narrative thing this does “fit”, however, is the rabid anti-Islamism. I expect Trump to hammer that angle (in fact, he already is).
Two good things that could be done in response, not as a cure or preventative but as a middle finger to this guy which would also have positive benefits.
1) lift the ban on gays donating blood.
2) make politicians disown anyone who advocates violence against gays.
Not much, I admit. But they’re two positive things that would have very little opposition.
@stonetools:
How many additional people got shot and/or bled out while they were cooling their heels outside for three hours?
There’s two possibilities here:
1. There’s something they could have done and they chose not to because they were unwilling to risk their own lives on behalf of a bunch of homosexuals.
2. There was nothing they could do because SWAT teams are actually useless in the sorts of situations used to sell them to the public.
In either case, it seems like this particular team is a waste of time and resources, just so Orlando can add more extrajudicial punishment to the arrest of people who aren’t actually a threat to the public.
@Mister Bluster: Meaningless platitudes like that don’t help this discussion. You could also say that “People run people down with cars in this country because they can.” This, like your gun statement, is specious, as the ability to do something is not the reason its done.
@James Pearce:
Baloney. If this had been a Christian fundamentalist every liberal up-thread would have ranted about Christian intolerance of gays. As many did when it was Charleston and about race. But because it’s a Muslim shooter the knee-jerk liberal response is to say that there is no connection. This is hypocritical and dishonest.
The other side is equally knee-jerk in insisting this must be about the shooter’s religion when, had he been a Christian, they’d have insisted the opposite.
@Lit3Bolt:
That may be, but I don’t think it ups his numbers. It confirms the biases of his followers. But the facts are too square-peg-round-hole for it to migrate out into the broader population. I hope. Let’s face it, Trump’s people value gay lives at about a 10th the rate of straight lives, so this doesn’t have the direct emotional connection that a killing at, say, a church picnic would have had.
I think this doesn’t quite work as the ‘inciting incident’ that I’ve been worried about for many months.
But that’s a guess on my part. Facts are one thing, media spin and narrative are another, and the narrative is still emerging.
It looks like the clown involved was also a wife-beater (story is from Washington Post if the link doesn’t work.)
Is anyone surprised that someone who hates women and has mental issues wouldn’t glom onto a bunch of individuals who also hate women and have mental issues (ISIS)? Fundamentalist Islam is a wonderful justification for these idiots to do whatever they want to people they consider “not as good as us”, it looks like. Whether the “others” are women, gays, infidels, whatever.
If these clowns had been back in the 1930s in Germany they would have been following a man with a funny little moustache.
@grumpy realist:
Imagine my lack of surprise that he’s a wife beater. Of course he is. And I think you’re right that ISIS is a convenient point-of-identification for any loon looking to murder people.
That said, religions that preach hostility to gay people – fundamentalist Islam, orthodox Judaism, fundamentalist Christianity, and I’m sure there are others – lay the foundation for these kinds of acts. If you divide the world by category and then denounce various categories of human, you open an easy pathway to hatred and thus violence.
So if citizens have cars to kill others with they don’t need a gun do they.
And Trump is congratulating himself for having predicted this sort of attack from an evil Muslim. 50 people died, and his viewpoint is ME ME ME ME.
I get the feeling that if Chicago ever gets nuked Trump will be bitterly complaining about the drop in property values of his Trump building on the Chicago River and how it represents such a hardship to him. .
@Stormy Dragon:
We don’t have enough info to say they were just “cooling their heels” for 3 hours. You don’t know that and I don’t know that-yet. Lets wait for more info. Since neither you or I were on the sharp end of the stick, lets be generous for the moment to those who were.
My felling is that if I don’t have experience charging into a crowded building at night after a murderous terrorist with an AR 15 who is holding hostages, then I should just STFU until I know all the facts.
You feel differently, i guess.
@stonetools:
That’s an elegantly brief statement of my position on guns. But I don’t think we can pass meaningful gun control laws without changing hearts and minds. I don’t want to ‘take’ if I can convince people to willingly ‘give up.’ My focus is on stigmatizing gun ownership, removing limits on research, and ensuring that the rising generations reject guns.
I do think one place where laws can and should be passed are on high-capacity magazines. There is not a hunter in the world who needs an AR-15 with a 30 round magazine. Ditto victims of spouse abuse, paranoid homeowners, etc… There is simply no legitimate use for a 30 round magazine in a high-powered rifle.
@michael reynolds:
I’d be interested to read examples of liberals saying that. Thanks in advance for the links.
@Lit3Bolt: “SWAT teams shoot dogs and unarmed civilians. Terrorists? In a gay nightclub? Let’s step back and reassess, men. Bill, you go get coffee. Dave, you go get donuts. Gonna be here for awhile.”
Oh, for God’s sake. I’m anything but a kneejerk defender of cops, but you guys seem to be saying that the SWAT team should have driven up and burst right into a situation where they had no way of knowing exactly what was going on inside — whether there were dozens of shooters, whether there were bombs, whether their bursting in would have guaranteed the very outcome they were trying to avoid, the deaths of many more people.
You’re being ridiculous here.
@stonetools:
So basically the “only other cops can criticize cops” talking point we always get whenever the police screw up and get members of the public killed.
@Mister Bluster: If people have a reason to kill, they will kill, with a car, gun or whatever. So you’re right they don’t need a gun to kill, so no reason to impact their other reasons for gun ownership. I knew you’d come around.
@wr:
That’s pretty much all a SWAT team can ever do. If that’s not a good idea, then SWAT teams are completely useless and ought to be disbanded.
@michael reynolds:
You’re correct, you only advocated killing
a few hundred millionno, I think it was a fewmillionsno, thats not right either. What was that number? All I can seem to recall is you saying we should nuke the middle east. Oh well, I guess you’re correct as I’m sure the death toll won’t reach several billion.—–
Just for my future knowledge as a proponent of disproportionate response what do you think is the appropriate number of Muslims that should be killed for every American killed: 10 to 1, 100 to 1, I know lets just make it a nice round 2,605 to 1.
@michael reynolds:
Well I am a pothead from Colorado….
How does that square with “The gun issue is somewhat mooted?”
Not as “politically devastating” as you think. Yes, there are a lot of people who can’t tell the difference from a Syrian refugee and an American kid gone radical, but those people are idiots.
@michael reynolds:
Well I am a pothead from Colorado….
How does that square with “The gun issue is somewhat mooted?”
Not as “politically devastating” as you think. Yes, there are a lot of people who can’t tell the difference from a Syrian refugee and an American kid gone radical, but those people are idiots. They’re not going to politically devastate anyone.
@Jack:
See, Jack, the thing is, I’m not a liberal. Can you even define the “typical Liberal” anyway? Just some boogeyman, concocted in your head. It always ends in the LCD for conservatives: the fear factor. Grow up, why don’t you?
@michael reynolds:
No I’m saying you’re on the same side of an argument with a gun crazy right-wing nutjob. It should give you pause, it doesn’t mean you must be wrong, but it does mean you should reassess and maybe reconsider your point of view.
@rodney dill: Except that if this guy had been armed with one of the other “mechanisms to kill” do you really think the body count would have been as high?
Death rate from (Person armed with weapon designed to kill large numbers of people) vs. death rate from (Person armed with something that can conceivably kill, but isn’t designed to do so)
I think that you’ll find in most of the cases Case A ends up with more dead humans around.
It will be interesting to see what the gun’s rights activists will do as more and more young men who fall into Islamism take advantage of our abysmal control. Insist that Muslims can’t own guns? Good luck at getting that allowed in any court. Insist that Muslims can’t enter the country? Ok, but what do you do about guys like Omar Mateen? He’s American, right? So he has the rights of gun ownership that every other red-blooded American claiming descent from the Mayflower has, right?
@michael reynolds:
I agree with your approach on guns generally. As I said in another post, there’s a mythology about guns in US that makes us treat guns in a different way than we treat other weapons. Folks like Doug, Mu, Jack and the various members of the gun cult and their enablers treat guns as self-evidently benign and symbols of freedom. They don’t treat explosive weapons that way.Rather, they treat high explosives as well, weapons and regulate them accordingly,
The result is the law makes it very difficult for members of the public to get their hands on combat ready explosives. If you want to use a bomb to do terrorism, you have to cook up a home made bomb-not easy to do.
On the other hand, you can walk into a Walmart and walk out half an hour later with an AR 15 and a thousand rounds of ammunition, with only a cursory background check.(Heck , you can even get your assault rifle in Princess pink if you want-I am not making this up).
