FBI Director Comey: 'Highly Confident' Orlando Shooter Radicalized Through Internet (cbsnews.com) 404
An anonymous reader writes from a report via CBS News: FBI Director James Comey echoed President Obama's statement that he does not think the Orlando shooting was a plot directed from outside of the U.S. "So far, we see no indication that this was a plot directed from outside the United States and we see no indication that he was part of any kind of network," Comey told reporters. The intelligence community, Comey said, is "highly confident that this killer was radicalized at least in part through the internet." CBS News reports: "The FBI first became aware of the shooter, Omar Mateen, in May 2013 when he was working as a contract security guard and he made statements that were 'inflammatory and contradictory,' Comey said. Mateen told his co-workers at the time that he had family connections to al Qaeda and that he was a member of Hezbollah. Comey pointed out that Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, is a 'bitter enemy' of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to which he pledged loyalty in 911 calls as the attack unfolded early Sunday morning." According to CNN, at least 50 people were killed inside Pulse, a gay nightclub, marking the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
Radicalized through Islam (Score:3, Insightful)
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Because no other ideological streams produce mass murdering terrorists. Oh wait, there's Tim Mcveigh, Hans Anders Breivik, and apparently a lone nut job James Howell, who has, according to reports, far right sympathies and was, fortunately, arrested before he could produce two attacks on the LGBT community in one weekend.
There are no lack of ideologically-driven lunatics out there who pick a group, whether that's gays, leftists, government employees, or whomever, and decide they must die in some greater cau
Re:Radicalized through Islam (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet it remains that Islam is way the most prominent ideology behind this kind of thing.
And I think it should be mentioned that the people most often victimized by Islamic terrorists are their fellow Muslims.
Right. So? This has precisely zero bearing on the question of whether Islam as a religion is a factor in Islamic terrorism.
Or were you somehow trying to tell turkeydance not to demonise Muslims (which they never did anyway)?
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There is no question. There's a claim that Islam is especially prone to producing terrorists. Lots of ideologies produce violent terrorists. Many of the US's terrorist acts have been the acts of homegrown terrorists, often anti-government extreme anarchist types.
That's like claiming Ireland is more prone to producing terrorists because of the IRA and Protestant militias. It's a logical fallacy.
Re:Radicalized through Islam (Score:5, Insightful)
Radical Islam is a problem. People that justify the worst barbarism in the name of some ideology are a problem and Radical Islam does this. Sure, they aren't the only nutcases around but they're by far the biggest group and they have a huge fan base that cheers them on. Until people stop pussy footing around the subject we will never deal with it. I pretty much despise the gay culture. Not gays themselves but the culture that you get when they congregate. That said, I just avoid them. It would never occur to me to kill them or even to wish them dead. I am appalled at what happened in Orlando and feel bad for these people's families. I'd never wish this kind of shit on anyone. Some so called Christians think it's okay to persecute and kill gay people but I and the vast majority of Christians reject and repudiate that view. God says to love everyone and that only HE is the judge. Then we get to Islam which has a more aggressive anti-gay policy. It's stoning in their own land and open season everywhere else. I know most of the Islamic people in the US aren't radical but a lot of them are, way too many. Depressingly it seems to be the younger ones who don't remember how shitty it was under Sharia in the old country because their parents fled that insanity. It seems the young Islamic generation has decided to rebel against their elders by becoming just as insane as the people the older generation fled from. I don't know if anything can stop a war but importing more Islamic fundamentalists to the US will certainly increase the chances greatly. I know that the more this type of thing in Orlando happens here it's only a matter of time before people get fed up and retaliate. It's all too likely it'll be against a Mosque or some such place.
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Lone wolf terrorists fly under any opportune banner.
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Lone wolfs or just the leading edge of an all out war?
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So you consider violent protesters to be terrorists?
SHOOTER WAS A CLOSETED HOMOSEXUAL (Score:5, Interesting)
FBI spews USUAL fabricated BULLSHIT as "highly confident" "intelligence".
Deeply conflicted individual, drank alcohol. Couldn't recite prayers. Not Muslim to speak of.
