No that’s what we have an absurdly militarized police force for.
I live about as far as possible in the contiguous 48 states from both Colorado and California and I have an uneasy, anxious feeling. I am SOOOO tired and frustrated at having to hear about events like this every few days.
I partially blame some of our political candidates for spewing what I deem to be inflammatory, misguided rhetoric and creating an atmosphere of hatred and division. I’m not going to name names because I don’t want to get political but comments can be dangerous in a country where many are armed to the teeth and where mental illness is often not dealt with effectively.
In response to @prezbucky #39’s claim that “real Christians don’t murder people”: real anybody can murder people. That’s simply the way labels work.
(Edited to clarify what this was responding to.)
Fair enough – they may claim to be something, but others know better.
Christianity is still taking krapp for the worship/travel-rights disputes during the Middle Ages in the Middle East and for the Inquisition (which was, of course, terrible)… as well as bad things done by missionaries during New Wotld exploration. Those were acts done by Christians, but not Christian acts.
I’d say that murder itself precludes a person from claiming Christianity for him- or herself. Real Christianity, to me, is about inner peace, assurance, and treating others well. If you are murdering people, you obviously lack that peace, and you are apart from Christ.
(ok, carry on. hehe)
Forgive me but I have become immune and sadly, somewhat annoyed by this statement which inevitably appears in the earliest news reports about these things; “the President was briefed on the situation.” That statement is of no help to us whatsoever. I don’t feel any better.
^I think its filler when the media doesn’t have much to say/doesn’t know much yet.
For anyone not familiar with San Bernardino, the location is very close to major freeways. The suspects got away with their long guns and could be anywhere. It’s been 3 hours since the shooting. They could be anywhere within a 100 or more mile radius. The location is near the 215, which runs south to Riverside (and right next to UC Riverside) and continues south to San Diego. Heading north, the 215 links with the 15 which goes to Las Vegas. Interstate 10 is also close. It runs east to Arizona and west to Los Angeles.
I just hope these shooters don’t want to go down in a blaze of glory killing or injuring others or police officers.
Live radio feeds says the San Bernadino schools are still on lockdown. Perps remain at large so this will be similar to the Tsarnaev manhunt in Boston wherein the city was immobilized.
We don’t know who did this, so speculating on who did this, or why, right now is useless, given that we simply don’t know, the reports of shooters in military gear doesn’t tell us who this was…could be Islamic Crazies, Christian Crazies,Atheist Crazies, Martians, or deranged toons for all we know. There is a real discussion to be had once we have more facts but I doubt we will have it, especially in an election cycle, and to have a real discussion we would need real facts, which lobbyists, specifically the gun lobby and their political allies, have made it next to impossible to get, seriously funded studies on the root causes of incidents like this, and what needs to be done to address them, instead we get slogans, like ‘if everyone in that room was armed, this wouldn’t happen’ or ‘if we banned guns entirely., this wouldn’t have happened’ ; the former has serious problems with the logic (ie if the shooters knew a lot of people were carrying, they would change tactics, and probably kill a lot more people as fast as possible), the latter is falacious because it assumes that a shooting like this could have been prevented at all, it is like attributing a single weather event to climate change, an individual storm proves nothing, it is only studying trends that you see what is going on.
TatinG, I was thinking the same thing–they could be anywhere by now (including my location). I wonder if any group will call to claim responsibility. One witness description makes me wonder if this is ISIS.
I think it’s a bit premature to assume who committed this attacks and also , let’s try to refrain from the nasty comments about law enforcement .
@TatinG :
I thought the freeways in Southern California were like the Cross Bronx Expressway in the Bronx, NYC, ie where they are 24/7 traffic jams, least that is what we always seem to see lol. Among other things, that SUV could have been stolen and they could abandon it someplace, which would make it even harder to find them. While I have my criticisms of law enforcement (put it this way, having seen some organized crime FBI agents at work, I am not a big fan of ‘the agency’,), something like this is going to take a lot of dogwork to bring down the perpetrators. Surveillance video is likely to be the biggest source of information rather than eyewitness acccounts, and it also likely is going to revolve around someone who did this having said something, and then the cops get tipped off. I don’t know if the guys plan on going out in a blaze of glory, usually guys intent on self destruction don’t wear body armor, which some of the accounts seem to be saying.
Eyewitness testimony is always problematic. Often very contradictory, often times completely inaccurate.
When I was in college, one of my professors did a demonstration about this. Some guy ran into the auditorium, ran onto the stage, tripped over a chair and ran off with the professor’s briefcase.
We were asked to write down what we saw and describe the perpetrator. A LOT of us got things wrong, such as clothing he was wearing, color of his hair, height, and even what he took off the table. When the prof brought the guy back into the room, many of us laughed at ourselves, as we saw how off our recollections of the event were. Add terror and actual danger to one’s life, it’s no wonder that witness accounts are often way off the mark.
If there were in fact 3 shooters, it’s hard to get 3 together to agree on a mass shooting. The target now seems non-random. It was a banquet for the County Department of Public Health. I don’t believe anyone outside of that banquet was targeted. I am going to engage in some wild reckless speculation and suggest it had something to do with anti-abortion. See if any doctors were among the victims.
A bunch of people in a “helping others” career. Nice.
I’d bet large amounts of money at this point that they have abandoned that SUV and are in another vehicle.
Gavin Newsom plans to put background checks for all ammunition purchases on the 2016 California ballot. I’m voting yes.
During rush hour, yes. These guys got away at a relatively easy travel time.
I agree with whoever said “The President has been briefed” brings no comfort or resolution. What the hell is he supposed to do or say? He’s said it all already. And he’s not allowed to do anything. Congress needs to act. But they won’t.