Mass killing in Orlando gay nightclub

[katmai]

More fuel for the self loathing angle.

The man police say killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando early Sunday morning had visited the club at least a dozen times before carrying out his attack, a witness told the Orlando Sentinel on Monday.

The suspected shooter, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, may have also used several different gay dating apps, according to reports from MSNBC and the Los Angeles Times.

Three additional witnesses confirmed that they had seen Mateen at the gay nightclub more than once before.

"Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent," one witness, Ty Smith, told the Sentinel.

"We didn't really talk to him a lot," he added. "But I remember him saying things about his dad at times. He told us he had a wife and child."

Chris Callen, who performs at Pulse under the name Kristina McLaughlin, told The Canadian Press and CNN's Anderson Cooper that Mateen had been going to the bar one or twice a month "for at least three years."

Smith later told The Canadian Press that Mateen said that he "couldn't drink when he was at home—around his wife, or family. His father was really strict."

Smith and Callen say that they stopped talking to Mateen when he pulled a knife on them after they made a religious comment.

"He said if he ever messed with him again, you know how it'll turn out," Callen said.

Reports of Mateen's flashes of anger and aggression align with what Mateen's ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, told CNN on Sunday night.

"In the beginning he was a normal being that cared about family, loved to joke, loved to have fun, but then a few months after we were married I saw his instability," she said. "I saw that he was bipolar and he would get mad out of nowhere. That's when I started worrying about my safety."

She told reporters earlier on Sunday that Mateen had beat her and emotionally abused her while they were married between 2009 and 2011.

'He was very creepy in his messages'

An Orlando man told MSNBC's Chris Hayes on Monday that he had seen photos of Mateen on the gay dating apps Grindr, Adam4Adam, and Jack'd over the last several years. At least two of the man's friends had been contacted by Mateen on the apps.

"He was very creepy in his messages, and I blocked him immediately," the man said.

Kevin West, another regular at Pulse nightclub, told the Los Angeles Times that he chatted with Mateen on and off for a year on the gay dating app Jack'd, but had never met him in person. Incredibly, West said he met him for the first time as he was dropping a friend off at Pulse on Saturday night.

"He walked directly past me," West said. "I said, 'Hey,' and he turned and said, 'Hey,'" and nodded his head, West said. "I could tell by the eyes."

A regular performer at Pulse told CNN's Anderson Cooper that he saw Mateen there a couple times a month, often with another man.

The reports come after Samuel King, a drag queen, told The Daily Beast that he had befriended Mateen while the two worked next door to each other in Fort Pierce. King said that Mateen had seemed generally accepting of the fact that he and his friends were openly gay. King said that he even recalls Mateen going at least once to the nightclub where King performed.

[11B4V]

Maybe a recon. Why would you go blindly into a place and shoot it up.

[katmai]

I might agree with you, but for last two to three years twice a month??

[11B4V]

I might agree with you, but for last two to three years twice a month??

Yeah, that be true.

[merithyn]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/orlando-shooter-reported-pulse-club-regular-patrons-article-1.2672445

A former classmate of Omar Mateen's 2006 police academy class, however, said he believed Mateen was gay.

Speaking to WFTV9 in Orlando, the classmate, who asked not to be named, said he was gay in 2006 but had not yet come out about his sexuality.

Mateen had asked him out, the classmate said.

"We went to a few gay bars with him, and I was not out at the time, so I declined his offer," the former classmate said.

[Barrister]

That definitely puts a different spin on things.

[jimmy olsen]

1. Religious intolerance. Who are you to pass judgement. You are not more enlightened than anyone else. Less so as a matter of fact
2. Mumbo Jumbo
4. You already said it's sinful therefore a crime against God. Therefore a crime in your eyes.

The "mumbo jumbo" is saying that he is not fit to pass judgement, and thus agreeing with you on number one.

Crime in sin is not synonomous, unless you think dps and other religious people also secretly want to outlaw lying, etc. 

[Monoriu]

Being gay is like preferring apples to oranges while the rest of the population prefers oranges to apples.  The state has no business interferring with what consenting adults do in private.  If heterosexual people can get married, so should gays on the principle of fairness. 

[frunk]

The risk of an actual terrorist coming in as a refugee isn't that high. The reason being there are actually in many cases easier ways to get in for someone connected with a terrorist cell. The issue is, we've had a lot of Muslim immigration into Europe for decades, much of it under refugee programs. When they move in and don't assimilate, they have horrible economic outcomes. Then they have a litter of kids, who grow up often even worse off economically. These kids then start watching all the jihadist videos distributed on social media, and they start buying into this stuff.

The risk is low, but even a few will make people disproportionately hostile toward immigrants.

I'm afraid of America looking like Europe does today in 20 years, and even more afraid for Europe itself 20 years from now. Like I said, "real" terrorists, those who operate with al-Qaeda or ISIS, generally they have easier ways to get into a Western country than going through the refugee program.

