In most developed countries, anybody with access to a good public library and a little imagination could build a serious device capable of causing multiple fatalities. Given that other countries have individuals with severe mental health problems, why doesn’t this happen all the time?
There are two points to make:
Building bombs and chemical weapons calls for sustained effort over a significant period, whereas in the US large capacity guns are very readily available. The “potential barrier” is therefore lower.
Europe and Japan (and Canada, Australia and NZ) don’t have gun cultures. Politicians and washed up actors don’t go on television waving guns around and talking about their “rights”. There is no equivalent of the NRA, nor is the public inundated with media presenting violence as the answer to all kinds of problems.
I don’t pretend to have an answer to what is a very complex, multivariate problem. Other developed countries have similarly complex problems that are hard to resolve - violent separatist movements, criminal gangs in e.g. Sweden, ethnic conflicts, and are no better at solving them than is the US for gun violence. But, for instance, the UK spent large amounts of money combating violence in Northern Ireland with both military and political dimensions, and NI was a relatively low level conflict. The US ought to be able to direct resources to gun crime reduction without necessarily banning guns.
I dunno about other countries, but Canada most definitely has a gun culture. A lot of people hunt and there is a continuing kerfuffle over the long gun registry here. Handguns and semi automatic weapons are much harder to obtain in Canada than in the states, though.
I think it’s pretty strained to read Romans 1 and not see Paul telling you that people who engage in homosexual sex acts deserve to die. You can argue that Paul didn’t think we ought to go kill them ourselves, and I think you can argue that the real sin is turning away from God and the sex acts are just how we can know. But he’s drawing a pretty straight line between homosexual sex acts and deserving to die.
And it’s so easy to forget. Gay marriage gets legalized and people say, “That’s it, progressiveness won.” But all members of LGBTQ community have elevated risk of being the victims of violence. This attack is staggering in its size. But attacks on people because of their sexual orientation or their gender identity happen every day.
Except there are some macho, hetero type dude bros, who aren’t religious, who are probably also offended by two men kissing. Trust me, homophobia is not (sadly) restricted to the religious, and some who are religious don’t actually care and aren’t homophobic. There is a long history of stigmatizing the LBGQT community from the secular world, such as psychiatry and the government… It’s not just religious organizations doing this, historically speaking.
Definitely, I’m just saying that while Paul seems to have viewed homosexuality in a very negative light, his condemnation of people turning against God comfortably covers those who use these verses to condemn gays. They could even just read the next chapter and realise that Paul is really attacking people who pass judgement on others. So yes, I don’t like Paul, but even those who do like him and use his words to attack others are condemning themselves.
This one really hurts. Yeah Sandy Hook guy targeted kids but mostly because schools are easy targets. The VT guy just shot up whoever he could find . This asshole though… Really making me question why I’ve brought kids into this world. Fuck today.
Addressing the people of Afghanistan, Seddique Mateen said in the video: “I don’t know what made him [do this], I have no idea, I had no idea that he felt resentful in his heart and had gone to the gay [he uses the derogatory word hamjensbazi] club and killed men and women there.
“I am very sad and I’ve announced this to the American people as well. Why did he do this act during this holy month of Ramadan. On the topic of being hamjensbazi, punishment and the things that they do, God will give the punishment. This is not the issue for a follower of God and he [Omar] that did this has greatly saddened me. I wanted you to know this. God give all youth complete health to keep the real path of the holy religion of Islam in mind.”
No idea at all. How could teaching hateful attitudes to your children lead to your children committing violence against the objects of your hatred?
In this case “the tool being used” was what enabled one violent person to take down 50 people in one sitting. A psycho with a knife or a crossbow or an ordinary hunting rifle isn’t going to rack up dozens of murders in a matter of minutes.
This man was able to do what he did because he had ready access to a “tool” that was designed to put a whole lot of lethal rounds into a whole lot of people in a short amount of time.
Right; it’s not that access to these weapons are the only thing that make committing an act of mass murder possible. Access to these weapons IS what makes committing an act of mass murder trivial.
I dunno about other countries, but Canada most definitely has a gun culture
I suggest that it is not remotely equivalent.
Of course they’re not equivalent, but they are comparable. It’s just a matter of degree. If you tried to ban firearms in Canada, there’d be riots on the prairie.
Not that you are interested in hearing this but I live in a very Christian country, with 90% of people Catholic or Pentecostal Evangelical.
Guess what? We have one of the biggest death tolls of gay people in the world. I think we are the most dangerous place to be transsexual in the world. And we are far, far away from being Muslim.
When you have an homophobic society the crazy outliers will focus the crazy in the most acceptable target. So that guy has a hatred inside him and society teaches him what an angry Muslim does: He calls the police and says he’s ISIS and off to act on his hatred he goes. ISIS is all “who? Never heard of… 50 deaths? Yeah, whatever I think we can say he was one of us see how evil we are mwahahah”
The very American named John Wesley, white and blue eyed, was captured before he acted on his crazy homophobic attack at the same day. If it wasn’t for Omar he would be the focus on the news.
In my country a gay guy was locked in a lamppost, doused in gasoline and set on fire. The body had a note on it saying that all the other gays in town would suffer the same and some Bible verses. The majority of the killers are far right Evangelical fanatics that believe they are doing what the Bible says.
Actually turns out it wasn’t the case. We still don’t know why he had the guns, if he had some violence in mind, but he himself is bisexual and has a boyfriend (and a record of threatening people with guns, but not for being gay). The police mis-reported that he was there to attack the parade - he never actually said that, just that he was meeting a friend there.