The fact is, there is more documentary evidence of his connection with the NYPD than there is for ISIS! LOL.
https://t.co/5OcOKyBMe4 [t.co]
Guess what? NYPD thought he was... GAY!
The Pulse is a place this sad young man was found to visit FOR THREE years! The staff knew him as a semi-regular.
http://m.palmbeachpost.com/new... [palmbeachpost.com]
He had a Grindr account. He was closeted and took it out on his wife. He hated other gay people that were happy. That's why he killed them. He was miserable on the inside
Yeah, but "ISIS!"
But you'll fall for anything, won't you? So you get this bullshit: "Clinton calls for escalated violence in Iraq and Syria in wake of Orlando attack"
https://t.co/pKBUY6BGv4 [t.co]
That's why it's called brainwashing. You can't even evaluate this contrary evidence. On one hand all defamatory about "big government", until that government is the FBI, telling you your ugly hatred and provincial phobias are valid. Then it's "high confidence".
The only hope for this world is the rapid disintegration and collapse of the United States into a hopeless and internally preoccupied failed state. You can't save a bag of tools this stupid.
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Deeply conflicted individual, drank alcohol. Couldn't recite prayers. Not Muslim to speak of.
Don't discount the power of guilt and shame as catalysts for religious fundamentalism. Such a person may feel the compulsion to go to extremes to achieve the spiritual righteousness that their own weak flesh could not give them. What those extremes look like depend on what the person believes their religion's doctrines to be.
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And yet it remains that Islam is way the most prominent ideology behind this kind of thing.
And I think it should be mentioned that the people most often victimized by Islamic terrorists are their fellow Muslims.
Right. So? This has precisely zero bearing on the question of whether Islam as a religion is a factor in Islamic terrorism.
Or were you somehow trying to tell turkeydance not to demonise Muslims (which they never did anyway)?
The problem with blaming "Islam" is there's a ton of people who consider themselves followers of "Islam" who have virtually nothing in common with this guy.
It's like blaming Christians when someone shoots an abortion doctor. There's Christians who regularly call for the murder of abortion doctors, there's others who don't call for murder but think it's fine, and there's Christians who are solidly pro-choice.
Should Christians be subject to extra monitoring? Are one group of Christians the real Christians and
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The fact is that certain groups are very heavily monitored. The more extreme Christian Identity sects and various other white supremacist churches are constantly monitored by the FBI, and along with groups of survivalists, white supremacists, anti-government anarchists, and the like, are often viewed as being groups who are most likely to produce homegrown terrorists. The Norwegian mass murderer, Hans Breivik, was a Scandinavian version of that sort of white supremacism.
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It's like blaming Christians when someone shoots an abortion doctor.
Not really, no. A truly terrifying proportion [pewforum.org] of Muslims hold insane, dangerous, beliefs. [channel4.com]
Islam is absolutely not the equivalent of Christianity.
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How about if they seek to withhold homosexuals' constitutional rights? Does that qualify?
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You mean like Florida (like many other states) does through it's denial of carrying an effective means of self-defense in locations which serve or sell alcohol?
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And yet it remains that Islam is way the most prominent ideology behind this kind of thing.
Only if you're not including time as a metric for your data.
Every religion has their kill 'em all phase, it just so happens we are living in the Islamic one right now. It doesn't mean that the others aren't as equally ridiculous.
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And yet it remains that Islam is way the most prominent ideology behind this kind of thing.
Islam is just the flavour of the day for terrorists - in the past and in other regions of the world it was any of a number of other excuses for venting your desire for hurting other people around you: Fascism, Communism, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism - even football, of all things. As the shooting in Orlando demonstrates, terrorism doesn't start with "I am a Muslim, therefore I feel compelled to go and kill indiscriminately" - it is the other way around. You start with the hate, the desire to kill an
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If he had not implied that they needed demonization, you would not have had to mention it and tell others not to do it. You obviously saw what he did there and are attempting some useless kind of damage control.
Err, no. You seem to have forgotten that I was replying to MightyMartian, not turkeydance.
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No the ignorant one is you. The Anonymous Coward is correct, people that want to control others will choose something to rally behind. But the real reason is always the same - they don't approve of how other people choose to live and therefore want to force them to change or die (eliminating them).
