Florida Night Club Shooting - at least 20 dead - impact on US elections?

But if one did, would that be at all surprising?

 

Except how does that explain the target? Central Florida has a lot of targets that are World famous with a far wider range of people. Al Qaeda and DAESH understand very much the value of symbolic targets which is why attackers who have been shown to be tied to them attacked the World Trade Center, National Stadium in Paris, and airports. Others have tried to attack Times Square, Seattle Space Needle and the Library Tower in LA. For that matter the Tsarnaev brothers chose a symbolic target that is also famous throughout the world. They didn't target a gay bar in the Combat Zone.

I'm not saying the guy wasn't radicalized but am pointing out that in this shooting and San Bernadino the choice of target isn't one that is well known but is one that the attacker had a personal grievance against.

 

ISIS release horrific video showing bound man being hurled off the top of a building to his death after he was accused of being gay

The brother Omar Mateen, one of the soldiers of the Caliphate in America, carried out a security raid in which he was able to enter into a gathering of Crusaders in a nightclub for followers of the people of Lot. Link

That target is an ISIL specialty.

The evidence is quite clear. You seem to think this is not the explanation, another poster had a wild idea of him actually being homosexual. How about the boring, most logical explanation. Too hard to accept?

 

I'm sure every individual member of ISIS has their own individual motivation for joining. They are already indiscriminate in their attacks, but gays are pretty much game for ISIS due to the Koran's apparent position on gays.

 

if he was a TRUE Christian preacher he wouldn't preach hate actually

 

Eye Witnesses

 

Orlando gunman tied to radical imam released from prison last year, say law enforcement sources

 

Amazing cooperation, show of support, and outreach from local Muslim groups.

The odd thing is that the terrorist who did the killing was born in NYC. Many of the Muslims that are working with police to gather information are immigrants.

Trump's idea of a ban wouldn't have stopped the shooting and might have made the gathering of information even more difficult.

Of course the broad brush Trump paints with might work since many folks won't know anything of the particulars but rush to judgement anyway.

 

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/No_True_Scotsman

 

Yep. This is why there is so little gun violence in Mexico, they have a national gun control policy.

 

Anecdote vs systems thinking

 

Where is South Africa?

 

I don't see why it can't be both -- a mental illness that makes you want to commit mass murder, an affinity for an extremist organization known for killing in extreme ways, a hatred for homosexuals, and a religious ideology that says homosexuality is a sin and that salvation can be found in martyrdom -- these all can work in concert to motivate the crime. It seems like a pointless exercise to tease out motivations that fit well with one another.

Seems selective to call out the Muslim aspect. Our right to own a firearm is enshrined in the Constitution and vigorously defended by a host of Conservative powers. It's hard to take it away from anyone in this environment. His being Muslim probably made it easier to take his guns not harder -- being on some jihadi watchlist is the low-hanging fruit for abrogating rights without due process -- though obviously even then not sufficient.

 

It was second to the U.S. in the study:

 

The love affair with banning assault rifles is a bit odd. Hand guns are involved in far more crime, and are almost as quick and efficient.

 

Is that your assessment of him or are you going through yet a third pointless iteration of the possible explanation? It isn't RJ's, or the shooters, so is it yours or is this some thought experiment? If you have a problem with people coming up with weird motivations you quoted the wrong dude.

It SEEMS like much effort is being made to avoid the explanation the terrorist gave when he specifically called 911 to give one.

It isn't selective because of the ****storm that happens when one is pulled off a plane. As I referenced in the post you quoted, he was apparently guilty of domestic abuse. That could have shut down all of his gun buying abilities.

 

People are naturally lazy thinkers.

 

CBS News - Who is suspected Orlando gunman Omar Mateen?:

Daily Mail UK - Orlando terrorist bought assault rifle and pistol legally - despite being quizzed three times by the FBI investigations over possible terror links

Mateen also held Class D [Security Officer License] & Class G [Statewide Firearms License] per Florida state records.

 

The entire crime statistics of Mexico are not an anecdote. I know you here these buzzwords in arguments and you think they help you make points, but you need to learn how to use them.

The thesis presented is that gun control doesn't work on a state level, because there are neighboring states with lax gun laws, but national gun control would work just fine because other countries with gun control have fewer gun deaths. Mexico has strict national gun control laws. Mexico has a murder rate four times that of the US and a gun homicide rate about twice that of the US. Gun laws don't seem to be reigning in violence in Mexico.

Both of those charts include gun suicides, which to me makes them completely irrelevant. People are not pushing gun control because they are afraid that someday they might shoot themselves in the head, if that was the case they could simply choose not to have a gun. The US is closer to zero firearm homicides per 100,000 people than it is to the nations in the top 10.

Can you point to a few examples where there were substantial, sustained drops in homicide that followed gun bans? Since this is such a magic bullet, there should be dozens of examples where banning guns reduced the murder rate in a country by eighty or ninety percent, right? Just point a few out for me. Don't just show me countries with low homicide and gun control, show that gun control caused the lower homicide numbers with a before and after comparison. Bonus points if the drop did not coincide with a general decrease in crime nationwide at the same time.

One other thing, the homicide rate in the US is close to what it was in the '50s, which is the only time since 1910 that it was lower than now. This without tough new gun laws. We have roughly 3.5 gun homicides per 100,000 people per year, which is certainly sad, but is not some sort of crisis which requires that we trample the rights of law abiding Americans.