Tragic Shooting In Orlando

[Electric]

Originally Posted by T-U-R-T-L-E POWA!

Yes. You are correct. You are not gonna convince me that we don't have a Second Amendment that says our rights to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The answer to crazy muslims is not to take rights from law abiding people with no ulterior motive. I have shown you clearly where lives were saved by law abiding gun owners but that is disregarded for the "we just have to do something...ANYthing" argument. That kind of thinking is why when we go to the airport we have to be all but anally probed by some stupid bureaucrat. That's totally against the 4th Amendment but people don't seem to care that it's the Constitution that is under more assault than anything in this country. So suppose you repeal the 2nd Amendment just as the 18th Amendment outlawed alcohol. Then when it was demonstrably proven that you can't legislate morality we got the 21st Amendment. IF the Second Amendment got repealed and gun violence spiked would you then be for reinstating it?

The theater shooter and sandy hook shooter were not Islamic.

I have shown you an entire country that has don't what we need to do with success.

You have shown me stories about concealed and carry...not assault rifles.

You can sit there and think you've won. But it has just grown tiresome trying to keep you on track and not go off on something not included in what I've been discussin, correcting your "proof" as it is unsupported, and telling you saying that the founders saying people should have guns holds no weight as a defense.

You are just terrible at this argument. If there is a defense to your stance, you are not conveying it

[Refractive Reflections]

Originally Posted by Shark_Blade

America had over 350 mass shootings last year, surprisingly only two were committed by Muslims.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ckwu6XpW0AEDMYF.jpg

Its like people only care about group attacks if they're Muslim but not when they're Christian.

Yet no one cares when Christian groups like Westboro Baptist Church and the KKK have morbid things to say.
https://twitter.com/WBCSaysRepent/st...07751828766720
https://twitter.com/WBCSaysRepent/st...12037572628482

Well, to start off there's a major difference between a violent attack (causing injury and death) itself versus a non-associated party making a morbid/inappropriate/offensive response statement about it on Twitter.

As for the map... you have to reassess as to what were the intentions of these violent crimes individually. Most of the violent crimes that are typically caused in the United States (and usually ignored by society) involve conflict in which the perpetrator wants self-gratifying personal gain, whether it's material (i.e. drug deal gone bad) or emotional revenge against those he/she has a relationship with (i.e. domestic disputes elevated to a murderous extreme). The crimes that make national/international news, is when an individual decides to project their personal frustrations on society, in much more global perspective, in which there is no comprehensible, immediate concrete personal gain for committing murder (especially on a massive scale).

The major point of contention and debate in society is that why is the number of terrorism attacks so high in radical Islam versus other radical ideologies? For example, we don't see the KKK (Ku Klux Klan) commit mass suicide bombings/shootings in the Middle East for Christianity, or hear radical Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Taoists, or Sikhs committing mass murder (at least in such a grand scale as radical Islam) in the name of their religions. The pursuit in trying to answer that question has created a wide variety of responses ranging from geopolitical to more controversial religion-focused statements.

[Shark_Blade]

[Andrew NDB]

All I will say is... horrible, terrible tragedy. I hope the perpetrator burns in Hell eternal if such a thing is real. And I'm all for making sure there is a reasonable system in place to ensure gun owners are appropriately background checked and of sound mind and are appropriately versed in proper gun safety. Beyond that?

They are never, ever going to take our guns away. It's not going to happen. You don't like that? That makes you scared to walk down the street? There are many other countries where you don't have to worry about having that right. Go wild.

[Commenter 42]

Pretty sure I don't need to read a single post in this thread to know what's going on here.

Caught some of the story on CNN, which slants and skews everything, always trust them to distort any and all information.
It's ****ing wrong, and there's no justification. There's no argument that makes killing people in a nightclub okay.
Dude could have been a crazy Christian as easily as a Muslim. Religion is the root of all evil, not the guns.

Theism is the most divisive construct we've ever created, next to Capitalism. It's sad that we have insights into the very essence of the universe, an unprecedented network to communicate across the globe instantaneously, tools to remake our world into a veritable utopia, and instead, we all get worked up over whose doing what to whom with their dick.

Our species just doesn't appreciate what we've got.

