Mass shooting at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando Florida: Political Discussion [SPLIT]

[hotatlboi]

Re: Florida Gay Club PULSE has been attacked with injuries, and possible hostage situation.

Disallowing a purchase is not the same thing as confiscation.

An important detail that is frequently overlooked with the "you are coming to take my guns" mantra on the right. Virtually all gun control proposals apply to new purchases only.

 

[opinterph]

The AR-15 was designed for war. It's lethality is the same as the military version in single shot mode, …

Some news reports I heard today suggested that the publicly-available-version can be modified to resemble auto performance.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: Florida Gay Club PULSE has been attacked with injuries, and possible hostage situation.

No one has a crystal ball to say yea or nay. However, according to your own logic on immigrants, the fewer the guns, the less likely an act of terror.

If that's true, the police shouldn't have guns either.

The reality is that terrorists and mass shooters (these are not the same) almost invariably choose "gun free" zones to do their dirty deeds. This shows that "gun free" zones are actually "target rich" zones to killers.

I read that the SWAT team took over an hour to get into action. That means the government's best effort involved handing the killer an hour to do as he pleased. If some of the employees had been armed and trained, the response by the good guys would not be delayed by bureaucratic procedure that way; they could have seen the shooter and ended things before very many at all were dead (in this case especially, because someone with a rifle stands out pretty well and unless tactically trained and operating presents a substantial target).

 

[Kulindahr]

It may not have been jihadist as much as homophobic. The shooter's family, and friends, have stated he was not all that religious, but did have a temper, and felt affronted by some public same sex showings of affection that he'd recently witnessed.

I'm not giving too much credence to his 911 call acclaiming allegiance to ISIS. I'm thinking that was more an attempt to raise his profile and get attention.

I'm thinking he was more fanaticised by the current U.S. political landscape, the ascension of extremities, and the vilification of "Others".

As a U.S. born citizen, and his employment as a security guard, he had the rights to buy the weapons that he did. He was further licensed to do so. And, though the F.B.I. had interviewed him several times, regarding his connection to possibly "Islamic Extremism", he had been cleared of concern in that regard.

Perhaps more attention should have been paid to his known bouts of temper, and instances of beating his former wife.

There were indications he was "unstable" in spite of his being Muslim.

The dude was "twisted". No doubt about that!

ISIS is claiming responsibility, so they were in contact somehow.

Why would he feel affronted by the sight of two men kissing? Only because he was brought up to be a bigot. If the parents didn't teach him that, odds are that he absorbed it from Muslim sources.

 

[nycguydowntown]

Re: Florida Gay Club PULSE has been attacked with injuries, and possible hostage situation.

Easy. The killer is not mentally ill. He is jihadist.

Actually his ex wife said she thought he had become mentally ill---BUT---I'm as sick of all these muslim jihadists too---seems mental illness runs rampant with many of these people.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: Florida Gay Club PULSE has been attacked with injuries, and possible hostage situation.

Jihadist and mentally ill are similar, both can be detected.
So why not strict backgrounds checks?? NRA opposed background checks which is criminal in my opinion.

Excuse me, but the NRA was responsible for us having background checks in the first place.

And if you're paying attention, you know that he passed the background checks we have, and was cleared as a security officer licensed to carry weapons as a job.

And the FBI checked him... so just how do you propose to check for the things you say "can be detected"?

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: Florida Gay Club PULSE has been attacked with injuries, and possible hostage situation.

Some types of crime perhaps; terrorism not likely. And immigration serves no US purpose.

Right -- nothing good has ever come from any immigrant to the U.S.


Assertions like this suggest you never finished high school.

 

[sumtingwong]

Re: Florida Gay Club PULSE has been attacked with injuries, and possible hostage situation.

A headline shows the growing disgust with the US's lack of any meaningful gun laws.View attachment 1164536

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=NYDailyNewsTw

Wow! Just Wow! And their BLOOD STILL HASN'T DRIED YET.

How DISGUSTING!

This is how the SHILLarry OPEN-BORDER ONE-WORLD GANG operate. They ROLLED the Red Carpet out for the MURDEROUS MOHAMMEDANS to come here to MASSACRE US, and then LECTURED us the GUNS they used to protect themselves are THEIRS ALONE no matter what our Constitution guarantees us.

Pay close attention to the hips of the men in black surrounding the D-BAG queen SHILLary. Those are not bananas they have on their hips. They are GUNS!

 

[Kulindahr]

False. The AR-15 was designed for war. It's lethality is the same as the military version in single shot mode, and the Army field manual actually recommends single shot mode depending on the situation because of its increased accuracy.