Now terrorists aren’t stupid , and they’ve figured out that using guns is the best way to do terrorism in the USA. This presents the gun rights folk with a challenge. It’s one thing to shrug off 30,000 gun deaths a year and even the many lone wackos. It’s a bit different shrugging off regular ISIS inspired terrorist attacks. Then that looks like you are enabling the enemy. This might be what finally breaks down the mythology of the gun . We’ll see.
@stonetools:
Try this: Twitter.com. Spend half an hour. And tomorrow you’ll get the usual editorials, left and right.
But come on, dude, why are you arguing a point you know I’m right about? The instant this happened Twitter divided into two camps: blame guns, blame Islam. Which immediately spawned, guns are not to blame, and Islam is not to blame. And all my liberal friends here are now annoyed with me for running counter to both narratives and suggesting that of course guns are to blame, and so is ideology, a belief system that denigrates and dehumanizes gay people.
Are liberals nearly as cautious in cases of Christian fundamentalists blowing up abortion clinics? Or even refusing to bake cupcakes for lesbians? No, we are not. We have no problem at all punching Christian fundies, or conservative Catholics. We only get leery when the religion/ideology is Islam.
It is good and admirable that we push back against a narrative that would blame 1.5 billion people for the crimes of an individual. It’s good that we try to head off hate crimes against Muslims. But in fact there are relatively few anti-Muslim hate crimes in the US, far fewer than anti-semitic hate crimes, or racist hate crimes.
Our silence on the bigotry in a great deal of Islamic thought betrays the efforts of Muslims who are often risking life to stand up to a religiously-inspired hatred we refuse to condemn. All three of the big monotheisms denigrate gay people. If we want honesty we need to be able to admit that orthodox Jews and fundamentalist Christians and Salafist Muslims as well as much of Shia Islam, preach hatred toward gays, and the more mild iterations of those faiths teach at the very least that being gay or engaging in homosexual acts are inherently sinful.
I think we’d be better off having an honest discussion in this country, rather than immediately falling into our prepared trenches and fighting it out on faulty premises.
@Loviatar:
No, it doesn’t even do that. In analysis the politics, the emotion, the ‘teams’ should be part of the set of data points to analyze, but should not shape the analysis itself. In other words, obviously one should know the players and the positions, but the underlying issue needs to be looked at with as few presuppositions in place as possible. In general, any analysis of anything, should start from a position as close to presuppositionlessness as we are able to achieve.
@grumpy realist: …and I don’t necessarily disagree with you. If you’d follow the whole conversation, you’d see I was responding to the nonsense statement made that people in the country kill people with guns because they can. A pointless, useless statement. People don’t kill because they have guns and can kill, they kill because they have a reason. They can kill more efficiently with guns or bombs, and that is a good reason review the laws governing gun control, but making nonsense statements or reciting platitudes doesn’t help the discussion.
Pick your favorite amendment from the Bill of Rights. Is it the first or the second?
We have an open and free society because of the first. Speech and assembly are not restricted, and we have a strong aversion to having it monitored (although that seems to be changing to mostly we don’t want to know it is being monitored, and want some fig leaf of judicial oversight).
We have easy access to guns that can kill 50 people and wound 50 more.
We either have to accept that mass shootings will happen and sometimes be motivated by religious fundamentalism and examples of violence abroad, or we have to bend on our current interpretations on the first or second amendments.
I don’t think anyone trusts the government to decide what speech should be regulated. I wouldn’t trust a Trump administration, the folks on the right don’t trust Obama, and the founding fathers didn’t really trust anyone. If we were to restrict religions that preach intolerance, there would be a lot less churches in this country (not sure why we have to subsidize them with tax breaks, but that’s another issue).
I don’t see why anyone needs to be able to shoot 100 people all at once, so I would want tighter controls on the weapons that can do that, but we are awash with weapons, so that might not be possible at this point.
We are a strong country, so we can withstand this, if we choose to. It’s a pinprick. Another guy was arrested near the West Hollywood gay pride parade with a whole lot of weapons, so it was almost two pinpricks. Maybe coordinated, but probably not more coordinated than the both hate gays.
@michael reynolds:
Agreed – The guy was a US citizen, born here. Banning Muslims is not the issue, unless you want to deport ALL muslims.
Is that what we want?
Is that what anyone but nationalist nutjobs advocate? – I read the back and forth on guns laws – for the lord’s sake, save that for a day at least.
And this is coming from someone that would, if I fall on any side,that high capacity guns are not necessary for protection, and like M. Reynolds, a ban would have saved lives, but not stopped the act.
But – sure jaw about that rather than the real, hard question:
What can we do when when it’s a American citizen, born here, that perpetrates a heinous act?
Dylan Root was Christian, this evil person was Muslim, the kid from Sandy Hook was neither.
We can’t be afraid to look at our society and try to figure out what the hell is going wrong… and immediately defaulting to anti-guns, or anti-Muslim or anti- immigrant rhetoric is just a sop to avoid the real effort of looking deep into ourselves, and what we actually need to do to make things better.
@stonetools:
I agree that this – along with the last 100 mass shootings, plus hard data analysis of the nonsense belief that guns = safety – should change hearts and minds. But with the sole exception of SSM, I’ve generally found public opinion to be slooooow to adjust.
Still, I think it’s better in the long run to go the hearts and minds route and not the judicial or legislative fiat route. I also suspect that demographics will move us appreciably closer to a gun-intolerant society. At some point schools and parents groups will start demanding that gun owners identify themselves since they and their children represent risks to innocent kids. When we get there the war will have been won and we’ll be down to the clean-up.
@rodney dill:
Dude, it’s a lot easier to kill someone with a gun than with a hammer, a car or whatever . Guns are made that way. This guy killed 49 people ( and counting) with a couple of guns.
I would think that this example should put to rest for all time the “gun is just a tool, like chisel or a hammer” claptrap we hear from the gun right folks, but my hope in human reason is dashed once again.
Funny we don’t take that free and easy attitude with hand grenades. We ban the public from having those suckers, because we know that ease of killing is a thing.But because in the US, guns are the Jesus Weapon, we argue that lethality shouldn’t be a factor in regulating guns.
@stonetools:
Again, agreed. And much more succinct than my previous post.
@michael reynolds:
“Our” silence? Whose silence? You really seem to think there’s something to the right-wing “liberals tacitly endorse Islamic terrorism” nonsense.
Please, tell me how much louder do we liberals have to proclaim our devotion to liberty and equality and secular governance before we get any credit for it?
@stonetools: you should read my response to grumpy realist
@Tom M:
The immediate problem is that we make it very easy for nutcases of every stripe to get their hands on high powered firearms and unlimited amounts of ammo. This is a problem that can be greatly ameliorated with better laws. We know this because others have done it. Let’s give this a try, then worry about the rest.
@Tom M:
Don’t fool yourself it is the guns. There are monsters, crazy people, assholes in every society, the US is the only one where those aforementioned people can easily get ahold of a gun that will allow them to kill 50 and wound another 50 within a 1/2 hour.
That is the only difference between us and every other first world country. Yeah American Exceptionalism.
@michael reynolds:
The question is, does this incident make such an escalation necessary. And honestly, you have a pretty lousy track record in this area.
There is zero evidence to suggest ISIS or any other terrorist group is in any way involved and there’s some credible evidence to suggest they aren’t.
@michael reynolds:
But see here’s the thing, when it comes to Islam you’re not presuppositionlessness.
@michael reynolds:
I know that I for one have said that Islamic civilization is in crisis. They are undergoing something like the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the Thirty Year’ War all rolled into one, and we are suffering the spillage from that crisis. That’s not original with me.
People like Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis have been making such criticisms for decades.
Where liberals like me get off the criticism train is when people starting making out Muslims to be something like the aliens in Independence Day-monsters who want to destroy us for no reason. Nope , the vast majority of Muslims are human beings just like us, with no special animus for Americans or Westerners. Heck, lots of Muslims would like nothing more than to live in the West. And of course, there are Muslims in Arlington Cemetery who sacrificed more for America than you or I.
@michael reynolds: Well, from this gay guy’s perspective, it certainly seems like multiple factors are to blame. Homophobia fueled by fundamentalist religious bigotry and easy access to high powered weaponry sure seem to both be extremely high on the list.
It is also reasonable for most gay Americans’ focus when considering fundamentalist-infused homophobia to be on fundamentalist Christianity, since that is the particular version of patriarchal fundamentalist Abrahamic religion that has been actively oppressing us, beating us, denying us jobs and housing, and murdering us throughout our lives.
The last mass murderer of LGBT persons in the US was Eric Rudolph.
@Loviatar: In order to do something like this in France, you basically need a lot of coordination, and to smuggle guns, etc.
In the US, pretty much any lone high-functioning nutjob can do it.
