domestic terrorism/tragedy: florida nightclub shooting

I realize this is not the thread for it, but do have to mention that after Oklahoma, fertilizer companies voluntarily started pelletizing ammonium nitrate to intentionally make it harder to turn into explosives.

I have seen no such measures from gun companies.

I'll be with you in spirit at the Mermaid Parade and NY Pride in the next couple of weeks, RNG.

Demosthenes wrote:
Nomad wrote:
RoughneckGeek wrote:
Nomad wrote:

Gun control does not solve this issue. It's just not that simple. McVeigh did it with a rental truck full of fertilizer. 9-11 happened with box cutters and a commercial airliner. Deranged people will find a way.

f*ck off. There's a thread for condescending bullsh*t like that.

I'm sorry if you are upset or disagree, but this was not posted in a condescending manner.

How many Oklahoma Government Buildings have we had since then? How many 9/11s had we had since that day?

9/11 is also a stupid example. We found problems there, we made changes, it hasn't happened again. Meanwhile, another asshole with hatred in his heart goes and buys and gun and shoots up a place and we do NOTHING. But, sure, tell us about how we can't stop random attacks so let's not try limiting the carnage at all.

The point of those examples is that they were new and outside the box at the time.

Nomad wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:
Nomad wrote:
RoughneckGeek wrote:
Nomad wrote:

Gun control does not solve this issue. It's just not that simple. McVeigh did it with a rental truck full of fertilizer. 9-11 happened with box cutters and a commercial airliner. Deranged people will find a way.

f*ck off. There's a thread for condescending bullsh*t like that.

I'm sorry if you are upset or disagree, but this was not posted in a condescending manner.

How many Oklahoma Government Buildings have we had since then? How many 9/11s had we had since that day?

9/11 is also a stupid example. We found problems there, we made changes, it hasn't happened again. Meanwhile, another asshole with hatred in his heart goes and buys and gun and shoots up a place and we do NOTHING. But, sure, tell us about how we can't stop random attacks so let's not try limiting the carnage at all.

The point of those examples is that they were new and outside the box at the time.

So... what do they have to do with the 7th mass shooting of the week?

Nomad wrote:

The point of those examples is that they were new and outside the box at the time.

Technically you're right, but those other means of killing people weren't employed this time, so they're kind of irrelevant to the topic at hand.

Nomad wrote:

Gun control does not solve this issue. It's just not that simple. McVeigh did it with a rental truck full of fertilizer. 9-11 happened with box cutters and a commercial airliner. Deranged people will find a way.

Yeah, this is what I thought you were actually worried about when you posted about not wanting these tragedies politicized. You pretended it was Trump and the Muslims, but this was what you wanted to stop.

And you are wrong. This is exactly the time for people that support the easy access to guns in this country to answer to those affected by the mass shootings. Just as your two examples were succinctly debunked, your entire premise is as well.

No one needs semi-automatic guns with large magazines that swap out quickly, unless they plan on fighting a war. And if fighting a war is what you really think is appropriate, then you have to support the private ownership of bazookas, tanks, and napalm.

But what this is really about is gun enthusiasts wanting to protect their f*cking hobby at the expense of thousands of lives. It's not about protection, because in the hands of civilians, these guns haven't protected anyone.

Nomad wrote:

The point of those examples is that they were new and outside the box at the time.

So were mass school shootings in 1997-99, with columbine and the couple smaller ones that were a run up to it.

But no gun laws have changed the last 20 years to even attempt to stop the next incident.

Stele wrote:
Nomad wrote:

The point of those examples is that they were new and outside the box at the time.

So were mass school shootings in 1997-99, with columbine and the couple smaller ones that were a run up to it.

But no gun laws have changed the last 20 years to even attempt to stop the next incident.

Exactly. And in each of the "innovative" episodes, common sense measures were taken to make the next one incrementally more difficult except for ........ wait for it.........

Not sure how long we will be waiting.

This whole tragedy really broke into me today, no idea why today rather than sooner or this one more than others but I had to leave my desk a few times and just completely broke down when I finally got home. I can not begin to imagine the grief and pain of those closer to the situation, one can only hope that the world, and humanity, change for the better and some future we have a possibility of arriving in is free of this crap.

krev82 wrote:

This whole tragedy really broke into me today, no idea why today rather than sooner or this one more than others but I had to leave my desk a few times and just completely broke down when I finally got home. I can not begin to imagine the grief and pain of those closer to the situation, one can only hope that the world, and humanity, change for the better and some future we have a possibility of arriving in is free of this crap.

We're too busy arguing over guns than getting to the root of the problem and solving that.

This is becoming my standard response to homophobic facebook messages now. NSFW language.

Paleocon wrote:

This is becoming my standard response to homophobic facebook messages now. NSFW language.

Well that's the first smile I've got out of this whole horrible thing and it took Theon Greyjoy's sister to do it.

Jayhawker wrote:
Nomad wrote:

Gun control does not solve this issue. It's just not that simple. McVeigh did it with a rental truck full of fertilizer. 9-11 happened with box cutters and a commercial airliner. Deranged people will find a way.

Yeah, this is what I thought you were actually worried about when you posted about not wanting these tragedies politicized. You pretended it was Trump and the Muslims, but this was what you wanted to stop.

And you are wrong. This is exactly the time for people that support the easy access to guns in this country to answer to those affected by the mass shootings. Just as your two examples were succinctly debunked, your entire premise is as well.

