I read that book last summer - absolutely fascinating and I highly recommend it.
In 2005, but there is no record of anything more recent than that, and the videos are not that old. Apparently he moved home last year. I’m not trying to make a point here. I am trying to find out if there is any information out there that confirms that he viewed or was aware of the videos. I can’t find that information.
Can you just imagine the logical rollout of the gun proponent’s position? We just all carry guns. No need to try and understand someone else’s point of view when they are arguing in the checkout line, or roll your eyes quietly, or fume silently – size them up with your own POV/political leanings/religious beliefs, and then pre-emptively shoot them if they are being difficult. Then the person in line next to you can decide YOU are the threat, and open fire on you. Help the policemen out! Or, shoot them if they are infringing on your civil liberties. (My cousins are police officers. I get the impression that officers are most in danger when intervening in domestic disputes or property arguments)
And schools! There’s no distraught teens who might unlock the teacher’s drawer and shoot the rejected suitor, the difficult grader, the bully from the bus. No curious elementary student with a sneaky streak. No irate employee who feels like their evaluation from the state was unfair.
If you lived overseas, would you send a student here for a semester abroad? After Newtown, I gave up hope that we would ever address gun over-ownership here. If you can kill children, with no self-examination as a nation, what would it take? Maybe it takes a mass shooting every few days. I believe we can support the 2nd amendment and still try to fix what seems to be a gun-related problem. I am gun-trained and think most owners are incredibly responsible – but something needs to change.
Greenbutton you forgot one of the most likely scenarios: you’re upset and impulsively take your own life.
What laws would you change or create?
Only in America!!
Only in 'Murica! 
Nixon has been dead for years, give it a rest.
Right. But certainly not France.
Or England. Or Spain.
I heard just a little bit of the press conference in my car on the way back from my bike ride. Did they say the Go Pro assertion was untrue or just a rumor?
Yea, @zoosermom, because in England, Spain and France mass shootings are SO, SO common.
Here’s something to consider: in 2015 in the USA, there have been more mass shootings than days.
The people at the FBI press conference said there was no evidence of a Go Pro.
Now they are being very conservative though so they clarified that there was no evidence that they know of for the go pro.
Interesting that a neighbor noticed very suspicious activity in their garage in the days before the attack but decided not to call the police because she didn’t want to be accused of racism or racial profiling. Reminds me of the ticket counter guy on 9-11 who was very suspicious of one of the hijackers, but decided not to follow up for the same reason.
@TomSrOfBoston You need to bone up on your pop culture references. 2010s not 1970s.
We have a shot gun, rifle and three handguns and I think this proposition is totally inaccurate.
“We just all carry guns. No need to try and understand someone else’s point of view when they are arguing in the checkout line, or roll your eyes quietly, or fume silently – size them up with your own POV/political leanings/religious beliefs, and then pre-emptively shoot them if they are being difficult. Then the person in line next to you can decide YOU are the threat, and open fire on you. Help the policemen out! Or, shoot them if they are infringing on your civil liberties. (My cousins are police officers. I get the impression that officers are most in danger when intervening in domestic disputes or property arguments)”
When you grow up with guns and you live in the country, everyone has guns. You are taught they are not toys from an early age and taught that you never point one at another person. I know I must be the only person on this site that feels this way but let me say that people kill people. And while I am at it…I know several people have mentioned white Christians as being like these suspects…I do not see roving bands of Presbyterians killing people. The planned parenthood defendant may self-identify as a Christian but he has been described as a mentally ill person acting by himself. He did not have body armor or friends with explosives. Both are horrible and tragic but are not the same. This looked like terrorism. It was well-planned out and they used masks and had an escape planned. The Boston bombing was terrorism. The Ft. Hood shooting was terrorism. Let’s just call it what it is.
What’s your point, Katliamom?
Here’s a nuanced assessment.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/12/03/obamas-inconsistent-claim-on-the-frequency-of-mass-shootings-in-the-u-s-compared-to-other-countries/
(Forgot the link!)
What gun laws would all of you change or create?
Thanks for the links on Dear’s religious beliefs.
However, you all are still not taking a distinction I am taking, which I think is very important and salient here - Dear was already considered a nut job, not because of his religion, but because he generally was. For years, people were already avoiding him and reporting him to police for bizarre activities, such as torturing animals, stalking and peeping tom etc. Therefore, him thinking terrorists were God’s heroes is not a stretch. The guy is nuts.
My position is Islamic terrorists are not nuts, and that is why this is a much more serious issue. They are initially normal, often viewed as upstanding citizens, who somehow get a switch flipped and then rationalize doing what they know is extremely wrong behavior - and basing that behavior solely on their religion. No one thought these people were nuts, and no one had a long police record like Dear, and no one was off the grid like Dear. In fact, CNN kept reporting these were normal Americans before yesterday. Same goes for the Ft. Hood shooter et al. In contrast, there was little normal about Dear.
There are very few like Dear, but this CA situation indicates that there might easily be thousands of normal, living-the American-dream Muslims who are suspect to being switched to do what these people just did. And that is the problem, as I think @Hunt implied, could your normal, fun-loving neighbor and your coworker be radicalized and thus become a danger to you and your family? That is a total religious-based conversion, not a nut-job that normal people tried to avoid.
And that is the problem of trying to compare a nut-jobs who reads the Bible with normal people who then one day justifies killing people in the name of religion - one is motivated solely by religion who does the totally unexpected; one is nut who one expects to do something crazy and even dangerous at a some point - they are not even close to the same things.
@zoosermom
My point is what I said. Even the source you cited largely confirms it.
I did grow up with guns, and I do live in the country. And as I already said, most gun owners I know are very responsible, and treat their guns as the life-threatening piece of equipment they are.
I don’ t think parsing the differences between white conservative Christian shooters and nonwhite conservative Muslim shooters serves to move policies forward. To me, it is indicative of the lengths gun owners want to skew information, as if gun violence is not a manageable, discernable epidemic but just a random act that can’t be anticipated, tracked, analyzed, or prevented (except for depriving Others of the rights gun owners are prepared to arm militias over) . As if we were trying to solve a health crisis of flu, for example, by continually insisting all flu is not the same flu, so there’s no way to stop the spread of flu; in fact, something general like hand washing, sneeze covering, would suffice to reduce the flu epidemic, regardless of the type of flu.
Gun laws are abundant and generally ignored. I don’t think we need more of them. An investment in staffing for thorough background checks and a robust waiting period would, to me, be nice places to start and see if it helps. But let’s not get the thread closed by discussing this – we all have different opinions, strongly held.
I confess that I’m less afraid of radicalized Christians shooting me than I am of radicalized Christians taking over the government and taking away my freedoms.