[ProactiveMan]

It's part of our behavioural MO to align ourselves with groups of other people. If it isn't religion, it's something else. The twentieth century saw more human beings killed than any century prior, and by some estimates, all others combined, and mostly at the hands of secular ideologies. WWI, the Russian Revolution, WWII, the People’s Revolution etc. None of these were religiously motivated, and the worst of them were actively trying to extinguish religion.

It doesn’t matter what ideas are behind a movement, people will violently align themselves with it because it scratches some kind of instinctual itch. People like to belong, they like to feel important, and they fear the reverse and all that it implies.

Edit: I feel awful about the shooting; everyone at work is pretty depressed. Things like this make people feel helpless, and I guess that’s where the focused anger comes from, but looking for scapegoats will only serve to make you feel better; it won’t solve the problem.

[T-U-R-T-L-E POWA!]

Originally Posted by Electric

The theater shooter and sandy hook shooter were not Islamic.

I have shown you an entire country that has don't what we need to do with success.

You have shown me stories about concealed and carry...not assault rifles.

You can sit there and think you've won. But it has just grown tiresome trying to keep you on track and not go off on something not included in what I've been discussin, correcting your "proof" as it is unsupported, and telling you saying that the founders saying people should have guns holds no weight as a defense.

You are just terrible at this argument. If there is a defense to your stance, you are not conveying it

First of all, I have shown that you don't know what an "assault rifle" actually is. Because you don't. Second of all, I have shown that Australia, as a continent, has less people than California, as a state. Apples to oranges. I understand that liberals live in a land of fairy tales where the gvt can solve all their problems, and in a sense the gvt could solve this problem, by telling more people that they have a Constitutional right to keep and bear arms and if they want to be actually protected they should protect themselves instead of waiting for some unelected bureaucrat to do it for them. As soon as this coward realized help was on the scene he apparently took his own life. When I say "help" I mean a gun. Why didn't he carry out his rampage at a gun show? Or maybe a shooting range? Because there people exercise their right to self preservation. But go ahead and trust the gvt to distinguish what's an "assault rifle" and what's not. If you feel they are capable of doing that then you have a right to your opinion. I absolutely, however, do not. These morons can't even agree on what to name a post office most of the time.

[Commenter 42]

Originally Posted by ProactiveMan

It's part of our behavioural MO to align ourselves with groups of other people. If it isn't religion, it's something else. The twentieth century saw more human beings killed than any century prior, and by some estimates, all others combined, and mostly at the hands of secular ideologies. WWI, the Russian Revolution, WWII, the People’s Revolution etc. None of these were religiously motivated, and the worst of them were actively trying to extinguish religion.

It doesn’t matter what ideas are behind a movement, people will violently align themselves with it because it scratches some kind of instinctual itch. People like to belong, they like to feel important, and they fear the reverse and all that it implies.

Theological argumets instigate, and propagate otherness. Yes, racism is an innate defense mechanism, but religion is the parasite that stimulates the itch; symbolism devised to bind and exclude. It's elevated tribalism.

As for the number of Humans killed in the 20th century, I call foul - if not for the industrial revolution, and vaccines, we'd have stayed at the 1 million mark.

And the driving force, as you say is religion; but one over the other, not the abolishment of it full stop.

It's a tool for war and subjugation, not freedom or peace.

[Mayhem]

Ah, I knew it would only be time before the debate about the Second Amendment would come up. Personally, the way it was written at the time, I've taken to mean is was to allow the people to take arms and rise up against a tyrannical government as a militia. It took until 2007 and a Supreme Court Ruling (by only 3-2 I will add) that finally "ruled" that it means what a lot of Americans have always (erroneously until that point imo) taken it to mean, which was just anyone can own a firearm and that right should not be infringed.

Except not everyone should be allowed to own a firearm. That's probably another discussion though.

The link posted earlier in the thread detailing 12 mass shootings that were stopped by civilians acting with their own firearms? Fine, that's 12 shootings that were prevented. That's 12 examples though, over the course of what, about 15 years (judging by the dates given in the article)? Since the start of THIS YEAR, there have been 133 mass shootings in the US ("mass shooting" defined as at least 10 people either wounded or killed). Examples my arse, that's basically an ant size strawman argument against a juggernaut elephant gun.

As already mentioned as well, there are approximately 320 million weapons in the US. You can't think about taking legal guns out of circulation until you deal with the illegal ones, because the population won't buy it at all, there are just too many held by criminals. And the war on illegal weapons? God knows how much that would cost. The problem is, the vast majority of the mass shootings have been carried out with LEGAL weapons.

