Another Day In The Neighborhood, Another Mass Shooting

[sawasdee]

I think I have a lot more Dutch and Flemish friends that you have. Not exactly racist circles. Perhaps you are not fully aware of the fact, that voices like racist, islamophobia are growing dumb very rapidly!

I am sorry if you did not understand what I said, as your reply was irrelevant. Are all your Dutch and Flemish friends as ill mannered and boorish as you?( Mine are not.) That is to which I am objecting. Opinions of any stripe can be expressed with respect, something to which you do not seem to subscribe.

[latraviata]

Why would I call you a racist? I am not interested in the type of discussion where you go off the rails at me for no good reason.

Anyway, the link did nothing for me. It took me to a page that talked about the recent shootings and did not back up your claim. Regardless, because the U.S. has rather easy access to guns, it would not be a far fetched approach for terrorist networks to seek out people with clean records to do their bidding. Stricker gun laws could help curb some terrorist acts. Why make it easier for them to get ahold of weapons? I thought that would make you happy considering your vocal stance in this area.

With being said, are you suggesting we should stuff gun control in the States, because it is not just Islamic terrorists that are killing U.S. citizens? We do a good job on our own. 

No, I didn't say that at all. The  discussion of gun control is not relevant in this case. I am surprised about so many heads in the sand instead of seeing the current event for what is is, an islamic terrorist attack! To me it shows the utter hypocrisy, crying and praying for Paris a few weeks ago, a sudden outburst of Francophilia occurred  which I never perceived on this very thread. 

I am sorry if you did not understand what I said, as your reply was irrelevant. Are all your Dutch and Flemish friends as boorish as you? That is to which I am objecting. Opinions of any stripe can be expressed with respect, something to which you do not seem to subscribe.

Perhaps boorish if you will, so much better than the Anglo Saxon hypocrisy. Using racist as an argument? Very civilised indeed!

[Mecca]

No, I didn't say that at all. The  discussion of gun control is not relevant in this case. I am surprised about so many heads in the sand instead of seeing the current event for what is is, an islamic terrorist attack! To me it shows the utter hypocrisy, crying and praying for Paris a few weeks ago, a sudden outburst of Francophilia occurred  which I never perceived on this very thread. 

Actually gun control is very much relevant in this case considering how this person was able to obtain guns along with massive amounts of ammunition. 

I don't think anyone here is displaying head in sand mentality. What you are not understanding is the stats on gun violence in the States drastically lean more in one direction. Until reasonable people get facts, they are not going to automatically point the finger at one particular group. Unfortunately, we have a lot of gun toting assholes to dodge. 

[sawasdee]

@mecca

The trouble is you are being reasoned and following the arguments on the thread; others are just blindly reacting.

[latraviata]

Actually gun control is very much relevant in this case considering how this person was able to obtain guns along with massive amounts of ammunition. 

I don't think anyone here is displaying head in sand mentality. What you are not understanding is the stats on gun violence in the States drastically lean more in one direction. Until reasonable people get facts, they are not going to automatically point the finger at one particular group. Unfortunately, we have a lot of gun toting assholes to dodge. 

Actually gun control is very much relevant in this case considering how this person was able to obtain guns along with massive amounts of ammunition. 

I don't think anyone here is displaying head in sand mentality. What you are not understanding is the stats on gun violence in the States drastically lean more in one direction. Until reasonable people get facts, they are not going to automatically point the finger at one particular group. Unfortunately, we have a lot of gun toting assholes to dodge. 

Yes you do! You should read and hear the West European (predominantly left wing) media about it, something carefully kept from the USA media.

[sawasdee]

 

Yes you do! You should read and hear the West European (predominantly left wing) media about it, something carefully kept from the USA media.

Who is keeping what from whom? In these days of the internet,I would think it impossible to keep anything sub rosa in any country but a dictatorship with internet access blocked.