Authoritarians are the problem no matter what banner they rally under.
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There are 1.6 billion Muslims. They must not be very good muslims, if they don't start killing the rest right now. Or perhaps it is people and not the religion that kills, like guns.
You are correct.
Peaceful muslems exist IN SPITE OF the contents of their doctrine and scripture, not BECAUSE OF it.
If you think otherwise, you are simply ignorant of islam. So are the people who are peaceful and follow it. Some people can manage to take any doctrine and make a positive life with it, however that does not change the fact that islam, in it's pure form is NASTY.
Go educate yourself with Bill Warner's lectures on Youtube, or his books. Warner is an physicist that pulls the whole thing ap
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I don't even think it was an act of terrorism. The piece of shit who did the shooting only "pledged allegiance" to ISIS after he had already started murdering, which tells me he was pathetically trying to justify his actions. The real motivation is far simpler: he was a homophobe. Homophobes are people who hate gays because they feel enticed by them and are trying to convince themselves that they aren't gay.
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I don't even think it was an act of terrorism. The piece of shit who did the shooting only "pledged allegiance" to ISIS after he had already started murdering, which tells me he was pathetically trying to justify his actions. The real motivation is far simpler: he was a homophobe. Homophobes are people who hate gays because they feel enticed by them and are trying to convince themselves that they aren't gay.
Odd news coming out... He reportedly frequented the club and used a gay-hookup app, though maybe that was just his way of casing the place. But a guy playing dead in the bathroom where he was holding hostages said he let the Blacks in the room go, because he didn't "have a problem with them". And though he pledged allegiance to ISIS, he also pledged allegiance to a couple of other groups that are at daggers-drawn with ISIS.
And, like a number of other Muslim terrorists we've heard about, he drank alcohol w
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Call it what it is: religiously fundamentalist motivated mass murder.
It wasn't terrorism. It was most certainly NOT intended to bring about any political or policy change, or even make a political statement.
It was lethal grade bigotry, inspired by a fundamentalist upbringing - fundamentalist Islam vs Christian is moot.
at least in part through the internet (Score:3)
In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In other news (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll second that!
According to reports the guy has been an angry but not terribly devout nutball for a long time. If anything radicalized him, it was 2 FBI investigations and zero mental health interventions.
Religion poisons everything (Score:3, Insightful)
It really does. The Abrahamic religions are barbaric. Let's stop passing these dangerous superstitions onto successive generations.
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The Soviet Union showed you don't need religion to justify mass evil, merely dogma, ANY dogma.
It's essentially a variation of: "Having X in place is so very very important that we have to kill lots of people to get X."
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A belief system that promotes intolerance and commands you harm other people should not be cherished. Such belief systems should be ridiculed, not protected. It's these nutty superstitions that have seen the subjugation of women for thousands of years. That's half the population that are negatively impacted by these myths. Enough is enough. It needs to stop.
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>It really does. The Abrahamic religions are barbaric. Let's stop passing these dangerous superstitions onto successive generations."
Sorry, but this is just wrong. There are quite a few religions that do a lot of good for people and society. It is just that some people are radical and/or even use the name of the religion without even really understanding it.
Let's take Christianity for example. Please tell me what is so poisonous, barbaric, and dangerous about Jesus' teachings. You do realize that bei
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You do realize that being a Christian means believing in and following Jesus' teachings
Is that one of those "no true Scotsman" things? If someone hates gay people, then they aren't a Christian? Because it seems like there are a lot of Christians who have problems following the teachings of Jesus. Take, for example, all of those people who decided to refuse services to gay people, and the people who support those people, and the people who were opposed to the SCOTUS decision on gay marriage. How do any of those things relate to the teachings of Jesus? They want to claim that they can't se
Re:Religion poisons everything (Score:4, Insightful)
Jesus specifically said he was not replacing the old laws. Not a jot or a tiddle. So you have to add in there the bits about not eating shellfish, wearing mixed thread garments and homosexuality. You have to add in the parts condoning slavery. Not even the New Testament speaks against slavery, it only tells you how you should treat your slaves.
It's only in the New Testament that the idea of an eternity of hell for not believing is introduced. Is this moral? NO! It it not. "Love me or burn forever" is not a moral teaching.
