USA Politics

We have sources that say stuff, nothing has been officially released yet. And if what they are saying is true, that doesn't lean towards the shooter's motives. It is possible that this is a ISIS-inspired terrorist attack. It is possible this is a religion-inspired hate crime. It is possible it is somewhere in-between.
 
Some information about him

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...o-killer.html?via=newsletter&source=DDMorning

Looks like he at one point was on the FBI's radar at one point, but they dropped it, beat his wife regularly, would be angered seeing 2 men kissing, and at one point worked as a guard at a juvenile facility.

and "
Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Mateen had pledged allegiance to ISIS, according to officials from the Department of Homeland Security."

Assuming this is all correct.

Confiscation of guns is not happening. 1) it is illegal and 2) even if it were legal the end result would be law abiding people turning their guns in, people planning on doing shit like this hiding them in a closet.
 
Restrictions on things like large-volume magazines and assault weapons are more likely to decrease the number of casualties that occur in mass shootings, but yeah. I don't think you can get rid of guns in the US.
 
RTC said:
From what I can understand, none of the people in the nightclub were themselves armed, or else it's safe to say they would have fired back and probably killed the shooter.
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Well, it was a gun free zone. Guns are not permitted in places that serve alcohol, by Florida (and probably all state) laws. Assuming any of the people in there owned a gun to start with, they were following the law and left them at home/in their cars.
 
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Meanwhile pro-government newspapers in Turkey publish the news as "50 dead in club that's frequented by perverted gays"

Islamic fundamentalists are the scum of the earth. And "Islamic fundamentalist" doesn't simply refer to the terrorist groups.
 
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I'm sick of seeing tragedies like this, but in my opinion gun control or restrictions on guns wouldn't have done anything to prevent it. This is similar to the Paris attacks where guns are banned in Paris, yet that didn't prevent them from getting a gun.. This is a cultural problem, it needs to be solved, and we need to have the courage to say enough is enough.

There's my two cents, now back to my vacation!
 
CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
If this guy acquired the gun(s) legally, then how is access to guns not an issue here?
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Which is a thing we don't know yet.

Of course, there's also the argument that there are no criminal gun factories - all guns start as legal guns, and enter the illegal side of things through a variety of methods.
 
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-gay-pride-la-weapons-20160612-snap-story.html

Authorities in Santa Monica found possible explosives as well as a cache of weapons and ammunition Sunday in the car of a man who told them he planned to look for a friend at the L.A. Pride festival in West Hollywood, a law enforcement source said.

Federal and local law enforcement decided against canceling the annual parade, which went forward Sunday morning under tightened security. Investigators are now trying to piece together what happened but said they don’t believe there is any connection between the incident and the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., that killed at least 50 people overnight.
Early Sunday, Santa Monica police received a call about a suspected prowler near Olympic Boulevard and 11th Street. Patrol officers responded and encountered an individual who told officers he was waiting for a friend, according to a law enforcement source familiar with details of the arrest. That led officers to inspect the car and find several weapons – including three rifles, one of them an “assault rifle” -- and a lot of ammunition as well as tannerite, an ingredient that could be used to create a pipe bomb, said the source. The car had Indiana plates.
 
No real point, but interesting if they were related, especially given there are a number of gay pride events happening now or in the near future and you would think security will be stepped up for those events that have not happened yet.
 
Oh, fuck IS. They'll take responsibility for a skinned knee if the person who pushed the wounded down was Muslim.

The fact of the matter is that the USA is a happy playground for lone wolf attackers. You can get an assault weapon and large amounts of ammo and large magazines very easily. There's no way to determine when someone is going to make a suicide attack like the San Bernardino people, and the Florida nightclub attacker. And due to the easy availability of such weapons (legal or illegal), they're going to be able to spread a lot of lead around before being stopped. That's the difference between a place like the USA and even Canada - assault weapons are easy to get there. Hard to get here. Harder in a place like the UK or Australia - easier in France.
 