BTW, I read both The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian, and if you know the UK press, you will know they are opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of politics. However, neither is a tabloid, and these latter are the only 'press' I have seen spewing some of the Islamophobic (yes, I am using the I word!) opinions that you seem to espouse on FreeJinger.

And I am bowing out. I have had it with the PPS and LaT tag team, and enough and

[Curious]

Do I have to spell it out for you?

We have islamic terrorist attacks as you very well know. Blathering about US gun laws (which I find ridiculous, the laws I mean) has no relevance in the current events. Calling me a racist is very cheap, stupid and shows your utter ignorance on the matter.

Hey, I'm not the one that left a hole so big a trail of semis could go through it.  Say something like "call me a racist!" on a snark forum and you can hardly be surprised when someone takes you up on it.   I just happened to be the first one to do it.   It's not my fault you think that kind of comment is helpful to this type of discussion.

Yes, I guess you DO have to spell it out because when you post a link to something after making a statement a reasonable person would expect that link to have something to do with what you just said.   The fact that your link had NOTHING to do with what you said, as far as I could tell, was confusing and completely unnecessary since we are all able to find links to the current tragedy ourselves.  Hence my asking what I was missing since they had nothing to do with each other.

I don't post a statement about abortion and then follow it with a link about a singing dog and expect people to make a connection between the 2 things..  

"Blathering about gun laws" IS what these types of situations is about if you actually pay attention to what people are discussing in this thread.  Lax gun laws are a MAJOR issue in the United States, which is what was being discussed until once again PPS tried to turn it into a rant about specifically Islamic terrorists vs terrorists, in general.

Anyone, regardless of race or religion is a terrorist when they go around shooting up a bunch of people at a fucking office party.  This thread is not only about Islamic terrorism.  The actors in this tragedy HAPPENED to be radicalized Muslims apparently, but that is NOT the norm for mass shooters in the US, as many people have pointed out.

[PregnantPornStar]

And Muslim attacks in the US have not been shootings - so , pattern analysis.

By the way, I found two mass shootings in the last 4 years involving 2 or more non Islamic shooters -  I found one involving Islamic shooters. The odds are still against. To assume, or to speculate, without evidence, is dangerous, and you seem to make a habit of it.

 

A) Yes we know we have Islamic attacks. What is being discussed by all but two contributors to this thread is, actually, gun violence, gun laws, and the lack of will by much of the political spectrum in the US to address the problem. As many have pointed out, guns have not been the Islamic terrorist weapon of choice before in the US.

B)I, too, am a European. I have many Dutch and Flemish friends, but I have never encountered anyone, of any nationality, as unwilling to listen, and as quick to patronise and be rude, as you. In fact, the only other place I have met with such boorishness is on the comments of some of the links you have recommended. I was always taught that to argue well, you argue with respect. You have shown none.

Are you suggesting guns haven't been used by Islamic Terrorists in the United States? Seriously?

Fort Hood, Chattanooga, Little Rock, etc. Guns are frequently used by Islamic terrorists. Even in Boston and not always obtained legally. Let's not limit our discussion to the U.S. Gun laws are really strict in CA and in France. They were obtained legally in one and illegally in the other. I am positive that Terrorists don't care about breaking gun laws.

When discussing things like The KKK, we can all agree that KKK related acts of terrorism/crimes have been vastly reduced. There are laws geared directly towards the KKK and have stemmed from having discussions about the KKK. We can talk about gun laws, but we aren't going to reduce Islamic terrorism without discussing Islamic terrorism. Maybe nobody here is concerned about that..."

[PregnantPornStar]

And Muslim attacks in the US have not been shootings - so , pattern analysis.

By the way, I found two mass shootings in the last 4 years involving 2 or more non Islamic shooters -  I found one involving Islamic shooters. The odds are still against. To assume, or to speculate, without evidence, is dangerous, and you seem to make a habit of it.