Feel free to only cherry pick the acceptable messages in the Bible, but don't pretend the other commands and laws are not there. You are commanded to kill your neighbour for working on the sabbath? Do you? Of course not, because your morality is better than that in the Bible.
Christianity if nothing like Buddhism. The teachings of Christianity as evidenced in the Bible *are* barbaric. Slavery. Torture. Stonings. The subjugation of women. "No thought for the morrow" is a ridiculous notion.
Don't paint Christianity as being a benign and loving belief system. It isn't, and it never was. If you think it is then it shows you have not read the Bible or you are so selective in the parts you follow as to make you guilty of not doing the things it commands you to do.
Am I anti-religion? Damn right I am, and the recent tragedy reveals one of the reasons why.
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>"Jesus specifically said he was not replacing the old laws. Not a jot or a tiddle".
Oh really, so his sacrifice didn't replace the old sacrifices? I am afraid it is not that simple.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
>"Don't paint Christianity as being a benign and loving belief system. It isn't, and it never was.
I said the teachings of Jesus. I am no theologian, but I can read and understand what he was reported to have said and done. And benign and loving is exactly what he preached.
>"So you have
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>"So you have to add in there the bits about not eating shellfish, wearing mixed thread garments and homosexuality."
Old testament, not Jesus' teachings.
>"It's only in the New Testament that the idea of an eternity of hell for not believing is introduced. Is this moral? NO! It it not. "Love me or burn forever" is not a moral teaching."
Nope. Jesus never said anything about hell- that is an invention of others.
http://www.godsplanforall.com/... [godsplanforall.com]
>"The teachings of Christianity as evidenced in the Bible *are* barbaric. Slavery. Torture. Stonings. The subjugation of women [...] You are commanded to kill your neighbour for working on the sabbath?"
Nope again- Jesus never taught any of that. I think you are still stuck on the old testament.
It's all very confusing. Isn't Jesus and God the same thing? Didn't this god command those things in the old testament? This god is not supposed to change it's mind on things. It's all very schizophrenic.
I take the more reasoned approach: none of it is real. it's all poppycock. It needs to go the way of alchemy and phrenology. In the meantime I maintain the opinion that Christianity is an immortal belief system.
Re:Religion poisons everything (Score:4, Insightful)
It is you who are "cherry-picking", and compounding it with cherry-picking the interpretation you feel is worst.
Jesus said not a "jot or tiddle" would "pass away" until "all was fulfilled". And that he came to fulfill it. Therefore, the Old Covenant was superseded by he New Covenant when he did so, via substitutionary atonement on the cross, that is, when "it is finished". You can claim your view is the mainstream on representing Christianity, but that is merely your inaccurate claim.
Noting that, the OT laws and cultural specifications went a very long way to maintaining a culturally-distinct surviving society under extremely negative conditions. Virtually all other cultures from that time period have ceased to exist. Perhaps, if nothing else, you can acknowledge that these specification have been very effective in a Darwinian or "meme" sense? We'll leave aside the fact that per the only thing you have to judge with, evolution, you have no supportable basis to object to anything. You object to religious norms because of... assimilated religion norms, which you misapply. Your worldview has nothing.
But then, while we're having anachronistic fun with impossible alternate economic and social structures, do you think people living around 0 B.C. should have been entitled to 401k plans, too?
Re:Religion poisons everything (Score:4, Insightful)
The New Covenant and it's applicability is the entirety of the writings of the Apostle Paul, which constitutes the doctrinal core of the entire New Testament. If there is an issue of who hasn't "seriously studied", that issue isn't mine.
It is indeed the case that the OT Law has been superseded in deference to the methodology Jesus himself stated--"love God and your neighbor as yourself, upon this the entire Law and Prophets hang". Being superseded, however, does not mean its content is discarded as reference, which remains fully valid in determining what should be done, -provided proper contextual application is done-. It "passes away" in no more of a sense than physics "passes away" when we apply its principles to a present-day application.