We’re #1! We’re #1!
@Gustopher:
yep.
Someone said up thread (paraphrasing), if terrorist were smart they would move away from bombs and just purchase high powered guns. But then they wouldn’t be terrorist if they were smart.
@michael reynolds:
Not to pile on, but this is more parody.
Who is this liberal who says there is no connection between radical Islam and targeting the LGBT community? Does he have a friend?
And seriously, dude….I think most liberals get it in a way that you don’t. It’s been over ten years since we invaded a couple of Muslim countries so we could fight them “over there” instead of “over here,” and yet it was last night we experienced the “worst mass shooting in American history.” And the perpetrator was from Florida and just acquired his weapons in the last week.
Really? 9/11 certainly didn’t hurt George W. Bush…
@stonetools:
For much of the Middle East, they are going through the Reformation and the Enlightenment backwards.
There has been semi-liberal Islam, with tolerance for minorities, and separated from the state. But, in that area it was mostly in countries with brutal dictators, supported by the west, and came with moderate economic stability. The dictators and the economic stability are out, and religion is what they have left.
It’s not a problem with Islamic Civilization though, it’s a problem with the Middle East. If you pick and choose which parts to follow, Islam is a religion of peace. If you pick and choose which parts to follow, Christianity is a religion of horrible atrocities (see Crusades, The).
The Islam of ISIS and the Islam of Muhammad Ali have little in common. The Islam of ISIS and the Islam of Malcolm X have little in common.
@Stormy Dragon: Honestly, are you trying to look stupid?
What a SWAT team is supposed to do is assess the situation, work out a plan that will maximize the chances for success, then put that into action.
The fact that there are plenty of bad SWAT teams or missions hardly means that it’s their job to charge in blindly. This doesn’t even make sense as hyperbole.
But thanks for using this tragedy as an excuse to ride your little hobby horse.
@Tom M: Well, before we can have that conversation, we have to understand who this guy was, even if we do ascertain he’s a Muslim. Because I see two completely different scenarios:
One is that he is a true convert, someone who was swept up in religious fervor and the preaching of radical imams and wanted to strike a blow for Islam or against the west.
The other is that he was a disaffected, angry loser with rage issues who mostly wanted to hurt and kill people — and who also wanted a greater meaning for his life. So he aligned with the major force for politicized violence. Which at this point in time happens to be ISIS, but 20 years ago might have been the militia movement, and 30 years ago might have been Shining Path and before that the Red Brigades and before that the Klan.
If he’s the second — and with no actual knowledge, I’d bet it was the latter — I don’t know how you begin to defend against that. I mean, aside from making our country a little more equitable, building a better safety net, increasing the availability of mental health treatments, none of which would necessarily stop this guy but might in general lower the number of disaffected, angry losers.
I work in retail in florida 3 hrs north of orlando. I’m on lunch right now. Here’s what customers have told me, unprovoked, this morning:
1) He was a muslim, all muslims are terrorists, “it just ain’t politically correct to say that no more”
2) He was a Registered Democrat AND an ISIS member.
3) “Donald Trump ain’t gonna put up with this shit.”
@steve s: Stay classy, Lake City!
@steve s: I’m familiar with north Florida and that doesn’t surprise me at all. (Lived in Jax for 5 years)
@Gustopher: There isn’t much smuggling involved, due to Schengen. And automatic weapons are actually easier to get in Europe as here; as all weapons are hard to get people go for the more powerful ones if they are willing to break the law.
@Gromitt Gunn:
This.
I fear fundamentalist violence most from the dominant religion in my area, in the US that happens to be Christianity.
So much smoke and so little light. It’s also interesting to note how 2 or 3 loons can outweigh the sanity of multiple others. I wonder if there is a lesson in that observation that we can apply to the whole “war against Islam” trend. I’m guessing no.
So very, very true…one of the worst things about this is the overreaction it will cause and the bumbling, stumbling actions that will take place because of that overreaction…
@Mu:
Mass shootings are rare in Europe: In the US they’re commonplace.
Are you seriously saying that it is easier to get an automatic rifle in Europe than it is to get an AR15 here?
Mate, that NRA propaganda is rotting your brain. I’m in northern Virginia, I am less than 30 minutes drive away from a Walmart, and I have no criminal record. I could get outfitted for a night of terrorism before sundown. No fancy organization, no ten point plan needed.
We’re making it too easy for them, and they have figured it out.
@steve s: I’d love to know what Donald Trump would do about this shit, if he’s not going to put up with it.
This is a homegrown nut job — not a white, Christian homegrown nut job like Timothy McVeigh, Dylann Roof, the Unabomber, or the guy who shot up the Planned Parenthood clinic, but a homegrown nut job none the less — who latched onto the crazy from abroad along with the homegrown hatred of the gays.
Does Trump want to monitor everyone — every conversation, every meeting, every phone call, every purchase of weapons, every purchase of everything? — and then have the FBI leap in?
Does Trump want to create the Great American Firewall to keep out Islamist propaganda? How does that help in the rest of the homegrown nut jobs? Or do we just label them as “not terrorism” and move on?
Does Trump want to arm the gays?
Does Trump want to pick someone at random from the FBI, call them into the Oval Office on national TV and say “you’re fired!”?
@wr:
Here’s the deal. Disaffected, angry losers, like the poor, are always with us. I’m certain they have them in say, Japan and Sweden too. But they don’t have these kinds of mass shootings in these countries because they take care to keep powerful firearms away from those losers. There’s a lesson there.
Also too, the things you suggest are good things to do, for these and other reasons. But the conservative-libertarian folks here are dead set against us investing in these things. They are also dead set against us doing more to keep high powered firearms away from said losers. There’s a lesson there too.
@Gustopher:
It’s not covered, because the victims are mostly non-white, but there is a h3ll of a lot of Islamic related violence in Africa and southeast Asia. There are Muslims fighting the government of the Philippines; there are Muslims fighting the government of Thailand;there have been bombings in Indonesia; there are fundamentalist murders of atheistic bloggers and journalists in Bangladesh.There has been Hindu-Muslim violence repeatedly in India.
In sub-Saharan Africa, there is violence between the Muslim north and the Christian and pagan south in many places in a line running from Nigeria to Kenya. So , no, its a global Islamic crisis.
The man arrested with the stockpile of weapons heading to the West Hollywood Pride Parade has been identified as James Howell from Indiana, and he has said he wanted to target the parade.
I haven’t seen pictures of him, and I don’t know his background, but he doesn’t sound like an Islamic Fundementalist to me.
Assuming this all holds up, can we stop pretending that this is a problem with Islam? Is this a close enough parallel — both targeting gays, on the same day — or did we need this guy to not get caught beforehand?
@stonetools: It’s a crisis of poverty and failed states.
If the Wiccans or Scientology had better outreach in those areas, we would be talking about Wiccan Fundementalists and Scientological Factionalism.
@Gustopher:
White guy from Indiana.
@James Pearce:
You know, what I could have done today is come here and said:
Hey, guess what? Remember when I said that the Obama-Clinton embrace of open borders to Muslims would present a dire risk of a Trump or Cruz presidency? Remember when I said that just a little caution would inoculate Ms. Clinton without changing any of the facts on the ground? And remember how you and many others laughed and said, Hah hah ha, Trump’s not going to be the candidate, you stupid, panicky moron?
Instead I looked at this event and concluded that this specific event would probably not have that dire a consequence.
And yet, here we are, hoping to hell the polls next week don’t show a five point swing to Trump. Because that would endanger everything we care about. Right? Including presenting a real danger to American Muslims? And gay rights? Women’s rights? All so everyone on the Left could strut and posture and change nothing?
So rather than say stupid things like implying that I’m lying about having people close to me who are LGBT, why don’t you enjoy the fact that I’m not shoving in your face the obvious fact that I was right about the potential danger? Because if I were as careless or dishonest as you’d like to believe, I could be claiming vindication, not offering a nuanced and I hope accurate assessment.
I don’t name the individual involved because that individual does not want to be my prop, or to be dragged into a political discussion, and I respect that. I use my real name, here, which means I am careful about outing anyone else.
@Gustopher:
I don’t think we can simply dismiss the effects of religion on societal development. Islam obviously contributes to the problems of Islamic countries, just as Christianity contributes to our problems.
Put it this way: does Roman Catholicism contribute to pedophilia among priests? Are we denying that a dogma-driven approach to recruiting and training priests has produced at the very least a tolerance within Catholicism of pedophilia? Do we not understand that when you insist on celibacy and attack homosexuality you’re going to end up with an applicant pool significantly skewed toward abnormal sexuality?
Do we deny that Judaism contributes to the attitudes of West Bank settlers?
