AWKWARD ZOMBIE

50 people were killed and over fifty more were injured in a shooting at an LGBT+ nightclub in Orlando; this is the largest American mass shooting to date. The shooter, Omar Mateen, was killed by police and allegedly bought the guns he used in the shooting (an AR-15 and a 9mm handgun) a few days prior. The FBI had apparently had its eye on him since 2013. While right-wing news sources and politicians have been quick to link him to ISIS, it is unclear whether or not he was actually part of any terrorist organization, and his relatives say he was not a religious man.

If they had their eye on him since 2013, and didn't react the moment he bought those guns, then I'm wondering if he bought them legally. You have to submit to a federal firearms check anytime you buy a firearm from a licensed dealer (it's a bunch of questions and warnings about penalties for lying in the questionnaire; took a while when I bought my rifle). One would think that a person of interest would have their name tagged in the system, so the FBI would be alerted if and when this individual attempted to buy a gun.

From what you've said so far, I'm inclined to think he wasn't connected to ISIS, either. Probably just some shitbag homophobe who got bent out of shape because society is changing.

ISIS HAS claimed responsibility for it, but I find the claim extremely doubtful, there's no proof that the guy had any connection to them, aside possibly from having read their propaganda online. Plus, they did say they were going to do a U.S attack during Ramadan and they hadnt done tha yet, so they likely lied to fill their quota. In other news, the world continues to be an absolute horror show with absolutely no hope in sight for anyone

I thought it was pretty clear at this point that the shooter had ties to IS, thought it's possible he never had direct contact with them (which is even scarier imo). Remains the question how he got the guns though.

His father has also shown support for the Taliban.

I've been hearing rumors that some news outlets have been suppressing this side of the story, though I can't phantom why.

To make it all about Muslim terrorism instead of ackowledding that homophobia is a thing. Congressmen have already denied that the victims had been targeted because they were LGBT or just glossed over it, and the Republicans are self-congratulating their own racism and being huge hypocrites.

The shooter's parents publicly said that their son was not religious, he just got offended when he saw two men kissing.
Also he legally acquired his guns within a week.

Why would he pledge allegiance to IS if he wasn't religious at all? His parents can claim all they want, they are hardly reliable or unbiased sources. It seems pretty obvious to me he is both a muslim and a homophobe. The relevancy of his religion is a different question, but it's hardly a secret that homosexuality is a controversial topic in Islam.

Just did a little reading. It wasn't an AR-15, but a Sig Sauer SCX. I keep seeing news reports claiming the state department had ordered the FBI to back off because it'd offend the Muslim community, but I don't really know if that's anything more than spin against the Democrats.

Edit: I'd like to also state that the guy should have been on a terror watch list, as he'd been under investigation since 2011, and that should have been made to cause the FBI to be alerted when he submitted for the firearms check. Then they should have immediately began monitoring his movements, and could possibly have intercepted him on the way to the club. Though, I bet he would have tried something else if he didn't have access to guns. I know that statement will piss off several of the anti gun folks here, but I honestly think he would have, since he went as far as he did. Chemical fertilizer is easy to acquire, and has been used as an explosive before, like in Oklahoma. Black power and pressure cookers, like those used in Boston, are also easy to acquire. The issue is not gun control, but radical Islam, and the failure of law enforcement to act in time.

I'm fucking appalled. I can't even think of the words to describe how utterly stupid this line of thinking is.

The worst mass shooting in history, which is a hate crime against a demographic I fall under mind you, is committed with an assault rifle, and your response is "don't ban assault rifles, he would have found another way" it instantly makes me feel less safe around you.
Yeah he would have "tried something else" but they would have been less easy access.
He was an American born citizen who legally acquired his weapon. Saying that making it harder to get his gun wouldn't have done anything to stop this shooting, or that it was a foreign terror group he had no ties to is idiotic.

The fact that someone on an FBI watch list is able to get a machine with only one function, killing a lot of people very quickly, is absolutely something that needs to be stopped.

But yeah, please keep telling me how gun control is useless. I'll just be over here being fucking terrified of going out in public because of all the gun-toting homophobes with twitchy trigger fingers.