This, "love God and your neighbor as yourself" is the present-day "meta rule" for which the entire cultural and legal content of the OT is to be read and applied toward. There are numerous specific examples of this Jesus performed, such as rejecting the misapplication by the religious "authorities" of the time demanding that he not rescue an injured animal because it would be "working on the Sabbath". Arguable literal correspondence to the text, complete ignorance of the intent and purpose. Jesus corrected that directly.
It amazes me that anyone with even a child's comprehension of even political documents, such as the U.S. Constitution, still insists on such an obvious False Dichotomy equivalent to "Do you accept the Constitution, or do you reject it entirely by applying it in any way other than how I personally interpret the Constitution's intent?" Stop this erroneous argument. Rejecting that in fact the Constitution is the document defining the U.S. legal and structural system is not in question, nor is there an issue of whether it has "passed away", nor can it be discarded. The question is one of interpretation of how it is to be applied, to a current time and context. If you can grasp that, you can grasp this stance on the OT. I'll assume you need some time to grasp this obviousness, and it isn't just direct intellectual dishonesty when you are discussing the particular topic of the bible, using reasoning you apply to nothing else whatsoever.
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Yeah, so your final solution is castratrion or mass graves?
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I want there to be less superstition in the world and you equate that with castration and genocide? Really?
The way to get people to favour reason over superstition is with a secular government and secular education. But more importantly by ridiculing ridiculous ideas. Reasonable people shouldn't pander to someone else's belief in unicorns, goblins or gods. Ridiculous ideas should be ridiculed. Note: I didn't same we should ridicule people, only the nutty ideas they may have. People deserve respect, ideas do
Obama's officials covering up their failures (Score:4, Insightful)
Even without the Internet, this guy could've simply attended a talk by an imam [youtube.com]:
(This sort of bigoted hatred is Ok, but arguing that sayers of such stuff should be carefully watched would get you banned from Facebook [breitbart.com], Twitter [breitbart.com], and Reddit [dailycaller.com].)
At least, he is not blaming an anti-Islam movie by some weirdo [cbsnews.com]...
Re:Obama's officials covering up their failures (Score:5, Informative)
It might have escaped your notice, but a certain holy book beloved of Jews, Christians and Muslims has this rather interesting passage:
"If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."
Leviticus 20:13
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And which Christian priest or Rabby has recently radicalized a young follower with it?..
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I'd say there are a large number of Evangelicals, Mormons and Catholics out there who have expended enormous amounts of energy to block same-sex marriage, and in some cases to actively pursue agendas to deprive homosexuals of civil rights protections and even full enjoyment of civil liberties.
Yes, not as spectacular as shooting them up in a nightclub, but the message is pretty clear "God hates fags". I guess that it's some sort of advancement that most of these groups don't want to actually kill them, but t
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This is true but I don't know what your point is. Our culture has a similarly bad aspect to it so we can't call out another culture's absolutely horrible aspect?
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And they conveniently ignore this one:
‘If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death."
Leviticus 20:10
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It, along with St. Paul's own anti-gay statement in Romans 1:26-27 are the foundations of anti-homosexuality in many strains of Christianity.
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Re:Obama's officials covering up their failures (Score:4, Insightful)
Even without the Internet, this guy could've simply attended a talk by an imam [youtube.com]:
(This sort of bigoted hatred is Ok, but arguing that sayers of such stuff should be carefully watched would get you banned from Facebook [breitbart.com], Twitter [breitbart.com], and Reddit [dailycaller.com].)
At least, he is not blaming an anti-Islam movie by some weirdo [cbsnews.com]...
I know, this stuff is crazy [patheos.com].
The good news is that there’s 50 less pedophiles in this world, because, you know, these homosexuals are a bunch of disgusting perverts and pedophiles.
[...]
But these people all should have been killed, anyway, but they should have been killed through the proper channels, as in they should have been executed by a righteous government that would have tried them, convicted them, and saw them executed.
[...]
That’s what the Bible says, plain and simple.
Oh wait, wrong religion.
Because the crazy imam calling for the killing of gays is totally representative of Islam.
But the crazy pastor calling for the killing of gays is just some nut who has nothing to do with Christianity.
Re:Obama's officials covering up their failures (Score:4, Interesting)
But the crazy pastor calling for the killing of gays is just some nut who has nothing to do with Christianity.
