San Bernardino, CA Mass Shooting

Parent Cafe
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I was just watching an FBI briefing, among other things, they found 12 pipe bombs in the couple’s townhouse…and sorry, folks, but that pretty much blows the workplace rage idea out the window (if the wife joining in didn’t dispel that, or the body armor). You don’t build pipe bombs on spur of the moment, they take time to do so, and that indicates premeditation. Whether he was planning all along to shoot up the holiday party, or it was a ‘target of opportunity’ doesn’t matter, it indicates that he and his wife were planning a terror attack, perhaps it would have happened someplace else, but that doesn’t make it not terrorism. I have seen and read all kinds of crap about this story, how he was bullied at work and that is why he did this, how it was a workplace dispute and spur of the moment, and the whole point is by people trying to avoid the elephant in the room, that a terrorist act was committed here.

Was the motivation in their faith? That we don’t know, this could be like a shooting that happened to be done by someone who is Christian, but not motivated by the faith, or it could be religious fueled terrorism, that we don’t know, but it is IMO about 99.9% certain that this was terrorism whether or not the party was the original target, if they chose the party as a terrorism target because he was pissed off, it is still terrorism. The question is is this Islamic terrorism (driven by Islamic belief) or is it simply terrorism where religion doesn’t matter? The piece of garbage who shot up the planned parenthood clinic did so because he felt himself to be a Christian, read the bible, and apparently was very strongly anti abortion because of that faith, so yes, that is “Christian terrorism”, in that faith was why he did it.

My guess is this was faith based, I just can’t see a mother of a 6 month old doing something like this, knowing there was a good chance that both she and her husband could die, to override the maternal instinct like that takes very, very strong feelings, it is why ISIS often encourages the wives to be on birth control, because mothers don’t easily want to become martyrs. Religion can be one of the strongest basis for the ability to hurt and kill others, especially religious belief that sets a line between those who are pure and those are are not, black and white religious belief, like fundamentalist Islam or Fundamentalist Christian or ultra orthodox Jew (anyone recall Rabin was killed by a virulent ultra orthodox fellow Jew?), which set very black and white views of things. Fundamentalist Christians for example are often encouraged by their churches to only socialize with people who are of the same views, and history is littered with brutal wars fought over ‘true belief’ and infidels of various sorts (Catholic versus protestant, protestant versus protestant, everyone against the Jews). I suspect they are going to find that either they were influenced by online social media radicalization, or they belonged to some group with a radical iman, or they were influenced by a friend or family member. I don’t know what the background of the couple is, but being from Pakistan, if they are from one of the tribes like the Peshtun who dominate the so called ‘tribal areas’ of Pakistan, it could be a family member, if it is religious based, that will come out once they start investigating the couples computer and cell phone and see what their browsing history looked like and so forth.

BTW,I agree with the headline in the NY Daily News, it shows a bunch of tweets from pro gun politicians talking about praying for the family and victims of this attack, and the headline is “God Can’t Fix This”.

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So who or what can?

Any suggestions from anyone?

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I didn’t see that you made a point, just a couple of observations.

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“Whether he was planning all along to shoot up the holiday party, or it was a ‘target of opportunity’ doesn’t matter, it indicates that he and his wife were planning a terror attack, perhaps it would have happened someplace else, but that doesn’t make it not terrorism.”

@musicprnt

The Columbine shooters planned their attack. Built bombs. Does that make them terrorists? I’ve read a lot about Columbine (I live 30 minutes away) but have yet to hear anyone referring to the killers as terrorists.

My thought – and I’d love to hear what others say about this – is that terrorism is violence in the name of a specific cause or idea. So far we have no motive in the SB shooting, so it’s very hard to call it terrorism. It could be, like the Columbine shootings, a violent, deranged reaction by mentally ill (or in the wife’s case, profoundly manipulated) individuals who don’t espouse any real ideas. They’re merely mass killers.

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How about we start by closing the gun show loophole, so that all gun sales have security checks? I’d do a lot more, but why not start with something obvious?

But even suggesting this, or whatever other basic, baby-step suggestion one can name, is a waste of breath, because our “leaders” are in thrall to people who are determined to prevent any and all restrictions on guns of any kind from becoming law, and instead want to promote the idea that more people should be carrying guns. We’ve already had at least one catastrophe that would have made any decent person look to make changes, and they didn’t happen. I can’t imagine what sort of catastrophe would be needed.

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Decreasing the availability of guns would be a good start.

It’s not the whole answer. But it could certainly be part of the answer.

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Of course it does.

Just the legal ones?

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" What gun laws would all of you change or create?"

That is a good question. I think people have the vision that if you just create a bunch of laws, all the bad guys are going to start following them. Create gun free zones, that’ll work!

That said, I do have some ideas that many people would not support. None of them include having a national registry or anything like that, as that would freak out too many people about the government coming for their guns.