The AR-15 as we have it today was designed for the civilian market; the military version became labeled "M-16". What's called the AR-15 was "designed down" from military standards. If you're going to insist that because in its origin it was aiming at the military as a customer then it was "designed for war", then you've emptied that phrase of all meaning, because every rifle on the planet is descended from one designed for war -- for the simple reason that the military is a wonderful customer if you can convince them to buy your product.

It's lethality is lower than many bolt-action hunting rifles. But even were that not so, saying that "It's (sic) lethality is the same as the military version in single shot mode" merely means it's a safe rifle: lethality is just the ability to deliver a round on target, rather than allowing rounds to stray any old place.

But further, the Supreme Court said in Miller that the Second Amendment specifically protects weapons designed for war, so if that's what you think the AR-15 is, then it's exactly what the Founding Fathers had in mind for U.S. citizens to own.

 

[mikey3000]

Re: Florida Gay Club PULSE has been attacked with injuries, and possible hostage situation.

A few weeks ago I was called bigoted because I posted this video on a thread. After what happened last night, please tell me if this doesn't make a whole lot more sense..

This DOES make a lot more sense.

 

[Kulindahr]

Why is it categorised as an assault rifle?

You believe in doubling down on liberalising gun access.

The USA has uniquely liberal gun laws amongst developed countries, and gun death and mass shootings statistics unequaled by any.
I'm afraid that while I agree with you on plenty of things, you have a blind spot when it comes to guns.

Name one event that was proven to have been prevented by a potential victim having an assault rifle.

The AR-15 isn't classified as an "assault rifle", which is most commonly defined as "An assault rifle is a fully automatic selective-fire rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine".

The AR doesn't have selective fire, so it isn't an assault rifle.


The U.S. has the most ridiculous gun laws among any country, thanks to liberals who keep offering up "gun free" zones guaranteed to attract killers.

Since the only assault weapons involved in this incident were in the hands of the police, I have to agree: people having assault weapons doesn't prevent anything, especially when the response time is slower than a pizza delivery. But if the staff had had a couple of ARs in the back room, do you really think this guy would have been able to kill so many?

The blood here is on the hands of those who guaranteed that people in that night club were defenseless.

 

[Alnitak]

Re: Florida Gay Club PULSE has been attacked with injuries, and possible hostage situation.

If that's true, the police shouldn't have guns either.

The reality is that terrorists and mass shooters (these are not the same) almost invariably choose "gun free" zones to do their dirty deeds. This shows that "gun free" zones are actually "target rich" zones to killers.

I read that the SWAT team took over an hour to get into action. That means the government's best effort involved handing the killer an hour to do as he pleased. If some of the employees had been armed and trained, the response by the good guys would not be delayed by bureaucratic procedure that way; they could have seen the shooter and ended things before very many at all were dead (in this case especially, because someone with a rifle stands out pretty well and unless tactically trained and operating presents a substantial target).

In England, not only do most police officers not carry weapons, 82% have said they do not even want to.

Britain has the 9th lowest rate of firearm homicide in the world.

 

[Alnitak]

The blood here is on the hands of those who guaranteed that people in that night club were defenseless.

Provocative as well as wrong.

 

[nycguydowntown]

Re: Florida Gay Club PULSE has been attacked with injuries, and possible hostage situation.

The only gun laws "rolled back" hadn't had any effect on crime or violence of any kind, according to the government's own figures.

Why do liberals insist on laws that make people feel good but have no effect? Attacks like this have happened in Europe as well, so all the European gun laws haven't kept anyone safe.

This is religious terrorism come to our shores. It was inevitable. And as was noted in this thread already, everything the law enforcement people could do didn't matter one bit to the fifty dead. So who's responsible for the dead? Two: the gunman, and the people who required people at night clubs to be defenseless.

come on I agree that we have to do something about religious terrorism but we fucking can do background checks and BAN assault weapons----this used to be common sense in this country. Would it stop any or all of this ? how the fuck do i know but we have to try something.

 

[Kulindahr]

Some news reports I heard today suggested that the publicly-available-version can be modified to resemble auto performance.

Any semi-auto rifle can be altered to "resemble auto performance". That happens to be a federal felony -- not that such a law would have any more deterrence than the law which made the nightclub a "gun free" zone; it just guarantees to the killers that the other guy will be less able to fire back.