This is also going to be my only post on this matter because so far every single post about it aside from mine is in defense of the thing that killed 50 fucking people or is trying to pin the blame on a demographic that had nothing to do with the attack at all beyond a single sentence shouted by a maniac with a gun

Well, what I'm trying to imply is that instead of outright banning a type of firearm, the shooter should have already been on a terror watch list due to the past investigations against him, and that should have either been enough to prevent him from legally purchasing any firearm or at the very least alerted the FBI so they could begin surveillance immediately. Like, they get the alert, and then they immediately organize a team to watch and possibly intercept him. The problem is, they didn't.

Because I'm at work right now, I can't spare the time to actually look this up, but I think something similar happened before the Columbine incident, in which law enforcement authorities said they didn't have sufficient reason to act, in spite of written and video recordings of them making threats against specific individuals. Or something to that effect. I'll try to look it up later.

Guns are scary and American culture and history placing them on such a high pedestal, making them so important to people that they'd rather have gun than stop having gun-related incidents by taking them off the hands of most citizens, is completely terrifying.

I'm really sorry you people have to deal with the second amendment, as well as the NRA and its sympathizers.

There is no reason, NO REASON, why a civilian should have access to a MASS MURDER WEAPON. There is NO REASON a civilian should be able to take 20 lives in a few seconds. There is NO. REASON. NONE. Automatic weapons like a Sig Sauer MCX (not SCX) should not be in the hands of civilians at all outside of a shooting range. Nobody needs to own a murder weapon such as this one.
Guns, easy access to guns, a culture that tells you you're irresponsible if you don't own guns - these are all the problem.
The US are the only country where access to guns is that simple. The US are also the only country where gun-related incidents and killings happen so often. Must I really remind you that there have been 1,000 shootings in 1,260 days in the US?There have been 139 shootings in the US THIS YEAR ALONE.

There is a gun crisis in the US. It's undeniable.

Yeah, but how many of those weren't involving gangs or general hate crimes (which are actually rare)? I include anything related to radical Islam as a hate crime, by the way. Further, unless he had a class 3 license, then that weapon was semiautomatic, not an automatic. Second, you're implying that it was designed and marketed to civilians strictly for that purpose. That isn't the case.

Also, how many of people were involved in these shootings? Compare that to how many Americans own guns. Here's another analogy: We're told not to blame all Muslims because of a small minority. Why are all legal gun owners viewed as mass murderers waiting for an opportunity, when it's actually a very small percentage who could obtain their weapons legally who do so?

Further, most of the homicides involving guns are gang related, and the guns were obtained illegally.

Also, I have never once heard anyone say that people who don't own guns are irresponsible for not owning guns.

As for owning a firearm with a similar capacity for killing a lot of people, I'd like to point out that my handgun, a Berretta 92FS, aka M9, uses the same rounds as the pistol used in this incident, and I think has the same size magazine.

Are you saying I'm a monster for owning it? Or that the police should kick in my door and throw my family to the floor with guns to our heads because I have something that could be used for a killing spree?

Irrelevant. Easy access to weapons still allows for these things to happen. There are gangs and hateful people outside of the US, in my country, the UK, Australia, whatever. These killings still happen very rarely compared to what happens in the US.

My apologies. I got my words mixed up. English is not my first language.

I did not imply that. What I said is that that is what they ARE. I think it's even worse than rifles are marketed as something cool or something to use for self-defence. They are dangerous and terrifying machines of death. Nothing can change that.

I think your comparison is disgusting and you should be ashamed of yourself.
Apart from that, I never said legal gun owners are all mass murderers waiting for an opportunity. However "the percentage" does not fucking matter when there are hundreds, thousands of cases where legal gun owners shot others out of anger, shot others by accident, shot others because they showed them disrespect, or even shot themselves by accident. It's not about the percentage. It's about the raw numbers. You can't minimize the importance of how many people were hurt, handicapped, or killed by guns. When you have a country where dogs killing their owners with their guns is not an uncommon occurrence, where there is on average more than one gun-related incident a day, you can't in good conscience say there isn't a gun problem.

That is correct but naive.
"One of the most common ways criminals get guns is through straw purchase sales. A straw purchase occurs when someone who may not legally acquire a firearm, or who wants to do so anonymously, has a companion buy it on their behalf."
"The next biggest source of illegal gun transactions where criminals get guns are sales made by legally licensed but corrupt at-home and commercial gun dealers."
- How Criminal Get Guns - PBS
Just because a gun was obtained illegally doesn't mean legal circuits weren't involved in the process.