 

A) Yes we know we have Islamic attacks. What is being discussed by all but two contributors to this thread is, actually, gun violence, gun laws, and the lack of will by much of the political spectrum in the US to address the problem. As many have pointed out, guns have not been the Islamic terrorist weapon of choice before in the US.

B)I, too, am a European. I have many Dutch and Flemish friends, but I have never encountered anyone, of any nationality, as unwilling to listen, and as quick to patronise and be rude, as you. In fact, the only other place I have met with such boorishness is on the comments of some of the links you have recommended. I was always taught that to argue well, you argue with respect. You have shown none.

Are you suggesting guns haven't been used by Islamic Terrorists in the United States? Seriously?

Fort Hood, Chattanooga, Little Rock, etc. Guns are frequently used by Islamic terrorists. Even in Boston and not always obtained legally. Let's not limit our discussion to the U.S. Gun laws are really strict in CA and in France. They were obtained legally in one and illegally in the other. I am positive that Terrorists don't care about breaking gun laws.

When discussing things like The KKK, we can all agree that KKK related acts of terrorism/crimes have been vastly reduced. There are laws geared directly towards the KKK and have stemmed from having discussions about the KKK. We can talk about gun laws, but we aren't going to reduce Islamic terrorism without discussing Islamic terrorism. Maybe nobody here is concerned about that..."

Hey, I'm not the one that left a hole so big a trail of semis could go through it.  Say something like "call me a racist!" on a snark forum and you can hardly be surprised when someone takes you up on it.   I just happened to be the first one to do it.   It's not my fault you think that kind of comment is helpful to this type of discussion.

Yes, I guess you DO have to spell it out because when you post a link to something after making a statement a reasonable person would expect that link to have something to do with what you just said.   The fact that your link had NOTHING to do with what you said, as far as I could tell, was confusing and completely unnecessary since we are all able to find links to the current tragedy ourselves.  Hence my asking what I was missing since they had nothing to do with each other.

I don't post a statement about abortion and then follow it with a link about a singing dog and expect people to make a connection between the 2 things..  

"Blathering about gun laws" IS what these types of situations is about if you actually pay attention to what people are discussing in this thread.  Lax gun laws are a MAJOR issue in the United States, which is what was being discussed until once again PPS tried to turn it into a rant about specifically Islamic terrorists vs terrorists, in general.

Anyone, regardless of race or religion is a terrorist when they go around shooting up a bunch of people at a fucking office party.  This thread is not only about Islamic terrorism.  The actors in this tragedy HAPPENED to be radicalized Muslims apparently, but that is NOT the norm for mass shooters in the US, as many people have pointed out.

No, I tried talking about how this discussion is completely ignoring the perpetrators of the terrorist attack. Even if we manage to rid the entire world of guns, we will STILL have terrorism, so why not discuss the the terrorism at hand?

[latraviata]

17 hours ago, sawasdee said:

Who is keeping what from whom? In these days of the internet,I would think it impossible to keep anything sub rosa in any country but a dictatorship with internet access blocked.

BTW, I read both The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian, and if you know the UK press, you will know they are opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of politics. However, neither is a tabloid, and these latter are the only 'press' I have seen spewing some of the Islamophobic (yes, I am using the I word!) opinions that you seem to espouse on FreeJinger.

And I am bowing out. I have had it with the PPS and LaT tag team, and enough and

Do you also read the Dutch, French, German, Austrian, Danish, Swedish and Greek media? Other than the British and American, I do.

[OkToBeTakei]

On 5 December 2015 08:43:29, latraviata said:

Gun control didn't help the European countries....as far as islamic terrorism is concerned...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Call me a racist!

Racist.

[Curious]

33 minutes ago, OkToBeTakei said:

Racist.

beat ya to it...neener neener  

[OkToBeTakei]

3 minutes ago, Curious said:

beat ya to it...neener neener  

HA!

[Curious]

3 minutes ago, OkToBeTakei said:

HA!