Religion is not race. Religion is not gender. Religion is a belief system, an ideology. Communism is an ideology, so are liberalism and conservatism, etc… We have no problem stating the obvious fact that secular ideologies affect societal development, so why would religious ideology not affect and largely determine the development of societies?
Even after his disgusting behavior…obviously it’s hard to feel shame when one is shameless…
@An Interested Party:
This is a Mommy vs. Daddy election, Female vs. Male. When the sh-t hits the fan people tend to look to Daddy. It’s an old, old human instinct. When you hear the lion roar in the night you look for the warrior, not the midwife. That’s why women candidates have to come off as tough. It’s not fair, but it it is what it is.
My hope is that there are enough slippery edges to this event that Trump won’t be able to do more than excite his fan base. That’s bad enough.
All we had to say was, “In view of the Bataclan, we are pausing the refugee intake from Syria and Iraq to carefully review our security procedures.” That’s it, and we would not now be cringing in fear of the polls. And given the pace of those immigrants it would have affected only a handful of people.
And before some moron pops up to say, “But this guy wasn’t a refugee!” let me say: no sh-t. And let me add: political narratives do not rest on truth, they rest on perception, and that is driven by emotion, in this case, fear. Fear doesn’t need facts, it just needs a story. I’m hoping this doesn’t quite gel as a narrative about Muslims, because if it does we may be watching that pig Trump being sworn in. If that had been a church picnic and not a gay club, we’d be well and truly fwcked.
@michael reynolds: We cannot ignore religion completely, but I don’t think it explains as much as people say it does.
“They’re crappy people with a crappy religion” is a very easy answer, and it lets us off he hook.
Large scale economic problems, combined with repressed nationalism, and a destruction of functional states? We’re complicit in that. We propped up dictators in the region, because they were semi-secularish, and demanded no reforms as part of propping them up. (And, as part of the Iraqi occupation we made it worse with de-Baathification, so anyone with experience was removed from the government)
Iran after the Shah was a prelude to everything happening now. Except, the Iranians have had a sense of national identity for centuries if not millennia, and there was no equivalent to the de-Baathification. Iran is a rosy, opposition version of what is happening now.
@michael reynolds: Even if Clinton wanted to halt accepting refugees, the Republicans would have insisted that she didn’t. Even if Obama went along with it, and implemented it immediately.
She was going to be held responsible for anything, whether it happened or not.
If you’re going to be blamed for doing the right thing, whether you actually do the right thing or not, you might as well just do the right thing.
(Or she could have stood on the shores of somewhere, machine gunning Syrian refugees as they tried to land — that would have changed the narrative)
@Gustopher: optimistic vision, not opposition vision. Autocorrect. Le sigh.
Thoe who lack state-sponsored legitimacy for their causes often use a diety or some other higher claim of moral authority to legitimize their demands.
If you wished to repel outsiders who were intervening in your country and lacked the political authority to stop them, then you too might be inclined to claim that God was on your side so that you could justify your violence and violations of existing law. Hmmm, I wonder if we can think of any examples of this….
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Oh, there’s one. The Creator made us do it, right?
@michael reynolds: Totally agreed about the church picnic.
Not thrilled to admit that I hope the nut jobs who want to be ISIS heroes don’t figure out that should be targeting “real Americans”. Making the nativists embrace the gays before they can get a full throated outrage weakens the effect.
I mean, sorry gays, I wish this didn’t happen anywhere, but we live in a country with easy access to weapons and lots of unstable people, so thanks for taking one for the team.
@michael reynolds: You a-hole. Yesterday I dismiss you as the crank you are, then this happens and you get all logical.
@Tony W: The demographics here are going to twist our ‘conservative’ friends in knots. Do I hate the gays more than gun control? Do I hate Muslims more than gays? Should Muslims be able to buy guns as freely as I can? Is my religious fervor that much different from the other guy’s?
FU. This vermin killed my fellow Americans, who were doing nothing illegal. I’m with Glenn Reynolds, who talks about how “I’d be delighted to live in a country where happily married gay couples had closets full of assault weapons.”
@stonetools Has some gun nut Neanderthal been by here yet to correct the Orlando police chief’s statement describing the AR15 as an assault rifle?
I’ll take that one. And I’m surprised that you’re so proud about being dumber than a Neanderthal.
“Assault Rifle” has a very specific definition, created by the military, and the AR-15 does not qualify. The key element is being capable of firing more than one round per trigger pull, and the AR-15 is strictly a semi-automatic weapon — which fires exactly one round per trigger pull. So it is, by definition, NOT an “assault rifle.”
It does qualify as an “assault weapon,” but that’s because that term was invented by idiots who do NOT understand guns and made up a scary term, then defined it to “guns that look scary to us.”
The AR-15 is the most popular gun in the US, for several very good reasons. It is also exceptionally rare to be used in committing crimes. Criminals prefer handguns, as they are cheaper, easier to conceal, and easier to control.
To all those who say that it isn’t Islam, it’s “extremism,” and say that Christianity is just as bad, if not worse: you’re full of it. There have been two mass shootings so far this year carried out by Muslim extremists, and none by Christian extremists. Around the world, there are a LOT of places where the government will punish people for being gay. Nearly all of them are Islamic governments. Israel accepts gay Palestinians as political refugees, as they recognize that in the Palestinian territories, being known as gay is a death sentence. Iran kills gays.
What will it take for leftists to wake up to the threat here? Maybe if he’d gone in there and threatened to refuse to bake a wedding cake?
@Jenos Idanian: They caught the white guy from Indiana before he was able to do anything, otherwise there would have been two mass shootings in one day. Your non-Moslem-extremists just aren’t as good at it.
Islam, as practiced in the mid-East today, is not friendly towards gays — but neither was Christianity as practiced in Europe in the 1400s. And Christianity as practiced in the Slave States in the 1800s supported slavery. Mormonism taught that blacks were the mud people who could not be saved up until a 1970s ruling threatened to take away their tax exempt status.
I’m happy to say that Islam is a barbaric religion, but I cannot think of any religions that aren’t barbaric — Buddhism and UU being exceptions, but they are as much exceptions to being religions as anything else (Buddhism has no gods, and UU starts with the premise that God’s mercy is infinite, so it doesn’t matter if you believe in Him or not).
I am also happy to say that no one needs semi-automatic weapons for self-protection. Revolvers are fine for that, and have the “safety” features of being hard to reload and only holding a few rounds, so that would cut down on the victim count in shootings. The only time you need to be able to shoot a hundred times in a few minutes is when you are attempting mass murder (or you really want to make sure someone is dead…)
@michael reynolds:
I don’t remember you advocating “just a little caution.” But whatever, this isn’t about you and it isn’t about me.
I’m not worried about that at all. Trump’s going to seek to exploit this, no doubt, but he’s going to do it in his clumsy, tone-deaf way and there will be no magic five point swing. His response was much like yours: I was right, I say, right!
Cell phones are still ringing on the dead bodies and you guys are concerned with how this vindicates your political arguments about refugees.
A few hours ago, Trump tweeted: “This is just the beginning.” And 9-11-Afghanistan-Iraq was what, then? The Brian Herbert prequel? Stop patting yourself on the back, man.
I don’t think I doubted you on being close to some one who’s LGBT. I sat under the beating heart of a real lesbian woman for nine months myself. Do we get some kind of special privileges for knowing a live gay person? Is that like a card we can play?
Since you’re “Family” you should know that gay people have been terrorized in this country for many years. There have been many hard-won social advances in the past few decades that have made gay people safer. But the fight goes on.
And they know who their allies are. Politically, it ain’t Trump. It ain’t the Republicans. It ain’t the Islamic fundamentalists and it’s not the Christian ones either.
@Jenos Idanian:
To protect their pot fields, right?
Would you care to unpack that? What does that mean?
And neither are a lot of Christians now…
@Gustopher: Islam, as practiced in the mid-East today, is not friendly towards gays — but neither was Christianity as practiced in Europe in the 1400s. And Christianity as practiced in the Slave States in the 1800s supported slavery. Mormonism taught that blacks were the mud people who could not be saved up until a 1970s ruling threatened to take away their tax exempt status.
Thanks for the history lesson, but we’re talking Current Events. Can you limit yourself to just this century?
@James Pearce: To protect their pot fields, right?
I don’t see the need to bring yet another issue (pot) into this. Why not just to protect themselves and their legal property?
