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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2016 20:38:21 GMT
We have discussed earthquakes, revolutions, tsunamis and other terrorist attacks on this site, so it seems normal that we should also discuss what happened in Orlando today.
Naturally there are no words adequate to describe such an event, but that hasn't stopped people on Twitter, Facebook and other websites from "solving the crime" and passing verdict. I think that all of us have things that pass through our minds about such an event, especially when the perpetrator has been identified, but I myself am not ready yet to point my finger in a specific direction.
Obviously there is the Islamic extremist angle and also the homophobic angle, and perhaps both of them are mixed together. But I am waiting to learn more -- for example, maybe the guy was even a regular customer, because that is exactly the distance that a lot of such people will drive to go to an establishment where they won't run in to anybody that they know. He was clarly in love with selfies, and that is already saying something.
The victims are the principal tragedy, but I am also thinking of how many families are discovering that they had gay children or siblings, simply because they became victims (not forgetting that you don't at all have to be gay to go to a gay club from time to time).
So many people seem to think that they know everything about this event already while I feel that I know nothing -- except the body count.
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Post by onlyMark on Jun 12, 2016 20:47:47 GMT
I wonder how long it will be before someone pro-guns will say it wouldn't have happened if the clubbers had been allowed to be armed.
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Post by htmb on Jun 12, 2016 20:56:25 GMT
I live two hours from Orlando by car, and reports have been on our television news all day. I haven't been able to bring myself to start a thread, so thanks for doing so, Kerouac.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2016 21:07:29 GMT
I am also very curious as to why it took the police three hours to enter the club.
There was all sorts of (probably unjustified) criticism at the Bataclan in Paris about how "slow" the police were to enter the building. The killers entered the Bataclan at 21:42 and the first policeman who ran in and shot one of them (causing his vest to explode) entered at 22:00, followed by some of the anti-terrorist brigade at 22:15. The full police assault didn't begin until 00:18, when the body count reached 90. Not exactly a glowing success (but not forgetting that there were 1500 people inside), and what would have happened if they had entered an hour earlier?
So I really want to know why the Orlando police waited for three hours. And I am not accusing them -- they probably had a very good reason.
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Post by htmb on Jun 12, 2016 21:14:43 GMT
I have been asking the same question.
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Post by mich64 on Jun 12, 2016 23:11:08 GMT
I was up very early this morning and this was on every news channel. Horrible, just horrible. And now, so much speculating. Hopefully in the coming days the families will learn the facts.
What I will never understand is when I hear the reports of "how did this person ever get in there with a gun!?", and then the next report, "if people inside had guns, they could have shot him." How does this make any sense?
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Post by bjd on Jun 13, 2016 5:48:52 GMT
I am not bothering to read most of the coverage -- one more mass killing with an assault rifle. On last night's news here, the screen showed a Twitter post from Trump about the awful killing. What they didn't emphasize was the one just below asking Trump when he would stop supporting the NRA.
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Post by onlyMark on Jun 13, 2016 6:18:59 GMT
What I will never understand is when I hear the reports of "how did this person ever get in there with a gun!?", and then the next report, "if people inside had guns, they could have shot him." How does this make any sense? Mich, did you notice my post just after K2's original? These people are so predictable.
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Post by bjd on Jun 13, 2016 6:51:29 GMT
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Post by onlyMark on Jun 13, 2016 7:24:35 GMT
"She had brought a selection to show me from her collection of nearly 50 weapons, including exactly the type of firearm used in the Pulse nightclub, the AR15 semi automatic rifle. "It's just like buying a new pair of shoes - I wanted to add it to my collection. I love it," she said." "It's not the gun that kills people. It's the person behind it."
The gun kills people you stupid twat. It's difficult to shoot someone if you don't have a gun. You could throw the bullets at them instead though I suppose. See how well that goes.
"Carol adds that "the secret to all of it is education" . She believes proper safety training should be compulsory for those who buy guns, "just like a driving test".
That then makes it safer for the shooter not to kill himself rather than those he/she is targeting and/or I'm sure we all know taking a driving test makes you into a safe driver, always, and there never are bad drivers.
"If any of us had been in the nightclub that night, this would not have happened".