No, I'm Curious.  See the little bunny up there where Steve lives? (funny story about Steve.  CSS isn't loading for me on Firefox or Chrome, so I'm currently stuck with IE.  I'll be around less due to that I'm pretty sure.  Anyway, I happened to have a page loaded when we took the site down that you had posted on recently.   No CSS means I got full frontal Steve when scrolling down to try and change my theme.  He's kind of scary at full size)

HA is the one with the tiara  

[Mercer]

I had a really emotional reaction to this story, and it's still ongoing. That's the field I work in, so this event in particular hit me really hard.

[bionicmlle]

::::slowly raises hand:::::

I have pretty strong feelings about (the lack of) american gun laws, I have fears of terrorism because of inappropriate amount of exposure as a child to news coverage of the Iran hostage crisis and, as many of you know, I live in the community where this shooting took place.  Can I just say, that regardless of the rhetoric on the news and in this thread -- I am fucking proud of my community.  

 

This is a poor and pretty conservative area. I was very worried about how this would play out.  I had heard, just an hour or so after the shooting, that they were looking for suspects of "middle eastern descent" and both Mr. Bionic and I feared this would go nuclear, both locally and nationally.  At a local level - there seems to be nothing but support and it is an amazing thing. My muslim neighbors and coworkers were frightened at first, but seem to feel relative support.  There was a well attended prayer vigil at the local mosque and I really haven't heard much anti-muslim rhetoric locally- on the contrary, it seems that there has been more of a focus on the fact that a horrible, horrible thing happened in our cities and we are pulled together as a community.  It's a little weird, honestly...

[PregnantPornStar]

22 minutes ago, bionicmlle said:

::::slowly raises hand:::::

I have pretty strong feelings about (the lack of) american gun laws, I have fears of terrorism because of inappropriate amount of exposure as a child to news coverage of the Iran hostage crisis and, as many of you know, I live in the community where this shooting took place.  Can I just say, that regardless of the rhetoric on the news and in this thread -- I am fucking proud of my community.  

 

This is a poor and pretty conservative area. I was very worried about how this would play out.  I had heard, just an hour or so after the shooting, that they were looking for suspects of "middle eastern descent" and both Mr. Bionic and I feared this would go nuclear, both locally and nationally.  At a local level - there seems to be nothing but support and it is an amazing thing. My muslim neighbors and coworkers were frightened at first, but seem to feel relative support.  There was a well attended prayer vigil at the local mosque and I really haven't heard much anti-muslim rhetoric locally- on the contrary, it seems that there has been more of a focus on the fact that a horrible, horrible thing happened in our cities and we are pulled together as a community.  It's a little weird, honestly...

I find that communities often do come together during tragedies. The ability for people to unify like that gives me a lot more faith in humanity. I don't like that it sometimes takes a tragedy to bring people together, but it really is amazing to know how much a community can really be what it is supposed to be. Most people are good

 

[FundieFarmer]

I was nervous sitting in a movie theater last night. They had an usher standing at the door to the building, but what would that really do? Plus, often you want to sit away from the exit because that's where good viewing is. I really hate that we have come to a point that going out in public feels so dangerous.

Southerner who's all for restrictive gun laws, y'all. 

[Fascinated]

It is sad that we have to think about danger lurking everywhere as that is, of course, exactly what these terrorists want. The odds of anything happening to us as individuals are exceedingly small, until we are that person in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Like those in Paris, or San Bernadino or Sandy Hook or Manhattan or, or.............

I always think about my grandmother who died in 2001 at the age of 102 (and a half!).  She moved to Canada from England when she was eighty, so she survived wars and a pretty turbulent century at times. But she was never in the wrong place at the wrong time.  It's our three tiny grandchildren I worry about now. What kind of world will they be living in?  It's scary as hell. 

[2manyKidzzz]

So now they are looking in the lake in San Bernardino. Because the shooter was there once or twice. I wonder what they are looking for. What would he throw in the lake? I guess we'll see. 

