Early this morning I saw pictures of people lining up for blocks for the blood bank.
Heartbreaking was reading about a mom, whose son texted her to call 911, how he was among others who hid in the bathroom, then the shooter entered. Last time the mom heard from her son.
Neither homophobia nor terrorism/not terrorism is the reason 50 people are dead.
@WorryHurry411 :
The shooter lived in Port St. Lucie, not Orlando, and rented a car to drive to the shooting, he was not a resident of Orlando. Not to say there aren’t homophobes in Orlando, it has more than a few “Evangelical” Christian churches that are not exactly going to march in support of gay rights, but this shooter wasn’t from Orlando.
@lasma:
Really? Then why are 50 people dead?
This is the 174th mass shooting in the U.S. in 2016. That should give everyone pause.
In this time of horror, to quote a wise old priest I saw on a program about 9/11 on faith after 9/11, to find God you have to look at people’s response to the horror, and in this case I think that so many people are rushing to donate blood is a sign of it, think about it, they are responding to people in need without knowing who they were, and in some cases, perhaps donating blood even if they don’t necessarily like or approve of gay people. What heartens me is that I think a lot of people are genuinely angered and shocked at what happened and are sickened, very few people are like the Lt. Governor of Texas or any other mutant who are celebrating this as some sort of judgement of God or whatnot.
Musicprnt, he didn’t take aim and fire his homophobia/terrorism. Homophobia/terrorism didn’t rip through those 50 bodies.
“Homophobia is homophobia, and while I don’t disagree about Islam and homophobia (put it this way, there isn’t an Islamic majority country in the world as far as I know, where you can’t be arrested and jailed for gay sex acts, with penalties ranging from time in jail to being executed), distinguishing between homophobia in the Islamic world and homophobia anywhere else is a mistake, because the underlying principal is the same, whatever the penalties are. Denying gay people the right to marry is homophobic in that it means you are saying their relationships aren’t valid, and it was only in 2003 that the Supreme Court overturned laws that could send someone to jail, felony convictions, simply for having consensual sex with someone of the same sex. When someone thinks that someone else is ‘the other’ or less human, it doesn’t matter the scale that they will go”
Not too long ago, in a number of elections, every single one of the pres/vice pres candidates in the general elections did not support the right to gay marriage (except for Dick Cheney, who did support it). Does that mean that all those people thought gays were less human?
While I have always been fine with gay marriage, even before it became popular to be so, I don’t equate those who are against that stance to be the same as people who think it is perfectly appropriate, and even the law, to murder those who are gay. It’s not all the same.
If everything, every thought, every difference of opinion is extremely offensive…then nothing is.
“Musicprnt, he didn’t take aim and fire his homophobia/terrorism. Homophobia/terrorism didn’t rip through those 50 bodies.”
Yet he could have built a bomb, and killed far more.
I’m not a big gun supporter, and certainly not one of automatic/semi-automatic weapons. But I blame this kind of thing on far more than the weapon. Absolutely crazy that someone like this could have legally purchased a gun.
@musicprnt thanks for the clarification. When I read that it was an “assault rifle” on CNN the definition of one is a select fire (i.e. semi-auto, burst fire, and full auto) rifle. Since those rifles are already heavily regulated under the NFA I was shocked to think that this guy was able to pass the 9 months+ of background checks in order to receive a transferred assault rifle. Apparently that was not the case and he had a regular semi-automatic AR-15 rifle. I don’t want to hijack this thread but I wanted to put the clarification on the weapon used for the attack.
Regardless of our gun control stances, this act of terrorism has me numb. My cousin is an LGBT leader and I had a conversation with him this morning on what happened. We both feel deeply saddened that homophobia exists to the extent that America will have this hanging over our shoulders…
My heart and prayers go out to the families of the victims. No one should have to fear expressing their sexuality and happiness.
Hang in there. If you at Lake Eola tonight, I’ll be there too. With a candle. I’m not going to say much to anyone else just want to be there.
I think the shooter was from Port St. Lucie not Orlando. I’ve heard he rented a van to drive up here to target that club. The shooter at the Plaza Theater also drove into Orlando to commit his crime. That is hard to imagine and they both happened within 24-hours of each other.
I’m going to follow the news as to the killer’s motive. Usually it doesn’t matter to me but this tragedy is so close to me, and now is the biggest act of death by gun in US history, I believe, so I can’t help but wonder what his motive was. It is hard to ignore that he targeted a predominantly gay club. Orlando is very welcoming to all tourists. Whereas Las Vegas markets the “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” a great tag line often repeated, Orlando aims for the Disney crowd and Disney is very GLTB friendly, as they should be, but I get what you are saying about GLTB backlash. There is that here too. I haven’t talked to all my friends and coworkers yet but there will be some who quietly are happy that GLTB folks were gunned down because of their orientation. That is the truth.