LooseCannon said:
The fact of the matter is that the USA is a happy playground for lone wolf attackers. You can get an assault weapon and large amounts of ammo and large magazines very easily. There's no way to determine when someone is going to make a suicide attack like the San Bernardino people, and the Florida nightclub attacker. And due to the easy availability of such weapons (legal or illegal), they're going to be able to spread a lot of lead around before being stopped. That's the difference between a place like the USA and even Canada - assault weapons are easy to get there. Hard to get here. Harder in a place like the UK or Australia - easier in France.
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Only US politicians, with the help of US citizens, can make these things less likely. People have got to want things to be different.
Forostar said:
IS has taken responsibility for the attack. The FBI has interrogated the man twice and said he was not dangerous.
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That's a pretty serious development if true.
bearfan said:
No real point, but interesting if they were related, especially given there are a number of gay pride events happening now or in the near future and you would think security will be stepped up for those events that have not happened yet.
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Indeed, the target might have been any number of events.
 
CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
Only US politicians, with the help of US citizens, can make these things less likely. People have got to want things to be different.
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It is a trade off, no one wants these sorts of things to happen, no one wants a police state to make sure these things do not happen. And realistically if someone wants guns or a large class of guns that is what it would take to "get rid" of them.

You can probably drink yourself into a coma over the next day with how many "we need intelligent gun control" comments you will hear, of course few if any will say what they should consist of or try to reconcile it with the 2nd Amendment/Supreme Court rulings about the 2nd Amendment or how they will avoid government going completely ape shit and fire up another round of mass incarcerations like we have seen with the war on drugs with a new "war on guns" to probably be followed by a "war on things you can make a pipe bomb with"

It sucks when this stuff happens, but I am not willing to nuke the rights of the 99+% of gun owners who do nothing wrong, like I am not willing to be like some fire and brimstone preacher yelling "blasphemy!" at someone that expresses an opinion I disagree with.
 
You do realise that if the majority of US citizens think like you do (I have no idea if they do), then nothing will change.
bearfan said:
It is a trade off, no one wants these sorts of things to happen, no one wants a police state to make sure these things do not happen. And realistically if someone wants guns or a large class of guns that is what it would take to "get rid" of them.
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The UK isn't a "police state". This is a straw man argument.
bearfan said:
You can probably drink yourself into a coma over the next day with how many "we need intelligent gun control" comments you will hear, of course few if any will say what they should consist of...
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I don't expect you, or any other individual, to solve this or come up with all the answers. I do, however, find it almost incomprehensible that you can't simply say (without saying what you would do about it) that the US has an unhealthy relationship with guns. You have the amount of mass shootings you have, because guns are easily available in your country. It's not any more complicated than this.
bearfan said:
... or try to reconcile it with the 2nd Amendment/Supreme Court rulings about the 2nd Amendment...
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Laws your country made up. Change them.
bearfan said:
... or how they will avoid government going completely ape shit and fire up another round of mass incarcerations like we have seen with the war on drugs with a new "war on guns" to probably be followed by a "war on things you can make a pipe bomb with"
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Where else has this happened? There is an alternative. Scotland. Dunblane. It can work.
bearfan said:
It sucks when this stuff happens, but I am not willing to nuke the rights of the 99+% of gun owners who do nothing wrong...
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What is the purpose in their/your rights? There has never been any explanation of why you need automatic weapons. Is this a human right that the rest of the world is missing out on?
bearfan said:
... like I am not willing to be like some fire and brimstone preacher yelling "blasphemy!" at someone that expresses an opinion I disagree with.
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People are dying in your country in the hundreds every year due to guns. Why can't you imagine an America with less (or no guns) & less deaths?
 
To summarize, I do not think the US has an unhealthy relationship with guns a small percentage of people are whack jobs and do shit like this. Why are you so willing to tell everyone who has a gun (and for the record I do not now nor ever have owned a gun, I do not see the need or appeal of them) they cannot have one for whatever reason they own one.

As to the police state comment, there are tons of guns in the US now, it is not like they go bad. So even if we stopped selling new ones, how exactly are the old ones to be collected? Add to that, you can make one now with a 3-D printer, a very crude one, but it is only a matter of time before you can make better ones that way.
 
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