Your point would be more compelling if there was a Christian state throwing gays off the roofs of buildings or involved in a rash of terrorist murders.
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Sodomy was still illegal in 13 states until 2003. The punishments weren't so extreme, but it was still possible for a gay man to be sentenced to prison and hard labor.
Re:Obama's officials covering up their failures (Score:4, Informative)
His argument is compelling, and spot on for truth. People in the US are more in danger from the activities of "christian" fundamentalists than they are from islamic fundamentalists.
The FBI getting in front of Criticism (Score:2, Informative)
The Orlando Police are going to be dogged by the 3 hour delay. The FBI decided that they need to get in front of the public first so they can get forgotten first.
Legitimately and eventually, the Orlando police will have to answer the question, why they wait 3 hours. They are tasked with protecting the public. So, here we have a situation where they (officers could be killed) risk life. And they sat back until some huge amount of force was assembled. Meanwhile the victims, and these are not hostages, but
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Actually they did, no cop entered columbine until after both killers had shot themselves. People bled out. One group of students took it on themselves to carry out a teacher that was bleeding out, saving him.
They were supposed to have changed cop training after that. Apparently not in Florida.
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We're seeing the differences between two hard-set protocols.
Before Columbine, the standard protocol for an active shooter was to wait for force to arrive and organize before storming the building. After realizing how that protocol led to more deaths they changed the protocol to immediately enter and engage the active shooter.
In Orlando the police confirmed that they went from an active shooter to a hostage situation and changed the engagement protocol.
The protocol for dealing with hostage situations is stil
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Actually, after the initial shoot-out with the bouncer and two cops, it turned into a hostage situation. He holed up in the bathroom with some hostages, then came out shooting when the cops broke in to the building.
If he had spent 3 hours executing people, everyone in the building would have been dead.
If you cannot arrest, then spy (Score:2)
Even though law enforcement had insufficient evidence to hold him, he was almost certainly suspicious enough to have his Internet/phone usage and weapons purchases spied on.
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The only reason they had investigated him was because they spied on him. Either way, I don't think anyone should be spied upon remotely, just charge them with a crime or don't. And if you are convinced he is going to do something bad, put a tail on him and then when he approaches the night club guns blazing, shoot him down.
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So far as I understand it, he first came to the FBI's attention after he apparently made some intemperate pro-terrorist statements at work, and someone called the FBI on him.
That was fast! (Score:2)
surveylance (Score:2)
Time for common sense Internet control (Score:4, Insightful)
Countries where people don't have such free access to the Internet don't have these kinds of incidents.
Time for to enact controls on this dangerous assault medium.
No one really needs access to that much Internet.
What's up with these web nuts and their weird pastimes anyway?
Isn't it worth it if we can save just one life?
Our cities are bathed in blood and these Internet companies are profiting from it.
The First Amendment mentioned freedom of "the press". There are no printing presses used to make the Internet.
We just want to register and track Internet users.
And subject them to background checks before they can go online.
And prevent them from using dangerous tools like "encryption" to hide their usage.
We've got to close the WiFi loophole that lets people access the Internet without a background check.
Who could argue with these common sense measures?
If you don't agree with this, you have blood on your hands.
This is an great time to discuss common sense laws (Score:3, Insightful)
A small balm against this madness.. (Score:2)
...also administered by way of the internet.. a little bit of Bloom County [facebook.com]
Do maximize your browser to get this in full size.
Rarely has the dandelion patch been needed as much as these past couple of days.. and this year... and so far, this whole $!@#ing century. I'm so glad Bloom County is back. It was a long dry spell without it. It's only gotten better with age.
I wish I could say the same about the world.
So they finally unvailed the new Bogeyman (Score:3)
and its called the Internet.
Did he have a pen pal? (Score:2)
Saying it was the internet is like saying it was over the telephone or a pen pal in the 70's and 80's. Of course it was over the internet but what part. I've seen some articles that say he had a grinder account and was a regular at that club. The clueless noobs they have in charge at the FBI just need fade out and blow away.
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What I find so amusing about all of this is the people most like to spin stories about every Muslim being a villainous terrorist are also the people most likely to complain about the evil gay lobby.