That's what so many people are blind to: that the only real effect of gun control laws is to embolden the killers. California is a great example: every time the state makes it harder for the law-abiding to exercise their Second Amendment right to acquire guns, the police find yet more homemade guns being used in crime. People scoff at the idea of criminals manufacturing guns for a black market, but California has demonstrated that they are already doing so. The only people harmed by the laws are the victims of the criminals; the criminals just keep going.

(BTW, there's word from a source I am not at liberty to reveal that dependable semi-auto weapons can be had cheaper now on the black market in California than legally sold comparable items -- all thanks to gun control. So why is it, since the main result in the "War on Drugs" has been more potent [and lethal] drugs, that people don't see that the result of a "War on Guns" will be more potent guns?)

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: Florida Gay Club PULSE has been attacked with injuries, and possible hostage situation.

Actually his ex wife said she thought he had become mentally ill---BUT---I'm as sick of all these muslim jihadists too---seems mental illness runs rampant with many of these people.

Well, yes -- anyone willing to call ISIS and pledge loyalty is mentally ill by any sensible meaning of the term.

Any triumphalist religion serves as a system for tipping just about everyone with a susceptibility to mental illness over the edge. It's too bad St. Francis' pacifism didn't take over Rome, and that he didn't succeed in converting the Caliph back then.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: Florida Gay Club PULSE has been attacked with injuries, and possible hostage situation.

This DOES make a lot more sense.

His first statement is a lie.

He goes on to employ several fallacies.

So... it doesn't make any more snese; it just matches emotional reactions to this tragedy better than without this tragedy.

 

[Kulindahr]

Provocative as well as wrong.

Not wrong at all: the ONLY reason this killer could get away with shooting as many as he did was because people couldn't shoot back.

Now, if they'd been allowed to be armed, but chosen not to, it would be their responsibility. Since they weren't allowed to be, the responsibility is on those who took away their choice.

 

[hotatlboi]

Some news reports I heard today suggested that the publicly-available-version can be modified to resemble auto performance.

That's true. Since it is basically the same rifle, it only takes a very small piece of metal to convert it to the full auto military version.

Of course that's illegal but still easy to do for anyone that is experienced with firearms.

But even in single shot mode, an experienced operator can achieve a fairly rapid rate of fire because of the low weight, low recoil, and easy trigger mechanism.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: Florida Gay Club PULSE has been attacked with injuries, and possible hostage situation.

come on I agree that we have to do something about religious terrorism but we fucking can do background checks and BAN assault weapons----this used to be common sense in this country. Would it stop any or all of this ? how the fuck do i know but we have to try something.

Most of the time, the only thing that stops these bad guys with guns is good guys with guns. Thus, the rational response is to make sure that there are good guys with guns ready all over the place. Now, if we had a crystal ball so we could see when these killers were going to strike, that would be easy, but since we don't, then the logical approach is to allow law-abiding citizens to be armed wherever they go.

I knew a bar back in Portland who was a deadly shot. Since he wasn't allowed to drink on the job, letting him carry at work would have been a superb way to guarantee a good-guy response in any incident such as this. And given that now that criminals are finding it harder to buy guns as they used to they're manufacturing them themselves, no background check or ban is going to accomplish anything.


BTW, according to the government's own figures, "assault weapons" are only very rarely used in crime, and the temporary ban we had accomplished absolutely nothing.

The place to start is with education, as in teaching everyone firearms safety and to stand up for themselves, and mental health programs, starting with restoring everything that's been torn down since Reagan and then building more in align with what's been learned since, such as community drop-in centers with counselors available (and overnight housing!).

The Democrats appear by the evidence to want laws that burden the law-abiding and do nothing to stop criminals; the Republicans appear by the evidence to want to let society be a jungle where every man is out for himself and to hell with the rest. If we are actually a people -- as in "we, the people" -- neither option is sensible; common sense says we should care for each other, which on the one hand means providing every the training to fight back (and then decide whether to do so, obviously) but on the other hand means providing everyone the resources to not have their lives go so off-kilter that they decide that two men kissing is grounds for killing fifty.

Frak, if I didn't have an elderly mother to care for (and her house), I'd happily provide armed security for a gay bar just for the price of dinner and a drink after work (and dancing with some cute guys, of course) -- not as uniformed security, but as a designated sober guy there to get between a bad guy and his intended victims. And I say that fully realizing that after this one, there are likely to be copycat attacks around the country.


And that reminds me: speaking of "doing something", if we can have rules that say no victims' names are to be released until after the families have been informed, how about a law that says no killer's information can be released until after a conviction? That way, anyone falsely accused is protected, and anyone seeking some sort of twisted fame is deprived.