11 dead in French satirical magazine shooting

[CountDeMoney]

No, that's not just what happens.  Sociopath.

[Eddie Teach]

Yeah. Sometimes they shoot at their eyes instead.

[Monoriu]

I know it's a popular soundbite in US that if guns were outlawed, then only outlaws would guns, but there is a good reason why that soundbite is uttered only by morons.

It's simplistic, sure, but also true.

True?  Police still have guns for sure.

[Eddie Teach]

Are guns really outlawed if police get to have them? 


Of course they are, and this is a silly game. The point of the slogan is that everyday law-abiding citizens, such as presumably the speaker, won't have access to guns and that criminals will. This is true. The criminals might not have as ready access as they do now, but the law-abiding citizen has even less access and if he uses it, becomes a criminal.

[Sheilbh]

I always thought it was just a tautology

[Martinus]

I don't recall Duque de Bragança being so feisty previously

I think he does that when talking about language. He is a linguicist.

[alfred russel]

No, that's not just what happens.  Sociopath.

Harper Lee disagrees:

"When he gave us our air-rifles Atticus wouldn't teach us to shoot. Uncle Jack instructed us in the rudiments thereof; he said Atticus wasn't interested in guns. Atticus said to Jem one day, 'I'd rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'"

[Martinus]

But what if some of them are brought up to believe that way of conducting yourself is the correct one?

Then that's pretty fucked up. I'd be interested in looking at things that caused someone to be brought up like that. Personally, I expect it's something more nuanced than "Islam."

I wonder what take Saudi Arabian primary school eduction has on these issues?

I have no idea.

Are these particular attackers relevant or are we just talking in general? Because when you analyse the background of the attackers, there is a number of red flags there and I guess the question is to what extent they are representative of French Muslim youths in general or is their experience unique.

They are brothers, second generation immigrants from Algeria, orphaned at an early age. The older brother got involved in attending a mosque frequented by an incendiary preacher who was encouraging young Muslims to go to Iraq and fight Americans. The older brother did and was tried and sentenced to 3 years in prison upon his return in 2006 or so.

By the time he got out his younger brother was an adult and he apparently drawn him in into the fanatic "lifestyle" as it were.

Assuming the brothers, as orphans, received the same opportunities from the state as non-Muslim orphans do, the only thing that the French state could have done better is that it did not react fast enough to remove the incendiary preacher and mishandled the older brother once he got into the prison system, by treating this as a pure criminal issue and not a brain washing issue (so he should have either never been let out or should have gone through extensive reprogramming).

[Martinus]

Dissafected Western Muslims is one source of support; pissed off traditional Muslims already in the ME is another. The first is more worrying, even if the second was more responsible for 9/11.

It's reasonable to ask whether France has a particular problem with the former as well given that polls show 16% support for ISIS in France, increasing to 27% among the young. If it does, what are the causes.

I'm fairly sure 'insufficient secularism' is low on the list.

Wouldn't direction of immigration be relevant? It's not like Muslims emigrating to Britain, France or the US all come from the same countries or cultures.

[Martinus]

This reminds me what the government said about the previous Christmas attacks, it's only a series of isolated incidents committed by lunatics. One should not stigmatise.

Well they are isolated in a sense. There's no grand plan at work. But all of the recent attacks in France (and the Sidney siege) remind me of school shootings.

It's a different sort of terrorism than strapping a bomb to yourself. I think it's probably more difficult to catch in the early stages and probably more likely to inspire copycat attacks immediately afterwards. As I said before I find the attacks in France, Canada and Australia more unsettling and scary than the London or Madrid bombings.

Speaking of which, wasn't the Boston marathon bombing also a case of isolated Muslim youth terrorism? It seems people are forgetting that when they are wondering why European countries get these attacks but the US apparently does not...

[Sheilbh]

In terms of red flags for home grown terrorists deliquency probably matters as much as anything else.

I've said before but I'd be really interested to read about radical Islamist groups in the west and gangs, because superficially there seems a lot of similarities.

[Martinus]

In terms of red flags for home grown terrorists deliquency probably matters as much as anything else.

Sorry, are you calling going to Iraq to fight with Islamist insurgents against France's ally "delinquency"? Or am I misreading you? Because if you do, that's one hell of an understatement.

That guy shouldn't have been let out until they were sure he will never go anywhere near Islamic fundamentalism.

[Martinus]

Jacob, I'm not taking you to task, but alluding to the hate-filled Saudi Arabian originated and financed 'educational' material that has found it's way into UK schools.

Based on that I wonder what innocent Saudi children are subject to in their early years?

Sure, but I don't think it's of very much relevance in France. I'd be amazed if any Saudi material got near French schools.

There is such thing as extracurricular activities. I grew up in communist Poland and the way it worked, in the morning you would go to your normal, state-mandated public school where you would learn about socialism and Lenin; and then in the afternoon you would go to a "Sunday school" type of place by the church, where a priest or a nun would teach you about Catholicism and the Pope. This created many more fundamentalist Catholics than devout communists (only when they reintroduced religion lessons to public schools in 1989, Poles started to grow more secular).

I wouldn't be surprised it could very well work like this for Muslims in France as well.

[Sheilbh]

Wouldn't direction of immigration be relevant? It's not like Muslims emigrating to Britain, France or the US all come from the same countries or cultures.

Of course. As I say Maghreb countries are extremely worried about returning fighters from Syria, of which there are thousands. That's bound to have an effect in diaspora communities.

It's also, from the little reading of it I've done, the central thesis of the French Intifada - which I may have mentioned I'm reading

Speaking of which, wasn't the Boston marathon bombing also a case of isolated Muslim youth terrorism? It seems people are forgetting that when they are wondering why European countries get these attacks but the US apparently does not...

I don't think anyone really makes that point anymore - I mean Canada and Australia have them too.

Having said that I do think France has a particular problem for a few reasons. It can't be blamed on multiculturalism or officialdom turning a blind eye to extremism because that's never been the French approach.

[Martinus]

Having said that I do think France has a particular problem for a few reasons. It can't be blamed on multiculturalism or officialdom turning a blind eye to extremism because that's never been the French approach.

Really? It might be an outsider's perspective, but I never thought French problems are particularly bigger than British ones, for example. France simply has more Muslim immigrants, and unlike Britain, they do not necessarily concentrate in a capital but in other cities, which are less well funded for obvious reasons, but I never thought there is a worse systemic situation.