@Gustopher: I am also happy to say that no one needs semi-automatic weapons for self-protection. Revolvers are fine for that, and have the “safety” features of being hard to reload and only holding a few rounds, so that would cut down on the victim count in shootings. The only time you need to be able to shoot a hundred times in a few minutes is when you are attempting mass murder (or you really want to make sure someone is dead…)
Let’s take that little example of yours apart. Do you really see no circumstances where someone might need more than six shots to defend themselves? “Sorry, ma’am, but if there are more than six people attacking you, you’re out of luck. Or if you’re frightened and miss once or twice, that’s your problem.”
Dream on…
1,000-strong Burmese Buddhist mob burns Muslim homes and shops
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/1000-strong-burmese-buddhist-mob-burns-muslim-homes-and-shops-8784234.html
““Assault Rifle” has a very specific definition, created by the military, and the AR-15 does not qualify. The key element is being capable of firing more than one round per trigger pull, and the AR-15 is strictly a semi-automatic weapon — which fires exactly one round per trigger pull. So it is, by definition, NOT an “assault rifle.””
Since I think you are arguing with mostly gun ignorant people this is hard to let slide. You are technically correct, but wrong. The AR-15 is essentially the civilian version of the military M-16. It does not have the auto feature that the M-16 has (or the M-4 which is used by some). So it is an assault STYLE rifle modeled after the military weapon. Perfect for all of those fat middle aged guys who want to run around in camo and pretend they are patriots, after having carefully avoided military service. However, what you neglect to mention is that there are lots of modifications to turn the AR-15 into a full auto weapon or its equivalent. Some of them are even legal, like the Slidefire and other bump fire stocks. Price is way down on them now too. Just Google and watch the videos and tell me they are distinguishable from real full auto.
Steve
@Jenos Idanian:
Um…..
It’s really hard to keep politics out of this when we have members of one of the major political parties already trying to whitewash history…
@James Pearce: Then let me expand on it, as you can’t seem to grasp it.
To protect their legal pot farm, sure, fine, whatever.
To protect their illegal pot farm, nope.
@Jenos Idanian: Click. (As I noted, so much smoke, so little light.)
@Jenos Idanian: fine, just this century — the “Christians” who encourage assassinate abortion doctors and shooting up planned parenthood. Most white supremacists. Hobby Lobby and their ilk.
@steve: I’m no gun expert (I just look like one compared to the gun ignoramuses here), but it’s my understanding that the appeal extends beyond “all of those fat middle aged guys who want to run around in camo and pretend they are patriots, after having carefully avoided military service.” It’s incredibly customizable (practically modular), so it can be used for a whole bunch of different purposes. That also makes it appealing to gadget freaks. Real veterans can appreciate its similarity with the M-16/M-4, which makes it very familiar for them. It is light and has little recoil, so it appeals to smaller shooters (and women, who tend to be smaller). It’s a very mature design, which means it’s very accurate and very reliable.
I’ve been led to believe that converting a legal AR-15 to fully automatic (or even burst) is not as easy as you make it sound. And the tricks you describe also, I hear, work for other guns besides the AR-15.
Unlike a lot of liberals, I am extremely pro-choice. I don’t limit to to just abortion. I believe people should have the right to choose whether or not to own guns, and a great deal of latitude in what kind of guns they want to own. I don’t feel the overwhelming compulsion to impose my opinions on others, and limit their choices to the options I approve of.
@Jenos Idanian: Well, first, only an idiot keeps a revolver on a loaded chamber, so we’re talking five bullets, not six. This is basic safety.
Second, for each case you find me with more than five attackers, who are not deterred when the victim starts firing, I will find you a mass murder. We can then count and compare the dead.
Here we have 50 dead. Let’s say he had two revolvers, and loaded six chambers because he wasn’t concerned about gun safety. He only killed half the people he shot, so 6 dead, assuming one bullet per person shot.
When you can find 44 cases where someone was killed by five or more attackers because they ran out of bullets, get back to me. What the hell, three or more attackers.
@Gustopher: fine, just this century — the “Christians” who encourage assassinate abortion doctors and shooting up planned parenthood. Most white supremacists. Hobby Lobby and their ilk.
There have been exactly two abortion clinic shootings in this century, with a combined death toll of four. One doctor in 2009, and then in 2015 another psycho shot a cop, a staffer, and a friend of a patient. (Nine others wounded in the second shooting.) That’s your crisis that’s as bad, if not worse, than this nightclub shooting?
And Hobby Lobby? WTF? I know pot’s legal in some states, but you must be on the really, really, REALLY good shit to think Hobby Lobby has ANY connection to this shooting, or any killings.
@Gustopher: I’ll repeat what I said above: “Unlike a lot of liberals, I am extremely pro-choice. I don’t limit to to just abortion. I believe people should have the right to choose whether or not to own guns, and a great deal of latitude in what kind of guns they want to own. I don’t feel the overwhelming compulsion to impose my opinions on others, and limit their choices to the options I approve of.”
As I said, I’m no gun expert. I know a lot more than a lot of the people here, but that’s a pretty low standard. If someone says they want a semi-automatic pistol instead of a revolver, that’s their choice, and I’ll respect their right to make that choice. You can concoct all the fantasies you like to rationalize your imposing your judgment on others, but it’s just rationalizing your need to control others.
What a loving description of an instrument of mass murder…
@An Interested Party: Maybe because in the context of an external attack instigated by an indigenous sympathizer of a foreign terrorist organization—the victims sexual identity isn’t relevant. The victims were also members of the American citizen community.
This is pretty abhorant partisan tripe….bodies are barely cold and the identity politics machine is in full spin. People can’t even offer condolence without dudu heads taking issue with even that. Think better.
@Jenos Idanian: I am a middle aged American gay man who has been out of the closet since the late 80s, and I am telling you straight up, unequivocally, that the direct harm that has been done to me in my life and to my friends and LGBT loved ones has been perpetrated by fundamentalist Christians, not by fundamentalist Muslims.
The only people who have bullied me for being gay were Christians and the one person threatened me directly with murder for being gay, because “God would prefer that I go to Hell for murder than let you live this life of sin,” was a conservative Christian.
And today we have Lt. Governor Patrick saying that men will reap what they sow and Rubio and Huckabee and a hundred other “good” Christian GOP politicians ignoring the victims and their own roles in attemping to double down and reinforce LGBT Americans secind-clasd status while focusing on Islamic radicalism…
I will be helping my gay friends in Florida figure out if everyone they love is still alive, and you can go to hell.
Even if the victims’ sexual orientation was a chief reason why they were killed? Do try to follow your own advice about thinking better…
@Jenos Idanian: RPGs? Anti-Aircraft guns? Nuclear weapons? A nice little machine gun nest on their front porch? Enough fire power to shoot 100 people quickly and efficiently?
Restrictions have to be made, and are made, to protect society as a whole from the choices of the few.
It’s just like how your neighbor in the suburbs cannot open up a small suburban-lot sized pig farm. Or how you cannot go 80mph through a residential street, dodging children along the way.
But, that’s ok, we know that deep down inside you support individuals having the means to kill many people as quickly as possible in a hail of death from hot lead, even if that you don’t support people actually using these tools for their intended purpose.
Lost in that glowing paean upthread about the AR-15 was the fact that this weapon is the common factor in so many tragedies…
@Jim Brown 32: the victims sexual identity isn’t relevantIt may not be relevant to your political agenda, but it sure as hell is relevant to facts of the case and the motive of the shooter.
I seriously think this is my last post on this thread. I’ve spent the afternoon trying to help my boyfriend track down two of his friends who traveled from Jacksonville to Orlando for the weekend. He is beyond an emotional wreck and I feel completely helpless. To come here and see a 180+ post thread of people going back and forth about guns and Islam while 90% of these posts ignore the victims and the impact on the LGBT community is just more than I can handle right now.
@steve: Those “modifications” are applicable to ANY semi-automatic rifle. To date–no mass murderer has used an assault weapon modified in this way. The only feasible restriction (on the gun side) of any marginal value is reduced magazine size. But that wouldn’t get you very much—any marginally trained person can simply pack more magazines–a magazine change takes a second. If they chain together several magazines together Jungle Style….all bets are off.
The restriction you want is one of semi automatic weapons….will never happen. Its civil war era technology thats not going anywhere. We can’t even restrict drugs in this country so pardon the eye roll at gun restrictions. Just another way to put another Million brown people in the slammer if it ever got passes.
It would be nice if we had the monocultures of Sweden or Japan, but we don’t. We have diverse communities with sh%t heads in each–from time to time they’ll kill people. The Reynolds dude is right….make guns uncool like smoking. Americans uniquely like to kill…other countries are poorer and other countries have more guns…but they don’t kill like us.
@Jenos Idanian:
So you are for marriage equality? Safe, legal abortion?
As horrifying of a tragedy as this is, in the next few days, more Americans will die of gunshot wounds than were killed in Orlando. And conservatives will shrug. No political hay to be made there.