I love how all the social conservatives who hate Muslims and homosexuals, have now started embracing homosexuals. It's kind of amusing, in a sick and ironic way.
Don't hate gays (Score:3)
Just don't think they should be able to coop the term marriage. They can have all the same rights, just call it something besides gay marriage. Also think husband and wife should be used for a man and a woman exclusively. Be creative, come up with some terms that won't confuse everyone when you bring your wife Bob to the family reunion. Most people supported civil unions but that wasn't enough. Now people are being sued for not baking a cake.
I'm also against the current argument that transsexuals
Re:More likely idea: unbalanced and violent (Score:5, Insightful)
The shooter's old man sounds like a peach, a supporter of the Taliban who basically said, "I never taught my son to kill homosexuals", but then goes on to explain how God will punish them. One can imagine a man from a backwards culture who schooled his son in what to hate, and the son simply took it to the next level. After all, once someone has decided that God's gonna need to start killing some blasphemers, it's not that hard to decide that maybe God needs a helping hand, or in this case, an AR-15.
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but then goes on to explain how God will punish them
I actually like this logic, it means its God responsibility punish them, not yours. It makes sense what kind of impotent God needs you to go around doing their dirty work.
It also works out if you are wrong.
Re:More likely idea: unbalanced and violent (Score:5, Insightful)
I spent some time on a traditionalist Catholic forum, and there's nothing the father of the shooter said that hasn't been said by many Catholic posters on that site. Most of those posters were clearly fluent English speakers, so I'm assuming they were American, Canadian, British, Irish and Australian, so we're talking residents of the First World, and they often had the same view. "Oh sure, you shouldn't attack homosexuals, but you know, they're going to pay for their unnatural acts!"
In fact, in certain religious communities, like traditionalist Catholicism, Evangelical Christianity (and related groups like the Pentecostals, Seventh Day Adventists, and the like), and in conservative Islam, there's an incredible obsession with homosexuality. Some of it may come from Judaeo-Christianity's roots, the Old Testament made it pretty clear homosexuals are to be executed, and even ol' St. Paul made it clear in the New Testament that homosexuals were part of a special group of really bad sinners. And this was passed on to Islam well, but all clearly linked back to the Mosaic laws prohibiting homosexual acts.
You should spend some time on these sites, to get a window into the kind of mind that believes there's an infinite omnipotent being that apparently obsesses about what is done with our genitals, and has a special place in Hell for those that insert them in the wrong place, or who pick a life partner that doesn't fit the narrow view. While Omar Mateen may be at the harsh end of the spectrum, before people pat themselves on the back for being so very secular and advanced, state-level sodomy laws were only finally thrown out in the US in 2003, and major religious organizations like the Catholic and Mormon Churches fought tooth and nail to prevent gay marriage, so while none of them advocated the murder of gays (well, most did it, there were some social conservative types who certainly want to make it illegal again), they were doing everything in their power to deprive homosexuals of full constitutional and legal rights.
I think a number of churches and religious sects really need to do some soul searching. This bizarre, almost fetishistic need to constantly rail against the LGBT community, to invoke conspiracies like the "Gay agenda", to constantly promote fear and, yes, hatred, needs to be confronted.
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Well, some of us are smart enough to know that there is no "Christian agenda", since Christianity encompasses a large number of independent sects and faith groups, and that even within these groups the views on social matters like homosexuality vary widely.
You know, much as how there's no homogeneous Islam, where all Muslims believe exactly the same things, and interpret their holy book exactly the same way.
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Ah yes, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion may not be true, but, y'know, there's this Jewish PR campaign...
It's this sort of thinking that's some distance on the way to out and out hatred of gays. I mean, how dare people in a free and open society take advantage of that, right?
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Which is a lovely interpretation, but not one shared by all Christians. Several hundred million Christians tie this directly to the Levitican ban on gay sex (at least male sex, apparently the ancient Hebrews were like Queen Victoria in disbelieving that lesbians existed).
And that's really the root of the problem. If you're a member of a nice liberal Christian church, you will interpret intemperate passages in a way that doesn't require you to declare certain groups of people sinners that are bound for the f
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http://forums.catholic.com/ [catholic.com]
Take a perusal. This is a site largely populated by various strains of Traditionalist Catholics, and yes, they say some rather intemperate things about the LGBT community.