Yes it would and no doubt you would have killed several people with your panicky shots as well. Friendly fire, blue on blue, whatever you want to call it. Plus, you would make yourself a special target for the shooter.
Idiots.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 13, 2016 9:50:12 GMT
Yes, and we really want people who've been drinking and sniffing whatever to be walking around in a club armed to the teeth. Imagine how safe it would have been in Marseille with the Russia and England "fans"!
Ghastly, ghastly story.
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Post by questa on Jun 13, 2016 13:03:29 GMT
Sorry...I had not noticed this thread and started one in Beacon, port and starboard, which I thought was for commentary.
All I can say is what grieves and wearies me is how long does it take? how many have to die? before the good people of USA take on the NRA and others and get their elected leaders to make and enforce gun laws that fit today's circumstances not those of past centuries. You don't need the weapon used in Orlando for hunting or target shooting. Its one purpose is to kill or maim as many of enemy troops as possible in the shortest time possible. There will always be crazies, but if they can only have knives or lesser firearms the massacres will be less. As for selling a semi-automatic to a known radical Muslim with a record of uncontrolled violence...what went wrong there? Maybe the gun sellers should be imprisoned as well.
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Post by questa on Jun 13, 2016 13:17:53 GMT
bjd , your link contains an ironic gem
"Carol Ruh believes President Obama, and maybe Hillary Clinton after him, want to tear guns away from their rightful owners, from what she calls right-thinking Americans."
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Post by bjd on Jun 13, 2016 13:29:18 GMT
Yes, Questa -- I was struck by that sentence too.
You realize that "elected" leaders are also being elected by crazies like this woman, so they won't change anything.
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Post by onlyMark on Jun 13, 2016 15:30:23 GMT
Also - "This is not a country that will be invaded. Because the common person, the majority of us, owns a firearm".
Nothing to do with geography, a logistical nightmare nor the most powerful military in the world then?
The best that could happen is that there might be an organised guerilla resistance if the population has ready access to firearms, but I'd say the likely outcome is gang warfare, riots, looting and selfishness.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 13, 2016 15:55:10 GMT
Yes, who the hell is going to invade them? The only contiguous neighbours are Mexico and Canada.
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Post by onlyMark on Jun 13, 2016 16:15:22 GMT
Mexico is invading by stealth anyway.
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Post by htmb on Jun 13, 2016 17:06:52 GMT
I am also very curious as to why it took the police three hours to enter the club. There was all sorts of (probably unjustified) criticism at the Bataclan in Paris about how "slow" the police were to enter the building. The killers entered the Bataclan at 21:42 and the first policeman who ran in and shot one of them (causing his vest to explode) entered at 22:00, followed by some of the anti-terrorist brigade at 22:15. The full police assault didn't begin until 00:18, when the body count reached 90. Not exactly a glowing success (but not forgetting that there were 1500 people inside), and what would have happened if they had entered an hour earlier? So I really want to know why the Orlando police waited for three hours. And I am not accusing them -- they probably had a very good reason. According to a news report I just heard, the gunman barricaded himself inside a bathroom with several hostages, and the police tried unsuccessfully to negotiate with him before knocking a hole in the side of the building.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 13, 2016 18:53:40 GMT
Sorry...I had not noticed this thread and started one in Beacon, port and starboard, which I thought was for commentary. Technically you are right, Questa, but all of the other disaster/attack/tragedy threads have been started on the various country threads, which is probably also right. After all, we are not likely to start a debate on "normal people are good/terrorists are bad" so the country threads make it easier to find the topic, even at a later date. Obviously since I was in Paris for the Paris attacks, I was able to provides lots more "Paris-specific" information. I hope that nobody here ever has the opportunity to be as "fortunate" as I.
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Post by questa on Jun 14, 2016 0:42:06 GMT
Warning...this may be upsetting for some.
When you are seeing and hearing it on the news, you are getting a 'cleaned up ' picture. Indonesia does not do that and the difference shocks you more. I was in Jogja when there were several bombs detonated and in Lombok when the 2 bombs killed 202 people in nearby Bali. TV showed people scrabbling through the bodies looking for loved ones. One man was carrying a leg while he searched, sobbing, for the rest of his brother. The reporter told of the smell (I won't go there). The dust and smoke from the collapsed buildings and small fires was still burning and had to be brushed off the camera while still rolling. No clear lucid interviews...people spoke with quivering voices and gulps, not even looking at the interviewer, but around with disbelief. The wailing and calling out to other searchers was eerie as the area was usually a cacophony of motor bike engines.