The Germans invented the assault rifle (the MP-44). What made it unique was not its fully automatic capability, but that it was more useful in close combat than a standard rifle while having more range than a submachine such as the MP-40.
Holds more rounds, better at closer range, and fires more quickly than a typical rifle. It’s no wonder that murderers don’t usually bring deer rifles to mass shootings.
@Jenos Idanian:
NOT automatic
@anjin-san: Well what are Liberals going to do? Haruummph—and say “the Republicans stopped the one idea we could muster…gun regulations”. Thats mighty innovative. Liberals are normally full of innovative ideas…..until it comes to real talk about implementable and feasible solutions on how to save more lives. On urban violence, liberals are as useless (and pay as much lip service) as conservatives. A pox on both houses
@grumpy realist: yes, muslims hate gays even more than your garden variety uber christians do. the big difference is that christians don’t go into bars and execute them en masse.
@Lit3Bolt: an ar15 is just a “scary” looking hunting gun.
and the rest of your nonsense points to a complete lack of dealing with crazy people BEFORE they act out. but then their civil rights would be violated so we must wait until they hurt/main/kill others….then we feel all good about getting them off the streets- or you do.
and none of your points were actually preventable as acquiring guns legally will not prevent someone (even crazed muslims who hate everyone) from using them. banning guns will not prevent wack jobs from killing if they really want to- it’s not that hard to kill a bunch of people if you really want to. why we’re still importing people who hate us is beyond me…..
but let’s get back to reality- you all hate to admit it but it was another act of islamic terrorism on our soil- by people who will not adapt to our ways of life.
@Gromitt Gunn: Well if you had read my post and its context—i wasn’t commenting on the shooter or his motive. Look, I can appreciate that this tragedy hit home for you. I wish you all the best and hope it resolves as favorably.
But don’t project your left/right thinking onto me or comment on my “agenda”. Everyone has an agenda–including you. We don’t have to tear people down because of the manner in which they offer condolences for a real human tragedy. Even the GOP.
@bill: it’s not that hard to kill one or two people if you really want to without a gun, but killing 50 and wounding 50 more is kind of hard.
How many people do you think you should be able to kill or maim?
Not how many people should you be allowed to kill, but how many people should you be able to kill or main? I think 5-10 is enough for self defense and fighting off the rest of the world’s problems — it won’t just be you against the entire US Army, after all.
Is a hundred really necessary? Is it even a good idea to put that much force in the hands of random people?
I mean, I’m a crazy man who always considers how many people drive the other way than me and decide not to swerve into my lane and kill me, so I am going to be cautious.
You write that as if Republicans are just some innocent bystanders…left unsaid is how Republicans have been doing so much to deny the rights of gay people…it’s particularly sickening to see condolences by people like Mike Huckabee and Marco Rubio, considering their previous odious comments about gay people…
@bill: It was an act of Islamic terrorism on our soil by a loser with no life who shouldn’t have been allowed near guns, in all likelihood.
And the guy who was caught before he got to the West Hollywood Pride Parade was, in all likelihood, going to commit a Christian act of terrorism for the same reasons.
I’m willing to call it without the facts in: he was an abusive loser who couldn’t get laid so he retreated into his religion, found a justification to hate those promiscuous gays, and acted on it because his sad and pathetic life had no purpose otherwise.
@Jim Brown 32:
Let’s start by making it harder for unstable people to get their hands on guns. Mandatory waiting periods. Thorough background checks.
@An Interested Party: No…they are a$$holes too but its polite to acknowledge a courtesy when one is paid and not inject politics into the simplest of human interactions. Or else…liberals become the people they claim to be against.
@anjin-san:
You make the essential point. “Let’s start”. Only fools don’t understand there will be no end until guns are banned. The gun controllers are their own worst enemy with their true absolutist views.
Just as “food, clothing and shelter” has morphed into free college.
@anjin-san:Almost nobody disagrees with that outcome. Gun nuts would love it if they didn’t have to always come under scrutiny when a tragedy happen…liberals would be happy…almost everyone would be happy.
Current background checks already look for hits in 11 categories…including mental deficiency. What’s not checked for that should be? Waiting periods? Ok fine.
What about cases like this where the guy passed extra checks to be a security guard? Or the (previously law abiding) San Bernadino couple who would make it past almost any regulation regime instituted? (unless you restricted guns to people who have ever corresponded with radical islamic clerics or had ever made pro-isis statements).
In the West…we see these people as crazy as in mentally deficient–they are however, not crazy. They are calculating and committed to a cause they feel is worth dying for.
So granted, there are a few regulations that COULD lower the number of people shot every year ASSUMING the killer didn’t have the wherewithal to secure a weapon via the black market. Great! There are however, no (feasible and implementable) regulations that can stop this type shooter or some of the school shooting psychopaths (who are also not clinically crazy) from complying with the law until they get weapons and select a target. The laws that would be effective would basically violate people’s civil rights. Not gonna happen in today’s America.
@Guarneri: Yeah….cause the drug ban is so effective that people should quake in their boots that the Gov’t might ban them and they won’t be available. Really? Stop just stop…..You’re embarrassing yourself. If history is any lesson a Gov’t ban would result in more guns available and more people with them.
You do not know anything about me.
@steve:
The eyewitness account I heard on the news this evening included sound effects that were not consistent with one shot per trigger pull, but were very consistent with full automatic fire. I assume Jenos believes this witness was lying or hallucinating.
@Gromitt Gunn: I don’t know if you’ll accept my sympathies, but you have them. I do have one slight disagreement with you, however: while the specific attack was on the GLBT community, it was an attack on Americans. My fellow Americans. That is all that matters to me. I don’t put your subset of that community above or below any other subset, and you have my sympathy — and my anger at your losses.
@DrDaveT: The eyewitness account I heard on the news this evening included sound effects that were not consistent with one shot per trigger pull, but were very consistent with full automatic fire. I assume Jenos believes this witness was lying or hallucinating.
“Oh, look, I have a brand-new troll! Can I keep him, Mommy?”
“No, Jenos, put him back in the sewer where he belongs.”
But to your alleged point… I think I saw the same clip you refer to, and it was described as police firing. The police have access to automatic weapons, and several of them could have been firing at once, and either would create that sound.
Yes, it would have been polite to acknowledge George Wallace if he had paid the courtesy of giving condolences to the victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing…
@Jenos Idanian:
Glad to hear it. I remember many on this site predicting conservatives would eventually pretend they were always in favor of gay marriage and that it was the liberals who were holding them back. As this attack proves, you can legislate civil rights, but you can’t legislate away the bigotry and hatred.
@Jim Brown 32:
Okay.
Mandatory gun registrations with annual renewals. Mandatory liability insurance or bonds with the state/federal government for gun owners. Full financial responsibility for any actions that take place using your gun. Mandatory prison sentences for people in possession of unregistered guns.
None of these ideas are radical or onerous. All of them are complete non-starters because of the NRA’s bought-and-paid-for politicians.
@Gromitt Gunn:
Frankly, you are right about this and I do apologize. This is maybe the biggest hate crime against LGBT folk in US history, and that has been obscured.
Most of victims seem to have been Latino , and that has gone unremarked upon as well.
@Jenos Idanian:
Not really the point (who was firing)…
The AR-15 is capable of firing at automatic rate, so your argument above is BS.
Thanks to the NRA this:.
@Jenos Idanian:
Avoids the point. AR-15 IS capable of firing at automatic rate, as shown: so your argument above is BS.
Moreover, thanks to the NRA and the gun cultists.
@Jenos Idanian:
I was not the one to call the weapon used an “assault rifle.” It was the Orlando police chief. Maybe you might want to go down and tell him to his face that he was an ignoramus for calling it an assault rifle.
No? Didn’t think so.
So because there is a definition for “assault rifle” in some Army manual, this is the One True Definition, for all places, for all people, and for all time. It’s interesting that you think Army manual writers have papal infallibility powers. In reality, the Army defines many terms differently than how these terms are understood in the civilian world (famously, they don’t use the word “gun” to describe small arms used by infantry).
Digging into how the term “assault rifle” has been used, we find this:
That article has a photo of a July 1981 “Guns and Ammo” magazine cover calling these weapons “assault rifles”.
OOPS.
Bottom line, it was the gun industry that first used terms as “assault rifle” and “assault weapon”. When that term became problematical, suddenly the AR15 became a “modern sports rifle.”
Yup. So now that you have been revealed as a dunce for repeating NRA talking points, maybe you’ll actually do some research for opining on these issues. Doubt it, though.