Thus bringing me back to the statement about "not everyone should be allowed to own a firearm" here. But that would get the right wing zealots frothing, even though all I want to see really are vastly better background checks (especially at gun events), limits on certain ammunition purchases, a limit on how many weapons a person can own, and removal of assault rifle style weapons from public hands. That isn't so difficult or painful... is it?

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by Commenter 42

Pretty sure I don't need to read a single post in this thread to know what's going on here.

Caught some of the story on CNN, which slants and skews everything, always trust them to distort any and all information.
It's ****ing wrong, and there's no justification. There's no argument that makes killing people in a nightclub okay.
Dude could have been a crazy Christian as easily as a Muslim. Religion is the root of all evil, not the guns.

Theism is the most divisive construct we've ever created, next to Capitalism. It's sad that we have insights into the very essence of the universe, an unprecedented network to communicate across the globe instantaneously, tools to remake our world into a veritable utopia, and instead, we all get worked up over whose doing what to whom with their dick.

Our species just doesn't appreciate what we've got.

This. All of it.

And I'll just throw in my 2 cents about gun control..

You could melt down every single firearm in the world, but then there's still always gonna be IED's, chemical/biological warfare, the list goes on. Guns aren't the problem.

[Candy Kappa]

Originally Posted by Shark_Blade

http://i.imgur.com/YEHurmh.png
http://i.imgur.com/WYlXFLj.png

It's great that large groups openly condemns this, and hopefully more of this will reach the public.

[ProactiveMan]

Originally Posted by Commenter 42

Theological argumets instigate, and propagate otherness. Yes, racism is an innate defense mechanism, but religion is the parasite that stimulates the itch; symbolism devised to bind and exclude. It's elevated tribalism.

As for the number of Humans killed in the 20th century, I call foul - if not for the industrial revolution, and vaccines, we'd have stayed at the 1 million mark.

And the driving force, as you say is religion; but one over the other, not the abolishment of it full stop.

It's a tool for war and subjugation, not freedom or peace.

I'm not talking about racism specifically, although it is an example of tribalism, and sure, religion thrives on 'otherness'; so does every other kind of ideology.

It doesn't matter why there were more people in the 20th century, the point is they were killed by ideological movements other than organised religion.

The 'abolishment' I was talking about came from mostly from political movements. Maoism, Communism, National Socialism etc. They sought to extinguish the influence of traditional religion and replace it with their own secular ideologies. I'm not saying this is any worse than the many examples of one religion trying to supplant another; it's the same thing, born of the same impulse.

[Commenter 42]

Originally Posted by ProactiveMan

I'm not talking about racism specifically, although it is an example of tribalism, and sure, religion thrives on 'otherness'; so does every other kind of ideology.

It doesn't matter why there were more people in the 20th century, the point is they were killed by ideological movements other than organised religion.

The 'abolishment' I was talking about came from mostly from political movements. Maoism, Communism, National Socialism etc. They sought to extinguish the influence of traditional religion and replace it with their own secular ideologies. I'm not saying this is any worse than the many examples of one religion trying to supplant another; it's the same thing, born of the same impulse.

...

So effectively, Humans suck, because we can't escape our nature.

...

Dude, I'm well aware.

Any group of humans require a shared ideology once numbers rise above 2. If we are to share the same space, for almost any period of time, a system is required.

What is not absolutely necessary, in any form, is the worship or belief in the supernatural. That can be flushed away, and we'll all be just fine, It's more trouble than it's worth.
And yes, it absolutely does matter why the numbers are what they are; pointing to the wars of the twentieth century is a fallacious argument, external factors, like a population explosion, erode all points of comparison to past events.
We could get into the percentages, but do you know how many slaves died to build the Pyramids? Do you have the numbers of how many humans were on the planet at the time?

[The Deadman]

Originally Posted by sdp

I don't really want to get into the debate but I'll say that ignoring islam as a problem because not all Muslims are murderers is the same defense gun activists use that guns aren't a problem it's the people who use them to kill.

But it's not like guns are growing lips and telling people to use them to go on rampages like this. It's sad how people would rather blame an object over the people that are actually pulling the trigger.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Commenter 42

What is not absolutely necessary, in any form, is the worship or belief in the supernatural. That can be flushed away, and we'll all be just fine, It's more trouble than it's worth.