No gun shows where people can buy guns without background checks. An intense background check that looks at every possible database, including that for mental health. A required training course. Offers to buy back weapons at attractive prices. Handguns or shotguns only, without the ability to purchase weapons that can discharge large numbers of rounds before reloading. And the most extreme, is a system where the gun needs your fingerprint to be used, and the bullets are coded to the gun (though I don’t know how you do anything like that, maybe that’s futuristic).More security cameras in public places.

Ii haven’t thought much about this, just throwing things out there.

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So what about the illegal guns, since they commit the vast majority of crimes?

I don’t own a gun. I’ve never actually seen a gun in person except on the hips of police officers, I have no personal opinion. But if people are going to rage and blame, I would like to hear their suggestions for actually doing something meaningful. Not rail against the political opposition, not mislead. Just suggest some things that might work in stopping such crimes. An honest assessment.

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So, Zoosermom, what differentiates a terrorist from a mere mass killer? Was Ted Bundy a terrorist?

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I would say that serial killers are different, but that’s just my opinion. There often seems to be a sexual element to the motivation. It’s my perception that a sexual motivation is something totally different, but I don’t expect you to share my view. That just happens to be mine.

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One other thing, when people say “well, if X went out and killed someone in the name of Jesus, they aren’t really Christian”, it is nothing more than a copout, it is claiming that the faith has nothing to do with it and don’t blame “my” faith for what “they” did. All that is is deflection, much the same way that Muslims who say “ISIS isn’t Islam” or “Islam isn’t about hate” are deflecting. No, it isn’t that Christianity or Islam fundamentally support terrorism or murdering innocent people, neither of them does, but what their deflection is doing is denying that the faith has the ability to spur such acts, and by deflecting like that, they are running away from the issue, not helping. A Christian who denounces someone who bombs an abortion clinic or gay bar as not being Christian is running away from the fact that their faith can be used to justify such actions. For example, Christianity has concepts around Just War, that depending on how you debate it, can make a moral case for killing people (for the record, I think Just War is a totally incompatible idea within Christianity, no war or morally just; wars might be necessary to protect people or put an end to an evil like Nazi Germany, but they are not moral, the minute you ever say killing is moral, you are making things like religious sponsored terrorism possible). The Hebrew Scripture portion of the Bible, that Christians use to justify a lot of things, if full of all kinds of morally justified violence and killings, so you can’t say “that isn’t part of the faith”. When you say “that isn’t being Christian” or “That isn’t being Muslim” someone is washing their hands of it and saying “it isn’t my problem”, when it is, because it is your faith that is being perverted.

I’ll give you an example of the other side. I was just reading that Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, has started a massive campaign to promote that Islam is about love, that Islam respects a diverse world and other faiths, that basically supports the East Asian, Buddhist inflected Islam, as opposed to the more tribalistic and violent Islam that is common in the Arab world, especially the Saudi version of things. The reason they are doing this is because they recognize the threat that Isis and radical Islam hold to their society, and they are taking it head on and not saying “ISIS isn’t Islam” and walking away, they are saying “ISIS is not Islam, this is what Islam is” and using it to fight back. Denying that the faith can inspire acts of violence doesn’t solve the problem or claiming someone isn’t 'really Christian", all that does is allow someone to wash their hands of the situation and say “not my job, man”

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No Ted Bundy was a sociopath but I do not think he was a terrorist. Terrorism is defined as

the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims

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The question isn’t what an observer thinks, but what the perpetrator sees as his motivation.

As I said twice, I believe Dear is a Christian terrorist because it seems that was his motivation. I believe Nidal Hissan is an Islamic terrorist because he told us his motivation. I don’t yet know the deal with the San Bernardino killers.

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@hunt:

“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.”

I agree totally, one might use the tools of the law to oppress people and the other use guns and fear to oppress people, but the motivation is the same. The same fundamentalist Christians who rail about Shariah law and Islamic terrorists and so forth, are the same people who want their extreme version of Christianity to be the law of the land, legal oppression is still oppression. If you really want to get scared, there was a really good op ed piece about Anton Scalia and his views of religion in society, it is scary to have a supreme court justice who thinks majority religious belief should be allowed as law…l

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Two things:

  • they do say that one or both suspects were contacting “known parties” online - but apparently that’s not enough to put the suspects on a “watch” list? What the heck is the FBI doing, if all they can do is point this out after the fact?
  • I am thinking that he was upset about his workplace and wanted to shoot it up, and used "terrorism" contacts to get the weapons to do so. As a state employee, I see a LOT of disgruntled government workers.
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Source please? What was the suspicious activity that was noticed?

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Alternatively, he had planned something obviously political, but he got angry at his coworkers for some reason and decided to take advantage of his preparations and attack them instead.

We may never know.

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I saw a neighbor who was quoted on CNN I believe that said she saw packages being delivered all the time and saw what appeared to be Middle Eastern men coming from the house but thought they might be relatives and that the [packages might be because it is Christmas.

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Packages and middle easterners are “suspicious”?

Gee can’t wait until my neighbors are suspicious of me then. I get packages multiple times a week because I’m constantly getting new books and most of my friends are brown so they’re coming and going.

Oh… But I’m white so I’m safe from suspicion.