Mass killing in Orlando gay nightclub

[garbon]

Trump:  "If you had guns in that room, if you had—even if you had a number of people having them strapped to their ankle or strapped to their waist, where bullets could have flown in the other direction right at him, you wouldn't have had the same kind of a tragedy."


Idiot.

It was in Florida so I would be surprised if nobody had a gun.

Does anybody have an image of what a typical drunk gay bar scene looks like at night.

Yes?

[viper37]

I actually think for anyone in the West, the extreme intolerance for gays in Islam should be a major point of discussion--which isn't even an aspect of radical Islam; Mauritania, Sudan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Afghanistan all punish being gay with execution. Those countries in aggregate have over 200m people. Many more countries in the MENA region with majority Muslim populations criminalize homosexuality (but go short of executing over it.)

While I do not believe most MENA Muslims are Islamic radicals, or support terrorist attacks against civilians, I think most do absolutely believes gays should be jailed and many view being gay as a crime similar to how we view serious sex crimes here in the United States.

Malawi and Tanzania are not under Islamic law, muslims are not majority, yet they target albinos for witchcraft.

Lots of non muslim countries in Africa discriminate against gays.  Russia heavily discriminate against gays.  Many Asian countries consider homosexuality a mental illness.

It's like in the 3rd world, occidental values are not yet there...

[Barrister]

Cruz does not speak for the GOP Viper, he is very much his own nutty man.

ok.  I thought he was beating the drums of war for Trump, like the other GOPs.

No, he has pointedly not endorsed Trump.

Best anecdote about Ted Cruz endorsing Trump...

Jennifer BenderyVerified account
‏@jbendery
Ted Cruz just stared blankly at us, as elevator doors slowly closed us out, when someone asked if he'll ever endorse Trump.

https://twitter.com/jbendery/status/739939661091635201

[viper37]

Trump:  “If you had guns in that room, if you had—even if you had a number of people having them strapped to their ankle or strapped to their waist, where bullets could have flown in the other direction right at him, you wouldn’t have had the same kind of a tragedy.”


Idiot.

I've obviously never been a comparable situation, but I imagine that even if I had a concealed handgun in a dark club at night, I would still flee and not fight back if someone starts shooting with a semi-automatic rifle and people left and right of me drop dead. Having the psychological strength to pull out a handgun and start a firefight with someone who has already started firing seems pretty daunting. I would imagine that's hard to do even for professionals like law enforcement officers or soldiers.

More to the point is that it just isn't going to work.

A handgun is a pretty shitty weapon for anything but very short range. Compared to an assault rifle, you are pretty fucked unless you can close the range up a bit without being seen.

The solution is simple: have people bring their assault weapons to the clubs they go dancing and partying.  Nothings goes better hand in hand than alcohol and guns.

[viper37]

For whatever it's worth, most Muslim guys I have met over the years seemed to be short-tempered Rage Monsters.  Dunno if rage is a mental illness, but it does seem to be a cultural trait of sorts.

some religious people tend to not react well when you tell them they are part of murderous false god worshipping sect.

[viper37]

Cruz does not speak for the GOP Viper, he is very much his own nutty man.

ok.  I thought he was beating the drums of war for Trump, like the other GOPs.

No, he has pointedly not endorsed Trump.

Best anecdote about Ted Cruz endorsing Trump...

Jennifer BenderyVerified account
‏@jbendery
Ted Cruz just stared blankly at us, as elevator doors slowly closed us out, when someone asked if he'll ever endorse Trump.

https://twitter.com/jbendery/status/739939661091635201

I thought he rallied to Trump, like Paul Ryan.

[Valmy]

Cruz is inflexible and principled. He would never be politically expedient like that.

[viper37]

What changes, though? I mean, it isn't as if we failed to hate ISIS before this attack, or that it would make any difference if it could be definitively proved that ISIS had nothing to do with this attack.

Frankly--we need to seriously evaluate how many Muslims we allow to come into our countries. While Muslims already here are a done deal (and I wouldn't want it any other way, they have political rights now that they are here--and I do believe most are not a problem) I am highly skeptical of allowing huge numbers of Muslim immigrants into the country. If I was European, to be honest, this might be a single issue voter kind of thing for me. If I was a gay European I'd see the vast waves of Muslim migration into Europe as a life and death political issue.

Here in America where it's much less of a problem, I for example am still almost certainly voting for Hillary due to Trump's broad incompetence and idiocy, but to be frank the Dem's wrongheadedness on Islam in general is a point of concern for me. I think Europe and America could do a better job of integrating Muslims, but I frankly have no idea how. I also think until we have answers to that we should all be highly skeptical of allowing large scale immigration.

We also need to rethink the refugee issue--I understand hundreds of thousands are crossing borders no matter what, and I think the only answer will be one that isn't politically "nice."

Immigration is tricky.  On the one hand, you need them to occupy jobs, jobs that often your own citizens don't want to do and prefer to live on wellfare instead of doing it.