[bionicmlle]

3 hours ago, 2manyKidzzz said:

So now they are looking in the lake in San Bernardino. Because the shooter was there once or twice. I wonder what they are looking for. What would he throw in the lake? I guess we'll see. 

That "lake" is actually more of a pond at a park that is VERY close to where the car chase went down. They are looking for the hard drive.  It is completely reasonable that they dumped it there during the crime scenario.

[bionicmlle]

@Destiny -- It's Seccombe Lake Park which is at the block of 5th and Waterman, sort of just north of the IRC.  It's basically the block of Waterman, 5th St. and Sierra Way so definitely not in the best part of town and definitely not a lake --- it's barely even the size of a city block.  It looked like they were sending divers into the pond (it's really more of a pond.....) to look for something.  

[FundieFarmer]

@Fascinated, you are so right- it is a wrong place, wrong time sort of thing. I figure I came in when the good Lord wanted me to and I'll go out at His discretion, but good heavens I'd rather stay a while longer to get to see more of this big old earth.

I also wonder how much of my perspective is different than my parents'. One of my earliest memories is 9/11. I don't know a world that isn't impacted by terrorism. I wish I could have a true grasp on what it was like for them to get to grow up running free- not afraid to walk down the street or get on a plane.

[singsingsing]

2 hours ago, FundieFarmer said:

@Fascinated, you are so right- it is a wrong place, wrong time sort of thing. I figure I came in when the good Lord wanted me to and I'll go out at His discretion, but good heavens I'd rather stay a while longer to get to see more of this big old earth.

I also wonder how much of my perspective is different than my parents'. One of my earliest memories is 9/11. I don't know a world that isn't impacted by terrorism. I wish I could have a true grasp on what it was like for them to get to grow up running free- not afraid to walk down the street or get on a plane.

Such a time has never really existed. I remember feeling very free and peaceful and safe before 9/11, but it was because I was a sheltered and naive 13-year-old. 

Terrorism is scary. No question about it. So is cancer. So is global warming. There are a lot of scary things in the world and there always have been, but the truth is that the world we live in now is probably safer than it ever has been. I'm guessing most of us get in a car at least a few times a week, if not multiple times a day, and yet how many of us live in fear of dying in a car wreck? Meanwhile we're probably a thousand times (ten thousand times? A hundred thousand times?) more likely to die in a car crash than to be killed by terrorists, and yet we don't think twice about hopping in that car.

[Whoosh]

1 hour ago, singsingsing said:

Such a time has never really existed. I remember feeling very free and peaceful and safe before 9/11, but it was because I was a sheltered and naive 13-year-old. 

Terrorism is scary. No question about it. So is cancer. So is global warming. There are a lot of scary things in the world and there always have been, but the truth is that the world we live in now is probably safer than it ever has been. I'm guessing most of us get in a car at least a few times a week, if not multiple times a day, and yet how many of us live in fear of dying in a car wreck? Meanwhile we're probably a thousand times (ten thousand times? A hundred thousand times?) more likely to die in a car crash than to be killed by terrorists, and yet we don't think twice about hopping in that car.

Very good point.  I do think that terrorism and mass shootings are frightening, but it isn't really anything new in a lot of ways.  Perhaps the 90s were some idyllic time for the USA/North America where people just feel free and happy - not sure, but drills to teach school children to hide under desks are nothing new.  The cold war spanned from the mid 40s to the late 80s early 90s.  Not sure who thought hiding under a desk would protect anyone from a nuclear blast or the resulting nuclear winter, but...

Before that, it was something else everyone feared all the way back to when the first settlers feared Indian attacks.  Not to mention all the things Native Americans not only feared, but saw come to realization.  And that's just American history.

Don't get me wrong, what is going on is obviously horrible - humans are and have always seemed to be us vs them hateful, territorial, and at times just horrible creatures and some politicians, etc like to play on fear to gain power and control.  Social evolution is occurring, but at times it does seem painfully slow.

 

ETA - from 1985  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHylQRVN2Qs