There was a time that mankind did need that, but it did outstay its welcome quite some time ago. It's more a of a crutch for the weak nowadays, but I get that it can be pretty deeply ingrained from an early age and a bit hard to shake. Probably harder in third world countries.

If the only thing stopping someone from doing bad things is a spanking from Space Daddy, they have deeper issues at play.

[plastroncafe]

Guns are a problem.
The people holding the guns are a problem.
This is a multi-faceted problem that isn't going to have a single solution.

Could this have been avoided entirely? Probably not.
Holy Rollers of all stripes have it out for the LGBT community. Always have.
From bathroom bills to denial of next of kin protections. Oh they'll couch it in the name of "Family Values" and "Traditional Values" but that doesn't stop them from praying for the destruction of their fellow man.

Could this have been lessened to a substantial degree with sensical gun laws? I don't have a doubt in my mind.

This guy was on an FBI watch list, and allowed to buy a gun that is capable of having a 100 round capacity. They probably let him do it because they were hoping to catch a bigger fish than him, and in that gamble 50+ people were injured and 50+ people have been killed.

American Foreign Policy sucks out loud. Always has.
We're incapable of playing the long game, and we have a nasty tendency to prop up monsters in the name of cheap oil.

[IndigoErth]

For all the good that can exist and COULD if we'd allow it... we continue to be a pretty terrible species. And why. Because there's a paranoia that there is always someone out to get us? That equality and equal respect for all is somehow fundamentally going to change our cozy little world? The world was never cozy to begin with! I guess a man in the sky isn't doing what people think it would over things they THINK it supposedly doesn't like, so they have to take it upon themselves?

Some days I regret having to have been born human.

I don't even get how our laws for what is okay and not are so frigging messed up.

Nunchucks... probably not lethal in most cases; capable of putting some distance or basic barrier between you and a possible assailant with one and you'll be okay. Still illegal in some states.

Throwing stars... also probably not lethal in most cases; thrown once before having to be retrieved, doesn't possess any multi-fire ability. Illegal in many states.

[insert every stupid knife law]

Assault riffle... intended for rapid multi-fire and mowing down people in combat. Legal? Sure why the hell not. Wtf.

[plastroncafe]

Let's not forget that we're not allowed to fly with a carry-on containing more than 3 oz of any given liquid. Or without first taking our shoes off. Or without either being molested by security staff or subjected to a full body radiation scan.

It's allergy season, I'll just go to the store for some Sudafed. Oh right, there's a limit to how many I can buy at one time, and I have to show ID in order to purchase a decongestant.

I need to pass an eye exam, written and practical test to get a license to operate a motor vehicle.

[pannoni1]

My prayers and condolences for all of the victims, their families, friends, advisors, and guardians who experienced or felt the impacts of this indescribable tragedy. This should be taken as a message to anyone who ends up in any public location to always keep a mindful for the quickest way to communicate with authorities and to understand the risks and dangers along with knowledge of understanding what can happen. It doesn't help that religion and spirituality is more hated in more public places than at anytime in history; without such protective forces, people will continue to lose the sense of soberness and will witness more tragedies far too often to the point that not even a social revolution will stop this. Just look at the media with all of the candid pics of his house, promoting such franchises as Star Wars and TMNT itself to the point that they want the "star" of this to be the killer, not the victims which is what we should care about.

[Electric]

Originally Posted by The Deadman

But it's not like guns are growing lips and telling people to use them to go on rampages like this. It's sad how people would rather blame an object over the people that are actually pulling the trigger.

No ones saying guns are committing these tragedies. That's a horrible argument. Guns just make it significantly easier for people to do them. And we're legally giving them to just about anyone. That stupid saying "if guns kill people then spoons make people fat" is so off and dumb. You know how people get fat? They eat a lot of unhealthy food. Ever been on a diet before? The solution is to remove unhealthy food. Why can't people understand that's correct analogy to such an unrelated situation.

It'd be harder to harvest crops with a scythe than a tractor.
It's be much harder to get to work without a car.
Similarly it'd be much harder to slaughter 50 people and injure 50 more with out an assault rifle.

These horrible weapons make it so much easier to commit these terrible mass shootings. And unlike a car or a tractor, these assault rifles offer no other true purpose in our world. They don't help private citizens in any way.