On the other hand, you must respect the host society's capacity to integrate the immigrants.  Teaching them language skills is the obvious and easy part, and probably less difficult in America than non english nations, since lots of educated people around the world have a basic grasp of english.

Howeve, you also need to integrate them to western values.  That is trickier.  When you're raised one way, used to some things to work in a certain way all your life, you arrive here in your teenage years or adult life with your family, you just don't adapt to things in a couple of days.

And then you have these integrists you fled from home, and they are welcome with open arms in your new country, even if you complain about their behavior, you're not listened to and all you hear is how everyone should be tolerant.
The end result is that the new generation will listen to these radicals and their influence will grow.

The problem is with radical islam and is much easier to fight than Islam in itself.  If you have the will.  Something most anglo-saxon societies lack.

[Zanza]

I fully agree with Otto here. And if Obama thinks what he does is what Americans want - well, Americans will have an opportunity to say if this is really the case by voting for Hillary to continue his policies in November.

I know you are for mass democracy now but be careful what you wish for. 
Gay marriage exists in this country because the courts overrode objections to it on constitutional grounds.  Most of the ballot initiatives went the other way.  Your new right wing buddies are happy to talk nice now about gays if it can be used to put down the Muslims.  But they will put the kinds of judges in place that voted with the dissent in Obergefell.

I think this is rather important. The victory of gay equality was very recent in much of the West. My own country only abolished gay sex as a crime in the 1970s and for minors in the 1990s. We still don't have full equality for gays (e.g. only civil partnership, not gay marriage). You still hear some conservatives mutter about it. Female emancipation is slightly older, but also happened in living memory and is probably not fully concluded yet. And again some conservatives still yearn for the traditional role models of yesteryear.

The people who opposed gay rights or female emancipation seem to be exactly the same people that have now found their new cause in opposing Muslims - supposedly due to their perceived cultural opposition to these topics. The notion that many of them are libertarians seems to be wrong at least in my country. They are typically not at all pluralistic, quite the opposite and they oppose the liberal values of our society.

I think everybody who cares for our liberal values has to oppose them. Why? Because they are an actual threat to our liberal values if they are elected. Unlike terrorists. Terrorists can hurt us, but they will never win. We need to fight terrorists with all means. But we should not do that by throwing out our liberal values by electing anti-liberal parties.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

[Valmy]

The problem is with radical islam and is much easier to fight than Islam in itself.  If you have the will.  Something most anglo-saxon societies lack.

Hey Wessex had the will to fight back against radical Norsism.

[Phillip V]

Omar Mateen celebrated 9/11 attacks while in high school.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/06/13/on-911-omar-mateens-classmates-mourned-some-say-he-celebrated/

[Valmy]

Omar Mateen celebrated 9/11 attacks while in high school.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/06/13/on-911-omar-mateens-classmates-mourned-some-say-he-celebrated/

Wow. What a nutcase.

The former student said Mateen went on to claim that Osama bin Laden was his uncle. The ex-classmate spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of business clients finding out he attended an alternative school. Mateen's claim of family links to bin Laden was also mentioned by Zirkle.

Yeah....ok

I wonder what happens when a man like this ends up on the FBI watch list. I mean how does he get an automatic rifle and all that shit with the FBI expending resources on monitoring his activities? What does it actually mean to be on some list the FBI has?

[Malthus]

What changes, though? I mean, it isn't as if we failed to hate ISIS before this attack, or that it would make any difference if it could be definitively proved that ISIS had nothing to do with this attack.

Frankly--we need to seriously evaluate how many Muslims we allow to come into our countries. While Muslims already here are a done deal (and I wouldn't want it any other way, they have political rights now that they are here--and I do believe most are not a problem) I am highly skeptical of allowing huge numbers of Muslim immigrants into the country. If I was European, to be honest, this might be a single issue voter kind of thing for me. If I was a gay European I'd see the vast waves of Muslim migration into Europe as a life and death political issue.

Here in America where it's much less of a problem, I for example am still almost certainly voting for Hillary due to Trump's broad incompetence and idiocy, but to be frank the Dem's wrongheadedness on Islam in general is a point of concern for me. I think Europe and America could do a better job of integrating Muslims, but I frankly have no idea how. I also think until we have answers to that we should all be highly skeptical of allowing large scale immigration.

We also need to rethink the refugee issue--I understand hundreds of thousands are crossing borders no matter what, and I think the only answer will be one that isn't politically "nice."

Thing is, this particular attacker wasn't an immigrant or a refugee. He was a native-born American citizen. Not sure why an attack by an ISIS-inspired American should lead us to reject refugees, who are in large part ISIS-victimized non-Americans, or immigrants. They weren't the problem in this particular case.

[Valmy]

Yeah but I guess Otto's point is more about us letting in his rather bizarre father. But letting in Afghans fleeing Soviet aggression was what that was all about. So we could be letting in future problems from any number of currently innocuous regions.

[viper37]

The problem is with radical islam and is much easier to fight than Islam in itself.  If you have the will.  Something most anglo-saxon societies lack.

Hey Wessex had the will to fight back against radical Norsism.

By embracing catholic fanatism?