No one needs semi-automatic guns with large magazines that swap out quickly, unless they plan on fighting a war. And if fighting a war is what you really think is appropriate, then you have to support the private ownership of bazookas, tanks, and napalm.

But what this is really about is gun enthusiasts wanting to protect their f*cking hobby at the expense of thousands of lives. It's not about protection, because in the hands of civilians, these guns haven't protected anyone.

What's Norman's line about you mind reading lunches again? Trump, gun control, they are both different ways to politicize pain. Stop inferring that you know what people are thinking. Your track record is hovering around zero percent accuracy.

Could we please respect the request to move this line to the actual gun control thread.

I didn't, until you showed your hand. I didn't, even after you baited RNG and tried to play it off as a criticism of Trump. What you really want is no one using mass shootings as a reason to support gun control.

You say I'm reading your mind. I say you are arguing in bad faith.

Jayhawker wrote:

I didn't, until you showed your hand. I didn't, even after you baited RNG and tried to play it off as a criticism of Trump. What you really want is no one using mass shootings as a reason to support gun control.

You say I'm reading your mind. I say you are arguing in bad faith.

Your accusations are wrong and once again you see what you want in people you disagree with.

I'm with Yonder in the desire to move on from this distraction, so if you insist on trying to plant motives and pretend to speak for others, I won't be responding to it again in this thread.

NBC News closed tonight with a scroll of the names and ages of all 49 victims.

So many in their 20s.

So sad.

These Are the Victims of the Pulse Gay Nightclub Massacre in Orlando
An updating list of everything known about the 49 people whose lives were cut short in Orlando.
(The Daily Beast, 2016-06-12, still being updated as of 2016-06-13)

Article wrote:

They came to Orlando from everywhere.

The immigrant from South Africa, the native from Connecticut. The youngest was 19, the oldest 50. They were pharmacy techs, travel agents, entrepreneurs, students, and church-goers. Many were gay, lesbian, or transgender; all were someone's son or daughter.

Now they are all gone.

The 49 people murdered in the deadliest mass shooting in American history must be remembered as individuals. These are their stories.

I'm too f*cking angry and sad and scared to say anything coherent but virtual hugs for any queer other goodjers who need them.

The shooter was a regular at Pulse, apparently. Also had a profile on a gay dating app. So, it's come down to a man who was gay and hated himself for it, who decided to take it out on everybody else. sh*t.

This kind of made me wonder if gun sellers would ever become the target for terrorism. Probably not since the people against guns being sold wouldn't have any guns and probably wouldn't be the type of people to make bombs.

So what should be done? Maybe people should demonstrate outside the gun shop that sold the guy the guns. Oddly enough the gun shop owner went on a pretty epic racist rant. That guy shouldn't be around guns at all.

As I'm sure was the case with many, our local vigil was a strong showing of unity. Due to demographics (Halifax has a fairly large number of arabs and muslims per capita) there was a lot of poignant discussion about not allowing crimes against our community to be co-opted to further other hatred and phobias, a shame that some of those aspiring to power in the world can not take this to heart.

Regarding the assertions that Islam is inherently homophobic I've seen bandied about elsewhere, I thought this Pew Foundation Poll from 2014 has some interesting data about attitudes of various groups in the US towards homosexuality.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/p1fI5qP.png)

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

The shooter was a regular at Pulse, apparently. Also had a profile on a gay dating app. So, it's come down to a man who was gay and hated himself for it, who decided to take it out on everybody else. sh*t.

America is still trying to figure out the gun part as other countries are trending towards bringing mental health issues to the forefront of the discussion.

Crazy part for me is that here in Canada if you're looking for maybe your safest club experience it would be at any normal club on their gay nights. One owner I know told me it was easily his best rotating monthly night. Biggest sales, least security and incidents. People who just want to have fun that are already segregated by society targeted. Blargh.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

The shooter was a regular at Pulse, apparently. Also had a profile on a gay dating app. So, it's come down to a man who was gay and hated himself for it, who decided to take it out on everybody else. sh*t.

He might have been gay or he could have been using the dating site to hunt gay people. I recall a triplet of white people using a dating site to lure in black men to kill.

Yeah reports on the news tonight said people had been contacted by him through the app. But there was no context. Was he looking to hook up? Was he mocking them? Was he scouting out where the cool place to hang out was to find his target?

Anderson Cooper reads out a list of names of the shooting victims, as well as a little bit about them. Absolutely heartbreaking. He has to pause a few times too, overcome by emotion. I love him for that.

In the meantime, I'm also in tears. It's all so senseless, so stupid. All these people were just there to have a good time, to dance, to enjoy life. And one hateful, homophobic asshole decides to take it away from them. Ironically, it's more of the gay people he hated so much, and far fewer of his kind, that we need in this world.

It's hard to stay hopeful and optimistic, though I know that the good people far outnumber the bad.

This was making the facebook rounds, reiterating a point that's perhaps easy for outsiders to forget.
IMAGE(http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h60/hfxs/hand_zpsex3wqyxx.jpg)

Maq wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

This is becoming my standard response to homophobic facebook messages now. NSFW language.

Well that's the first smile I've got out of this whole horrible thing and it took Theon Greyjoy's sister to do it.

Here is her song to him when he was unemployed.

So it is looking more and more like this was a crazy kid who couldn't pray the gay away.