I think the alternatives of not allowing immigration are much worse.  Demographically the Middle East is exploding, and if that population can't go anywhere at best it'll collapse into an Africa like hellhole.  At worst it'll end up with increasingly violent wars and conflicts for probably the next couple of decades.  OTOH Europe is on the other end of the demographic problem, with aging populations and declining birth rate.

Europe is not an example of worst case immigration, or rather not all of it is.  Different policies and different populations have ended up with very different results, some quite positive.  Even in the US on the whole Muslim immigration has been quite successful, and it's a mistake to take a few high profile problems as indicative of some sort of deeper issue.  I think there are some strains of Islam that are prone to violence and extremism, but the solution isn't to keep Muslims penned up and isolated, it's to expose them to western thought, western government and western culture.  Trying to forcibly change governments and social culture in other countries has almost always been a disaster, but immigration properly done has a spectacular success rate of creating converts.  A few will have a negative reaction, most others will not.

[11B4V]

1. Religious intolerance. Who are you to pass judgement. You are not more enlightened than anyone else. Less so as a matter of fact
2. Mumbo Jumbo
4. You already said it's sinful therefore a crime against God. Therefore a crime in your eyes.

The "mumbo jumbo" is saying that he is not fit to pass judgement, and thus agreeing with you on number one.

Crime in sin is not synonomous, unless you think dps and other religious people also secretly want to outlaw lying, etc.

sin
noun
1.
an immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law.
"a sin in the eyes of God"
synonyms:   immoral act, wrong, wrongdoing, act of evil/wickedness, transgression, crime, offense, misdeed, misdemeanor;

A synonym is a word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase in the same language. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy.

Full Definition of synonymous
1
:  having the character of a synonym; also :  alike in meaning or significance
2
:  having the same connotations, implications, or reference

That said, it's God's place to punish sin, not the place of any Earthly government

Well if we waited on God to punish sin i.e. though shalt not kill/steal, we'd have a whole lot of criminals running around. But I guess we would have the solace to know they will be punished after they go to "judgement".

Mumbo Jumbo.

[Martinus]

Huh, heard this was some kind of Latino night at the club.  So it's win/win for Trump.

Fuck off you miserable git.

[Martinus]

Careful Shel, Marti is gonna come after you.

It was clearly an islamic attack and a homophobic attack. Why are these two different things? Muslims have been persecuting gays forever, while trying to achieve all their other goals, like destroying israel, America and the West.

Where muslims are a minority, they are all about minority rights, where muslims are the majority, there no minority rights.

Pretty much.

[Martinus]

I might agree with you, but for last two to three years twice a month??

That was a very in-depth recon. Plus he had to suck a few dicks to truly understand Allah's wrath against homosexuality.

[11B4V]

I might agree with you, but for last two to three years twice a month??

That was a very in-depth recon. Plus he had to suck a few dicks to truly understand Allah's wrath against homosexuality.

When in Rome

[Martinus]

The risk of an actual terrorist coming in as a refugee isn't that high. The reason being there are actually in many cases easier ways to get in for someone connected with a terrorist cell. The issue is, we've had a lot of Muslim immigration into Europe for decades, much of it under refugee programs. When they move in and don't assimilate, they have horrible economic outcomes. Then they have a litter of kids, who grow up often even worse off economically. These kids then start watching all the jihadist videos distributed on social media, and they start buying into this stuff.

The risk is low, but even a few will make people disproportionately hostile toward immigrants.

I'm afraid of America looking like Europe does today in 20 years, and even more afraid for Europe itself 20 years from now. Like I said, "real" terrorists, those who operate with al-Qaeda or ISIS, generally they have easier ways to get into a Western country than going through the refugee program.

I think the alternatives of not allowing immigration are much worse.  Demographically the Middle East is exploding, and if that population can't go anywhere at best it'll collapse into an Africa like hellhole.  At worst it'll end up with increasingly violent wars and conflicts for probably the next couple of decades.  OTOH Europe is on the other end of the demographic problem, with aging populations and declining birth rate.

Europe is not an example of worst case immigration, or rather not all of it is.  Different policies and different populations have ended up with very different results, some quite positive.  Even in the US on the whole Muslim immigration has been quite successful, and it's a mistake to take a few high profile problems as indicative of some sort of deeper issue.  I think there are some strains of Islam that are prone to violence and extremism, but the solution isn't to keep Muslims penned up and isolated, it's to expose them to western thought, western government and western culture.  Trying to forcibly change governments and social culture in other countries has almost always been a disaster, but immigration properly done has a spectacular success rate of creating converts.  A few will have a negative reaction, most others will not.

You are missing the point that Otto and others have made - we have had this discussing so many times before that I almost feel like I should put it in my signature - from perspective of, for example, gay people, it's not just violent or extremist Muslims are a problem. Most Muslims, for example, believe that homosexuality should be criminalised - they do not seem to soften their views that much after years of living here. So allowing people who think that, and also happen to breed at a much higher rate than the Western average, is a time bomb.