This kind of stuff never happens here. Until it does. I don’t think it defines Central FL anymore than other tragedies have defined other communities including what happened in Paris. I did not know the killer had a young son. I am amazed he would kill so many people, and leave his son, for basically nothing. That is how crazy extremism is. But, I am not going to go around hating other people. I think it is almost as disgusting that people here are secretly happy about who was killed. They will hide it well but that is just as sick.
I just fixed my son’s car. Instead of taking it to Pep Boys, and paying a couple of thousand bucks, I took it to a sole proprietor. A few years ago I stumbled into his shop for a small body repair job. He was a nice guy. Funny. Reminded me exactly of the actor in the HANGOVER who does the marriage. So, anyway, while I am waiting I talk to a lady waiting in the lobby there and basically she hates everything and everyone. Except she agreed that the guy fixing our cars was honest and would not over charge us. Right next to her was a big display with a coffee table full of pamphlets about Islam and the Quran. It turns out the business owner is Muslim. I am happy to do business with him. I will continue to live my life free and the way I want and without hate and, if I can do anything about it, so will my wife and kids.
Omar Mateen had no criminal record. He was never arrested. By what law was he ineligible to purchase a gun (sounds like such a dumb question now)? As the FBI official said in the news conference a few moments ago, voicing sympathy for ISIS and the like isn’t a crime in the U.S.A., despite being quite reprehensible. No court, prosecutor or constable could have invalidated his right to own a gun prior to today’s criminal act.
@lasma:
Homophobia is what drove him to act, was the motive, without that motive wouldn’t have shot people. Whether he used an assault weapon, whether he went in their with a suicide bombers vest, whether he chucked a poison gas bomb in there, he killed based on hate, pure and simple.
That doesn’t mean I am in favor of the gun culture or the easy access to guns in the US, just saying in this case it may be a contributing factor in what he was able to accomplish, but isn’t what killed those people, his hate made him do it.
" Homophobia is what drove him to act, was the motive, without that motive wouldn’t have shot people. Whether he used an assault weapon, whether he went in their with a suicide bombers vest, whether he chucked a poison gas bomb in there, he killed based on hate, pure and simple"
We can’t be sure yet, if he wouldn’t have acted upon another target. This may have been a convenient target towards a group of people he hated, however, if he was trying to do a lone wolf terrorist act, he could have chosen another group too. A church, a school, a movie theatre. It’s not like if he wasn’t homophobic than he wouldn’t have done something else. Who knows?
How can we know the motive of a dead man - or even the mental state so soon after the event? You or I might want one thing to be the motive, and it may turn out to be the motive, but absent a convincing manifesto, we kind of have an obligation to allow the motive to remain unknown until a qualified professional does their job.
The ATF has announced that the killer bought both guns legally within the past week. Check CNN.
“How can we know the motive of a dead man - or even the mental state so soon after the event? You or I might want one thing to be the motive, and it may turn out to be the motive, but absent a convincing manifesto, we kind of have an obligation to allow the motive to remain unknown until a qualified professional does their job.”
I would generally agree with that. However, the police did release the fact that he called 911 and pledged his allegiance to ISIS…and for the President to call this an act of terror so soon (which is pretty rare for him), I’d say it’s pretty easy to speculate on the motive.
I agree @50N40W that it is too soon to speculate on motives so soon after the event.
You all think he drove a couple of hours to Orlando and picked out a well-known gay nightclub at random, out of all the possible nightclubs and other places he could have chosen where people congregate? It’s one thing not to speculate. It’s another to ignore what’s in front of your faces, and erase who the victims were here. I think it’s entirely shameful that there have been stories on cable TV news and the Internet that don’t even mention that this was an LGBT nightclub.
As the President said, this was an act of terror and a hate crime.
Separately, there’s one thing that isn’t clear to me: was this person on the no-fly list? If so, would he have been prevented from buying these guns (which he apparently purchased recently) had the legislation which would have barred people on the no-fly list from purchasing guns been passed a couple of months ago? I remember a discussion of that proposed law here after what happened in Santa Barbara.
So the gun drove itself to the scene, load its own magazine, and shot a bunch people? Seems unlikely.
Terrible people kill other people, not guns. Most gun owners are decent, responsible citizens.