@Bob@Youngstown: And yet, the ATF approved the manufacture and sale of these bumpfire and sliding stocks.
Complain to them. Don’t blame people who want to own/purchase and use a legal product.
BTW, to all those talking about the “white Christian” caught before committing violence…he was a Bernie Sanders supporter according to his FB page.
@Jack:
The ATF “approval” simply states that these products are not illegal under the current law.
There is a difference between “approving” and saying that something is “not illegal”
But back to the focus: Do you also contend that the AR-15 is NOT capable of rapid fire that constructively is equivalent to an automatic weapon?
@Bob@Youngstown: The base model AR15 bought off the shelf needs modification…either legal with a bump stock or illegal to fire what appears to be full automatic.
I own an AR15. It is no different from my deer rifle except it accepts a larger magazine and uses smaller, less lethal, ammunition. It is not modified and it shoots one round per trigger pull. I take it to the range and I put holes in targets.
If there is no law against it, then it is legal. Period. We don’t pass laws to make something legal. ATF regularly receives submissions from gun manufacturers and determines if this object modifies a firearm into something that is a) legal, or b) illegal.
Please, prove to me this shooter modified his weapon for automatic or get off your hobby horse about full auto AR15s. It’s funny how you and others imply they are weapons of war and no one should have a weapon capable of mowing down hundreds of civilians yet don’t mind when the police show up with them.
Are you suggesting it’s OK for the police to mow down hundreds of civilians?
@Guarneri:
Yes, because drivers licenses and vehicle registration and mandatory insurance and mandatory driver ed and a bevy of vehicle safety regulations have led directly to the banning of cars.
Oh…wait…damn. You are wrong…again.
@C. Clavin:
And none of these stops a drunk from getting behind the wheel and killing a car load of teenagers.
@Jack:
hehehe…and you are calling someone else a dolt???
@C. Clavin: So, no intelligent response…again.
@Jenos Idanian:
But has been central to Aurora, Sandy Hook, San Bernadino, and now Orlando.
If you want to kill a lot of people, it seems to be the weapon of choice.
@Stormy Dragon:
Just heard on CNN, the Director of FBI praising the actions and bravery of Law Enforcement.in this event.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Correlation…causation…sensationalism.
According to the FBI, rifles..a class of which the AR15 belongs.. used to murder, were associated with 323 deaths in 2011, the latest year available. Less than knives, less than shotguns, less than blunt objects, less than hands/feet.
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8
@Paul L.:
Because no one in Law Enforcement died. That’s praiseworthy…even if the guy had 3 hours to walk around shooting people at will during the donut and coffee hiatus.
Obama: “homegrown extremist”
Reality: three recent trips to the Middle East, and espousing radical Islamic doctrine.
Obama: peddling fiction
Or I suppose Mateen could have been inordinately fond of dates and goat milk.
@Guarneri:
This is what you’ve chosen to disagree with?
Like, he went to Saudia Arabia a couple times and so calling him “homegrown” is somehow unfair even though he was born in the US, grew up in the US, and committed his massacre in the US.
All this to convince yourselves this is about “foreigners” and to vote for Trump?
This killer was born in this country so what’s the point in talking about Obama importing people from overseas…
That’s all well and good except for the fact that none of those items could kill as many people as quickly as this killer did with what he had…
@Jack:
Wow….no offense, guys, but are you guys following the same story everyone else is? Is the disinformation on Drudge and Breitbart seriously this bad?
No one in law enforcement died because they have pretty good body armor.
@James Pearce:
Which wasn’t put to the test for 3 hours.
Nice police work there, Lou.
@An Interested Party:
There will be more of these incidents. Their allegiance is to Islam and to Shariah, to Islamic law. And, of course, under Islamic law homosexuality is a capital crime. It is one of the crimes called illicit sex, addressed both in the Quran and in the hadiths. The death penalty typically is supposed to be stoning, but bullets will do.
He had over 3 hours. 100 people shot in 180 minutes equates to less than 1 a minute. He could have used a spear gun and gotten the same results. And yet, people still want to blame the AR15 because it’s a scary looking weapon with less lethality than my deer rifle.
@stonetools: I would call that chief ignorant, because he is, but I have better things to do, and I’m certain he does, too.
As for the “assault rifle/assault weapon” thing, I will defer to the military on matters of gun terminology. They know what they’re talking about.
“Assault weapon” didn’t have a fixed definition until the Assault Weapons law, which defined it as “scary-looking guns.” The gun manufacturers shrugged, made cosmetic changes that did not affect the functionality of the guns in question in the least, and were in compliance with the law.
And as Jack noted, rifles account for a tiny amount of murders, and I have not seen a single report that the vermin’s AR-15 was modified in any way to fire more rapidly than stock.
So I’m sorry you’re so upset, but you don’t have the right to demand stupid, pointless actions to make you feel better. Well, you can demand them, but no one has any obligation to take you seriously.
@James Pearce:
Indeed
Robert Zirkle, then a freshman at the Martin County school, said he saw Mateen excited and making fun of how America was being attacked on 9/11. “He was making plane noises on the bus, acting like he was running into a building,” Zirkle recalled. “I don’t really know if he was doing it cause he was being taught some of that stuff at home or just doing it for attention because he didn’t have a lot of friends.”…
One former student told Zirkle on Facebook that on 9/11 as the students were watching the TV in class. On the group chat, the former student wrote that Mateen “stood up in class during the 9/11 attack and after the second plane hit the building he started jumping up-and-down cheering on the terrorist.”
Plus, he was flagged by the FBI for liking football and baseball too much. Homegrown through and through.
I mean, it’s not like Obamas entire policy rests on blaming guns and absolving Islamic radicals, lest he look like a fool.
Back to your bong.
@Jack:
Too bad you weren’t there and in charge, huh?
Here we are….our 24-48 hour “non-politicization” window has expired and this is what you guys bring to the table? Factual inaccuracies about “foreign” terrorists and second guessing the police response?
@Jack:
I did not say he modified his weapon, simply that Jenos is lying about the AR-15 being limited to single shot per trigger pull.
Typically the police do not “mow down hundreds of civilians”, and when that begins I will mind.
.
@James Pearce:
How can you call waiting around for 3 hours a response? How many more died because of the delay? It’s amazing how SWAT will barge into the wrong house within seconds of arriving for a drug raid or to serve a warrant when no one is under threat of death, but they need 3 hours to “assess” the situation when there is an active shooter and people are dying.
The “response” in this event should be criticized and new ROE developed. It was not in any respect praiseworthy.
@Tony W: Mandatory gun registrations with annual renewals. Mandatory liability insurance or bonds with the state/federal government for gun owners. Full financial responsibility for any actions that take place using your gun. Mandatory prison sentences for people in possession of unregistered guns.
None of these ideas are radical or onerous. All of them are complete non-starters because of the NRA’s bought-and-paid-for politicians.
None of which would have done jack squat to stop this vermin. On the other hand, you’d harass the hell out of a whole lot of law-abiding gun owners, so why the hell not?
You know what might have done some good here? If the people who saw this guy as dangerous, doing illegal things, had reported those to the authorities. He beat his wife — that’s a crime, and it’s one that specifically addresses gun ownership. He stalked, harassed, and made death threats — also things that would have deprived his legal gun ownership.
Some of those who witnessed these precursor actions said that they thought about reporting them, but didn’t want to be seen as anti-Muslim. Where have I heard that before?
Oh, yeah, at Fort Hood. In San Bernardino. And now, in Germany, schoolgirls are being sexually assaulted on their way to and from school, but aren’t reporting it because they don’t want the “refugees” to be punished or deported.
“See something, say something — and then risk being branded a racist Islamophobe.”
@Bob@Youngstown:
Neither do I. So, you are saying you don’t mind my ownership of an AR15 either.
Good to know.
@Guarneri:
Indeed. I’m better off discussing this with my bong, an inanimate object, because it’s more interesting and more intelligent than you.
@Bob@Youngstown: I did not say he modified his weapon, simply that Jenos is lying about the AR-15 being limited to single shot per trigger pull.
Lying? Nope, just not a gun expert, as I have proclaimed numerous times. I know more about guns than a lot of the people here, but as I also said, that’s a hell of a low standard.
I could do a little research and see just how those examples you cited evade the law (I think I once read that the “bump-stock” moves the trigger into the finger, so it is still technically one shot per trigger action, but again I’m no expert), but I don’t have the time or interest.
@Jenos Idanian:
When you bump fire a semi-automatic rifle, your non-shooting hand pulls the rifle forward until the trigger hits your rigid trigger finger, thus firing the rifle. Then, recoil sends the rifle bouncing back and forth against your rigid trigger finger, causing it to keep shooting at an accelerated rate, simulating automatic fire. It is still one shot per trigger pull, the trigger is simply pulled more rapidly. Bump firing is only useful if you want to waste a lot of ammo fast.