And what does it matter how many people Jesus killed? His followers have killed plenty. Do you think the Templars went into Eastern Europe with flowers and gum drops to convert all the heathen Prussians and Lithuanians? Christendom's marshal nature has been on display ever since Constantine declared he'd seen a c
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Cheering while watching the events of 9/11. https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
Re:More likely idea: unbalanced and violent (Score:5, Insightful)
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Right wing against gays? Are you insane? Nobody on the right side gives a shit.
Wait, what? All of that hand-wringing after the SCOTUS decision that struck down bans on same-sex marriage, that noise was conservatives not giving a shit?
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By "my news source", you're referring to things like their own Twitter or Facebook posts, right? The actual statements that they released?
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Welcome, 75th trimester brother.
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Because he shot the place up because he hated gay people. Duh.
He also had a documented history of racism, which might explain why he went on Latin Night.
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Because the terrorist has done shooting in that nightclub because it was a gay nightclub?
The fact that it was a meeting place for gay people was more relevant for him doing the attack than the fact that it was a nightclub.
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Are you fucking kidding? 49 people, almost all who were homosexuals, were killed, in a gay nightclub popular in the area, by a man who, from everything we can gather, had a particular grudge against homosexuals.
But nope, nothing at all to do with gays. Nothing at all.
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I didn't say it had nothing to do with gays. I didn't even infer that, so pull your head out of your arse,
I'm saying that as a news headline it's not important. Saying "gay nightclub" is nearly justifying this tragedy on the basis of the kind of people that frequented it. It doesn't. There is no justification for this tragedy.
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What outlet of the media are you watching where you feel it sounds like the shooting is justified?
Re:Why does the media use the term "gay nightclub" (Score:5, Insightful)
Jesus fucking Christ. It was a gay nightclub targeted by a guy who even his father admits had recently become incredibly outraged by the sight of two gay men kissing.
Why is it that certain people are so fucking keen to trying to minimize the anti-LGBT aspects of this crime. It's almost as if they want to be about Islam, or perhaps no matter what it's about, it shouldn't be about homosexuals.
As I say elsewhere, would you complain that the media talked about the attack on a *black* church in Charleston? Do you think that's inappropriate?
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His father claims that they walked into a bathroom that was an active gay cruise; 'men touching each other' were the words used IIRC.
Still no reason to go crazy with a gun, but truth matters. Who started this 'edit' in the first place and why?
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This is one of those events which can be reported several different ways, depending on the slant of the reporting agency. It can be a story about radical Islam, a story about homophobia, a story about gun control, etc, depending on how they want to cover it. In reality all of those things are true, it's not like there's 1 piece to this story. It's about a homophobic ISIS supporter who had free access to guns and a desire to kill.
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Because "anti-Gay" isn't limited to Muslims, and there are many groups in America, many mainstream groups, who make extremely strident anti-gay comments. Do they wish to kill all the gays, well, most of these groups don't, but when you have groups as diverse as the Catholic Church, the Church of Latter Day Saints and several Evangelical churches battling LGBT rights at every turn, you can see that the sentiments of Omar Mateen fall at one end of a continuum, a continuum that is much broader than just Muslim
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And yes, I know being gay isn't a race, but it is an identifiable group, and one that has been the subject of a lot of violence and persecution, both from the State, and from various bigoted groups looking to keep the LGBT in the closet.
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Every time there's a major gay pride event, I see no lack of Christians declaring how appalled they are at all the displays of homosexual love. Various turns of phrase amounting to "Why can't those sodomites stay in the closet" usually come out. I've seen no lack of posts around here during my 13 years posting where some posters show considerable hostility to the LGBT community. It was a few months ago that there were many posters declaring their approval for the "birth gender" bathroom law passed in North
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> Deaths from savage Christians angered by Piss Christ: ZERO
Well, they certainly tried to kill people over a Scorsese movie - firebombing theaters where it was showing. [moviemoviesite.com]
And then there are the 8,000+ killed by christians in the Bosnia genocide. [wikipedia.org]