Thanks! But I still keep my point that he acted on his perception of what a “bad guy” must do. I’ll try to find more about this.
Yeah, I think the cops were right to arrest and detain him in this case, given what had just happened and what the guy had on him - it does look suspicious and it seems like the guy was still on probation, so he wasn’t supposed to have weapons anyway, for any reason. But here is the Gawker link, which links to other stories on this:
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Why play two bigoted worldviews against each other as if one lessens the other? This kind of action could have come from a number of bigoted perspectives, religious or otherwise. ISIS calls on people to carry out actions like this independently, and sometimes organises them. They are responsible, whether they knew about it in advance or not. The gunman credited them, so unless this is a very odd false flag operation, I think we can take it as given that he was influenced by their philosophy (which isn’t that complicated). The fact that anti-LGBT opinions already existed in the more moderate views of the father could also be a factor. If a disturbed individual bombs an abortion clinic and claims that this is for Christian reasons, I won’t blame all Christians, but I will blame ‘moderates’ who show tacit support for his actions, or merely say that their god will punish abortion clinic workers.
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It varies from person to person.
My earliest memory is from when I was just about to turn three; my family was at a beach.
As far as coherent and would have remembered such an event - for me I would say 4-5. Actual memories back to 2 1/2 but those are odd (including one of a nightmare).
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My thinking is that even if the memories are hazy and fragmented, they still exist.
Further 9/11 was the first attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor; exposure of it was everywhere, for years. Toddlers at that time may not have understood it, but they certainly heard their parents and the rest of the world around them talking about it.
The comic implies that 18 year old voters have no first hand awareness of 9/11 because they were so young when it actually happened… and that’s just highly unlikely, given our culture of media saturation.
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I thought it was more of a “Doesn’t this make you feel old.” One of the defining moments of history that everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing and is sort of a shared experience.
For certain I am aware and even re-lived things like the Moon Landing and the Assassination of Kennedy, but in both cases I don’t have the sort of shared experience that my parents had. And now those experience happened so long ago that young adults who matter now have no memory of the event andohmygodiamsooldnowIamgoingtojuststop…
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I think “This is the first presidential election in which there are voters too young to remember 9/11” doesn’t imply that to me. Being aware of something isn’t remembering it, and “in which there are voters who” requires only a very small number of voters who meet the criterion to be true.
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18 year old voters with hazy memories of a defining moment in history doesn’t make me feel old personally.
Knowing that my brother, niece and nephew are now all parents with families of their own, when I can recall having changed the diapers of each one of them in the past?
Now that makes me feel my age…
*lolz
To each his or her own, we all interpret things differently.
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Although I heartily endorse the “f*ck you” reaction on general principle, this part you quoted is a little heartening:
“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.”
It ain’t perfect, but “we shouldn’t take punishments for “morality” into our own hands” seems like a decent sentiment at least.
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Regardless of how it looks, it’s still a semi-automatic carbine that can kill just as efficiently as an AR-15 or AK47.
These are all variants of the same gun:
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That’s exactly right.
But because my Ruger does not have all kinds of scary G.I. Joe bling bling attached, it has never legally been considered an assault rifle.
Now if the desire is to ban all semi-automatic weapons, how exactly would this work, in terms of the one which I own?
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AC-556 was my favorite as a kid 'cus the A-Team used them.
I really disagree, although it’s better than taking matters into your own hands.
My parents are really nice, caring people who will treat anyone with compassion. They also believe that homosexuality is wrong and AIDS is God’s punishment on gay people. They would care for someone with AIDS, would strongly support finding a cure and wouldn’t think of someone as less human for being gay, but there’s still that opinion that comes from their interpretation of the Bible. This is a big reason I left the church, and this was before I really knew any open gay people. If you believe that your holy book is perfect, it damn well better be. These ugly verses will come back to haunt you and when you don’t have a good argument against them, this is dangerous. I do often think in overly black and white terms, but I think this is pretty black and white. I won’t teach my kids to be Christians (even skirting around these passages) and I won’t be counted as an Evangelical, even one who ignores these verses and treats LGBT people equally. There is a commonality with violence in America, Rwanda and other places: before people started killing each other, other people spread the message that those who would be attacked were less than everyone else.
(This does not mean that I think Christians (including Evangelical Christians) are bad or that I will oppose people’s right to belief. It does mean that I won’t ignore violent statements in religious texts and I won’t accept theoretical agreement with no intent to act on them).
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Well… they are notorious for being inaccurate (Though there are some that are fine.) I mean the A-Team used them and never shot anyone. People joke about it:
I think @lolipop_jones point was that the old AWB was based on looks more than anything. Your examples show how just about any gun can go from tame to wild by changing a few parts.
Look at this bad ass sniper rifle.
Only it is a stock kit to turn a WWII surplus Russian Mosin Nagant Rifle with over a hundred year old design in to something interesting looking. Sort of like spoilers on cars. It still shots like a POS Russian surplus rifle.
The average .30 caliber deer rifle has way more powerful and more accurate than most ARs. The only difference between the average deer rifle and a sniper rifle is the stock looks different, and generally hunting barrels are tapered to make them lighter. Less likely to be used in mass shootings, but the media plays up how “powerful” the round is, and it isn’t in comparison.
One final note, other than sensational mass shootings, rifles are rarely used in crimes.
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Which is one reason I personally support limits on large capacity clips and certain types of ammunition rather than banning the guns themselves.
Take the last image for example: I just can’t see any legitimate need for a 90 round drum clip like the one pictured.
As far as I can tell, there’s no 2nd amendment infringement against restricting ammunition or clips.
My son actually has a Mosin rifle - including the bayonet - that he uses for hunting. Yes, it’s a POS but it’s cheap and powerful enough to bring down an elk but only holds five rounds.
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I’m not sure we’re exactly disagreeing… this here would be the reason I endorse the "fck you. 
But it takes a lot of work to get tolerance to take hold in a religion, and an attitude of “I think this is evil, but it’s not my place to deal out a punishment for it” is a lot healthier than the alternative. Though, if that’s his actual attitude, then he obviously didn’t do a good enough job of teaching it.
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OK, if you can give a convincing explanation of how that would deter mass shootings such as yesterday’s, I’m interested.
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My daughter’s going to be 19 this year, and she absolutely has memories of it. Sometimes she’ll ask me whether the thing she thinks she remembers actually happened; for example people leaping out of the buildings. So yeah, her memories are hazy, but she remembers.
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