Oh, come on. It certainly isn't what everyone thinks, but NRA sympathizers and other politicians do say that you would be better off owning a gun for self-defence purposes. How many times have seen people saying "if they had a gun, that wouldn't have happened"? Don't act blind. They are everywhere: people who put the blame on victims, saying that owning a gun would have kept them safe. I would be hard pressed to find a news article on the Internet about a shooting that doesn't have someone in the comments claiming their M&P9 would have kept them alive or allowed them to take down the killers.

You know, since I'm involved in this discussion, I can't act like a moderator, but I have to say it's really gross of you to pretend I said things that I did not say. Stop playing victim and acting like I'm being mean and attacking you, right now.

With that out of the way: I'd like to specify that I was talking about his Sig Sauer MCX, which fired 24 shots in 9 seconds. There is no reason a civilian should have that killing power.

Anyway. About handguns.

I don't think you're a monster if you own a handgun. I don't think you're deranged, or a potential killer in waiting, all that. I really don't.

But you have a gun! You own something made only to harm and kill!
How do you want me to NOT be scared by that?!
Yes, I'm terrified!
You're terrifying! You have a gun, for God's sake!
It doesn't matter that you're not a monster, or deranged, or a killer in waiting. There are thousands of stories of people shooting others by accident. It doesn't matter that you're a responsible gun owner. It doesn't matter that you didn't buy it to kill people.
Guns kill people. In fact, they kill people daily in the US. Sometimes responsible gun owners shoot their kids or significant others by accident. Sometimes responsible gun owners get a rush of anger and shoot someone in a flash.
It's not a matter of responsibility. It's not a matter of whether or not you're a monster. I don't care that you're not a monster. I care about the thousands of people being shot every year because it's so easy to own a gun in the US.

And here's whats truly infuriating about the gun debate: Guns are an ITEM. They are not who you are born as, they are not a religion, a sexual preference or a mental disorder. But all the evidence in the world doesnt matter, the enormous amounts of data showing that easy gun ownership is dangerous doesnt matter, because gun owners WANT to own guns, and cant stand to be told that something they WANT is signifigantly deterimental to society at large, and they might have to accept that restrictions on their hobby is necessary. Thats the crux right there, this isnt a matter of rights, this is a matter of a subculture of spoiled children who dont want their insanely dangerous toys taken away because some of them have been behaving incredibly irresponsibly with them.

At some point you're going to have to deal with the fact that what you WANT isnt always what you should get.

I'm not a mod, so I apologize in advance, but I think everyone here needs to tone down the rhetoric. I personally think the US needs much tighter restrictions on acquiring guns but I can also see why a responsible gun owner, who would never want to harm anyone, might get worried about their rights being taken away.

That being said it can also be insensitive towards a grieving community to vehemently defend gun rights at a time like this. At the end of the day, guns are objects, very dangerous ones; that just doesn't compare to the fact that 49 lives were lost. I understand that this is an issue you care a lot about, Alkarii, but I hope you can understand why these folks and others are outraged, not so much at you but at a legal system that continually blocks any serious attempt to solve the ridiculous, overwhelmingly common problem of gun violence in the US.

At this point, trying to outright ban any guns is pointless, with current politics. But we seriously need some common-sense regulations (require training for a license; background checks, and make them actually matter; and make it much harder to get higher-powered weapons) and it's ridiculous that even tiny incremental solutions get stonewalled by the NRA. I don't think anybody with any sense thinks that taking currently owned guns away will actually work in the US. I personally don't think that outright banning a certain type of gun will work, with the way things are now. But it's stupidly easy for ANYONE to get a gun. It's needs to be difficult. Why is it impossible to bring a harmless water bottle on a plane, but a person with a criminal record can go to Walmart at any time and buy a gun? Because politicians and lobbyists have created a culture of fear, where any time someone says "Well maybe it should be a teeeeeny bit harder to get machines designed to kill things", an entire political party won't even consider it. I really just don't see the common sense in defending the current (legal) system of acquiring guns in the US.

Even if I were a gun owner, I would want other gun owners to be PROVEN that they will be responsible with theirs. Owning something so dangerous should be a solemn thing. "with great power comes great responsibility", etc. It should be a pain in the booty to get one.

In addition, I think it's worth it to ask why the FBI didn't do something about this guy, ever? Why do we only hear about the shifty backgrounds of these killers after the fact? Where's the push for government agencies to do their job and prevent a dangerous person from acquiring weapons at all? A lot of systems failed in preventing this tragic event, gun laws included.