As far as I can tell, it would’ve been legal under the now-expired Federal Assault Weapons Ban, too.
@Jenos Idanian:
So you just make stuff up ???
Yes, you could do some research before you spout off – but then you have neither the time or interest (in accuracy or truth).
And Yes, that’s how the bump-functions, the effect of that is to emulate the performance of a fully automatic. So the AR-15 IS CAPABLE of acting as an automatic weapon.
@Jack:
Legal or not, covered by AWB or not, should civilians be free to purchase firearms that perform as fully automatic weapons.
Yes, yes, the Muslims are coming to kill you and everybody else, blah, blah, blah…meanwhile, we have Christians right here in this country who, while certainly not trying to kill gay people in mass numbers, are certainly trying to take away and/or deny them the rights that everyone else has…so if we want to trash religion, let’s be equal opportunity about it…
Yes, it would have just been so easy for him to carry 100 spears and certainly no one would have been able to stop him…you gun fetishists need to come up with better counterexamples…
@Bob@Youngstown:
The firearm is the same as mine.
What you should ask is: Should one be able to purchase an after market product that enables the AR15 to simulate automatic fire?
My answer: Yes, it’s legal.
@An Interested Party:
Do you not understand the difference between Islam and Christianity?
Under Islamic law and doctrine, there is something called ‘enjoin the good, forbid the evil,’ and this derives, again, from the sunnah, which is an account of the life of Muhammad, and the hadiths,” said the scholar and former spy.
What it means is that every single Muslim is individually responsible in a personal way for upholding Shariah. In other words, that doctrine makes of every single Muslim a potential, a possible, vigilante. They are obligated to enforce Shariah on an individual basis.
Christians are obligated to live by the 10 Commandments, but each individual Christian isn’t obligated for enforcing them.
But in Islam, it’s the other way. Each Muslim is obligated to enforce it. They are supposed to start by speaking and trying to persuade somebody, or show them the evil of their ways, or whatever they can. But if that doesn’t work, then they are obligated to take physical action.
There is no equivalency there. But please, don’t let your bias or ignorance stop me from educating you.
Another 250-comment thread rehashing the same arguments we have to go through all too often. Why even bother?
Sure, the gun doesn’t kill, people kill…but the gun makes it so much easier. Trivial, almost. Weapons like the one used in this massacre will send rounds downrange as fast as you can twitch your finger. Pop, pop, pop, like fireworks, except this show’s Grand Finale is 49 corpses.
But it makes no difference, nothing will be done, nothing is ever done, and the civilized world looks at us and wonders what the hell kind of people decide to just live with this horror over and over and over and over.
If such is really the case, than why aren’t all Muslims, or even a majority of Muslims, doing what this guy did?
Oh yes, you Islamic expert you! Please don’t let reason, or logic, or facts get in the way of your religious bigotry as you suggest that over a billion people want to do what this guy did…
@C. Clavin:
In my state PA, you are not required to have any of those if you are driving the vehicle on your own property. Only if you are on the PUBLIC roads.
Same should apply to Guns?
@Mikey: So a Moslem attacks unarmed American citizens in the name of his death cult, attempting to change a lifestyle he does not agree with and in your opinion we should strip the rights of millions of other American citizens whom you do not agree with, who did not commit an atrocious act, of their freedoms on the altar of “gun safety”?
@James Pearce:
FBI director James Comey did a victory lap for Law Enforcement praising their actions and bravery for this event.
But don’t refute him or you are
AN OPEN LETTER TO ALL OF THOSE INCLINED TO JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS
@An Interested Party:
I never suggested that a billion people want to do what this guy did. If you read my post you will see that I said, “What it means is that every single Muslim is individually responsible in a personal way for upholding Shariah. In other words, that doctrine makes of every single Muslim a potential, a possible, vigilante. They are obligated to enforce Shariah on an individual basis.”
How they go about that enforcement is an individual decision.
@Jack: He wasn’t trying to change anything. He was trying to kill as many people as he could, as quickly as he could, and the weapon available to him made it as easy as changing the channel on a TV.
Anyway, I’m not interested in rehashing all this bullshit with you. Go ask the loved ones of these victims whether they think it’s worth losing them needlessly and violently on your altar of gun worship.
And don’t pretend it isn’t exactly that, because we all know better. If it weren’t, we’d actually do something.
@Mikey:
Did we ask the loved ones of those lost on 9/11 whether they thought it was worth losing them needlessly and violently on the alter of freedom to travel on planes? How about those at Oklahoma city on the alter of purchasing fuel oil and fertilizer?
Don’t give me your holier than thou attitude about victims and victims family. I will not give up my guns. Period.
Go Law Enforcement Caste!
At the beginning James Comey praised the actions and bravery of local Law Enforcement which took 1 hr to arrive & set up a perimeter and 3 more hrs to end it
@Paul L.: Sickening.
@Jack:
I’m sure you have nothing to worry about. When we did nothing after a classroom of first graders got massacred, your side won. We just have to get used to the new normal of a 20-50 dead mass gun killing every so often. You’ll be able to keep your precious guns…my preciousssssssssss………..
@Jack:
Something tells me to mistrust this description of Islam…
@Paul L.:
Please…..Every time there is a mass shooting of this magnitude, it’s the police and the EMTs who rush in while the bullets are flying, putting themselves at risk. All these proud gun-owners with their big mouths and dumb politics just stayed home pointing fingers.
@James Pearce:
Nope, see the Cheshire, Connecticut, home invasion murders and Virgina Tech shooting.
Set up a perimeter. Wait for SWAT.
@James Pearce:
4 fawking hours later! I wouldn’t call that “rushing in” by any meaning of the word.
Do you understand the meaning or are you just unwilling to budge on your praise of the police in this incident?
@Paul L.:
Is that seriously all you got? A couple of anecdotes?
@Jack:
When did you show up, Jack? Lemme guess, you could have got there in 20 minutes….
@Jack:
The problem is, as we try to deal with “these incidents” is that Aurora, Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, and so forth, had nothing to do with Shariah or Islam.
Mass shooters linked to/motivated by radical Islam is only a subset of a larger problem. You cannot talk about “these incidents” and ignore all the others.
@Steven L. Taylor: Yes–if we were to look at who is responsible for most of the violence by guns in this country….
….the only logical reaction would be to forbid males from owning guns. After all, they’re responsible for most of the deaths.
Cat got your tongue, Jack?
Well of course he can…all he seems to care about is keeping his guns, and if he has to use religious bigotry to do so…well, it’s a small price to pay…
“Dear gays, Latinos, and gay Latinos:
Sorry about Orlando, but your right to not be murdered is outweighed by the rights of Muslims to not feel picked-on. So kindly forego any hard feelings towards Muslims, and instead join us in hating all those gun owners who didn’t shoot up a bunch of you folk. And also please join us in voting for Hillary this November.
Love and kisses,
The American Left.
P.S.: Wouldn’t you also please make a donation to elect Hillary? How much can we put you down for?”
Let me see if I can get the right angle on this story:
That about right?
@stonetools: Thank you.
@Jenos Idanian: “Dear gays, Latinos, and gay Latinos:
Sorry about Orlando, but your right to not be murdered is outweighed by the rights of
Muslimsgun owners to not feel picked-on. So kindly forego any hard feelings towardsMuslimsgun owners, and instead join us in hating all thosegun ownerscloseted Muslims who didn’t shoot up a bunch of you folk. And also please join us in voting forHillaryTrump who will deport you or family members this November.Love and kisses,
The American
LeftRight.P.S.: Wouldn’t you also please make a donation to elect
HillaryTrump? How much can we put you down for?”FTFY
@Dave D: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And, sometimes, envy. And, occasionally, the mark of the very, very small mind.
Congrats, you scored the Trifecta.
Now go away and play with the other feeble-minded.
@stonetools:
It is a post colonialism crisis as much as an Islam crisis.
@Jenos Idanian: Hey Stupid — Are you saying that we should lock up or execute every American citizen who happens to be Muslim? No? Then how would have right-thinking brave souls like you stopped this American citizen from doing exactly what he did? Please be specific for once in you pathetic trolling life. Or shut up.
Jenos, your comment made me throw up in my mouth a little. Why do you always seem to be the one to go the lowest in these conversations?
50 dead, over 50 more wounded because of a bigot with an assault weapon* and you have to be the one to go there. Step away from the computer and think before you type again.
* The manufacturers chose the name, it stuck, now that it’s bad pr they want to take it back. Well, it’s way too late for that.