We do get used to our news sanitised.
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Post by nycgirl on Jun 14, 2016 2:09:17 GMT
This is so sad, I almost can't stand watching the news coverage. It just breaks my heart. I am also trying to avoid reading the pro-gun rhetoric and homophobic rants in the comments section of the various news articles. I believe the overwhelming majority of the population is good-hearted, but the small, vocal minority of compassionless people are sickening.
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Post by chexbres on Jun 14, 2016 6:18:43 GMT
I think it is very sad that "admitted homosexuals" must refrain from having sex for one year before they will be cleared to give blood. How does anyone know if they did or didn't? How does anyone know if "straight" people have sex with someone who is infected with HIV?
Trump suffers from the worst case of cranial-rectal inversion that I've ever known.
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Post by questa on Jun 14, 2016 7:04:03 GMT
Wisely observed and diagnosed, Dr Chexbres. It is apparent that the buccal cavity is badly infected, and as the neural paths to the entire cerebral region have atrophied and are non-functional, any attempt by the patient to communicate orally results in the manifestation of the new syndrome of ignoremesis.
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Post by bjd on Jun 14, 2016 7:32:15 GMT
I just watched a debate on France24 about the Orlando shooting. Guests were a French rep of LGBT, who said it was simply homophobia and nothing else; a rep of Islam-defence groups, who said it was another opportunity for people to condemn Muslims, while agreeing that it was homophobic; and a member of Republicans Abroad, who claimed that the killer and Edward Snowden were both working for security services! What??? The moderator called him out on that, but this idiot was just that, spouting the Republican line about guns being "our culture and tradition" and in 9/11 there were no guns, so the killer would have found something else because he was connected to ISIS.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2016 9:04:53 GMT
Hmmm, it appears that Omar Mateen went to that club a number of times and drank heavily. He must have had some serious issues with himself.
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Post by mickthecactus on Jun 14, 2016 11:20:01 GMT
He doesn't now.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 14, 2016 12:16:38 GMT
nycgirl, there is a small clique of "haters" infesting social media and comments sectors, but I fear that they do reflect the continuing presence of racist, misogynist and homophobic prejudice, and worse, prejudice tainted with violence - I think of that white supremacist creep who killed several African-American people at prayer in a historic church. Here, CBC/Radio-Canada (the public broadcaster) has banned any comments to news stories about Aboriginal Canadians because of the virulent hatred of Natives below the line.
There is a well-known phenomenon of "self-hatred" among groups experiencing discrimination and stigma; if the killer was a closet gay, that doesn't make it any less a homophobic act.
Kerouac, there was one Université de Montréal building between L'Institut polytechnique and the social sciences building where I was writing a graduate history exam, the night of the misogynist mass killing there. But of course I knew absolutely nothing about it at the time. Everyone here and there was absorbed in our exams and final course work.
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Post by chexbres on Jun 14, 2016 12:27:26 GMT
Dr Questa - kerouac - I didn't see anything about the gunman having been seen at The Pulse. That would make his story more interesting, if anyone cared about him other than his momma. I did hear lots of comments from his former wife, who said he was an abusive drunk who beat the hell out of her. Odds are very good that he was able to purchase the weapons over the internet or bought them illegally from someone who bought them legally at one of those famous "Gun Shows". Or, they might have been stolen.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2016 12:43:37 GMT
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Post by bjd on Jun 14, 2016 13:31:51 GMT
And his guns were bought legally, according to the BBC article. Also that Florida has very lax gun laws.:
The answer (to how he got the guns): "He did so legally, from a gun shop called the St Lucie Shooting Center.
"An evil person came in here and legally purchased two firearms from us," said store owner Ed Henson in a press conference outside the store. "He passed a background check that every single person who purchases a firearm in the state of Florida undergoes."
According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Omar Mateen bought a 9mm semiautomatic handgun and a .223 caliber AR rifle in Florida, within the last ten days, and within the bounds of state and federal laws.
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