Sad times

[Serial_Apologist]

6. In a shoot out between someone who hasn't much experience of guns against someone who is not scared to use one, the latter usually wins (this is to counter the self defence argument - that if someone else has a gun every individual should have one too, for self protection).

If, but only if this is right, it would stand as the useful counter not deployed by the British reporter to the woman present at the massacre who stated that if only she had been in possession of the gun she had at home, she would have been able to make short shrift of the gunman.

Instantaneous wisdom can seem wonderful, in hindsight...

[jean]

...Things that many Americans (a seemingly significant, but obstructive, proportion of the total anyway) don't seem to realise is that:

1. Many people live in cities, so the chances of being attacked by a bear are now remote.
2. As above, but replace "bear" by "alligator".
3. Just because some rules were written hundreds of years ago, when they may have been appropriate, doesn't make them right now.
4. The rules weren't written at a time when AK47 and other high powered guns were available. Rocket launchers will be next, I suppose.
5. The belief that guns can be used in the case that the US government "goes bad" and targets groups of individuals - who might want to "defend their rights" is farcical. If the US government did decide to go after specific groups (heaven forbid) for example using the army or air force etc., then it would take a lot more than a few dozen people armed with sub machine guns to stop them.
6. In a shoot out between someone who hasn't much experience of guns against someone who is not scared to use one, the latter usually wins (this is to counter the self defence argument - that if someone else has a gun every individual should have one too, for self protection).
7. Automatic weapons usually win against single shot weapons, or weapons with small magazines.
8. Food can be obtained in supermarkets and stores, without the need to go out to the woods to shoot bears, deer, birds or other animals in order to eat. The American Constitution does not mention supermarkets AFAIK.

*** see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_vi..._United_States

And that's not even to take into account the child who reaches into his mother's handbag, finds a gun, and shoots himself or his mother dead.

[Richard Barrett]

it would be nice to see more leadership from the Muslim world in trying to combat the Death Cult of ISIS

It would be nice to see more leadership from the Judeo-Christian world in trying to combat the death cult of military imperialism.

But, as has already been pointed out, while the "terrorist" in this case may or may not have committed his crimes in the name of Islam (and bearing in mind that the issue of religion is never brought up when the perpetrator is not a Muslim, which should surely provide food for thought - Anders Breivik for example was a Lutheran, and we don't hear calls for the "Lutheran community" to "unequivocally condemn" his actions etc. etc.), his victims were not a random collection of people such as you might find in a shopping mall or whatever, but a night club full of gay people. So, apart from the issue of the ready availability of assault weapons, the other major issue here is homophobia and how that might be addressed in American society.

[Dave2002]

And that's not even to take into account the child who reaches into his mother's handbag, finds a gun, and shoots himself or his mother dead.

Plus also the sad cases of New Year "festivities" where people shoot up into the air directly above their heads. Even in times of happiness gravity is not turned off, and requires the bullets to come back down. I think there have been inadvertent "suicides" that way, not to mention a few children killed accidentally.

[ahinton]

it would be nice to see more leadership from the Muslim world in trying to combat the Death Cult of ISIS

It would be nice to see more leadership from the Judeo-Christian world in trying to combat the death cult of military imperialism.

It would be nicer still to see both - and even nicer again if the example of the emergence of the one were to encourage that of the other.

But, as has already been pointed out, while the "terrorist" in this case may or may not have committed his crimes in the name of Islam (and bearing in mind that the issue of religion is never brought up when the perpetrator is not a Muslim, which should surely provide food for thought - Anders Breivik for example was a Lutheran, and we don't hear calls for the "Lutheran community" to "unequivocally condemn" his actions etc. etc.), his victims were not a random collection of people such as you might find in a shopping mall or whatever, but a night club full of gay people. So, apart from the issue of the ready availability of assault weapons, the other major issue here is homophobia and how that might be addressed in American society.

That's absolutely correct, of course.

There is also the issue, however, of the risks that a country takes in maintaining gun laws such as those of US under which not only groomed religious fanatics, homophobes and others of profoundly anti-social persuasion but also the mentally unstable may in most cases freely purchase and use guns; I believe that the perpetrator of this most recent atrocity fell into that last category as well (allegedly and seemingly by his own admission) as the first. All of these issues need to be addressed in the land of the freely available gun. So why aren't they (apart from the vociferous gun lobby's reliance upon precedent)? Because whilst the government of the day may have powers to amend relevant legislation, it persistently refrains from exercising them, which begs the question as to whether the government or the gun lobby runs the country.

Not only all of that, but US is a nation of immense military might that is notorious for paranoia, for wilful misunderstanding of the fundamental differences between self-defence and aggression at all levels and on all scales and for sabre-rattling and war-mongering in the absence of having first been invaded; its present and recent parlous history of wading in with heavy weaponry in whatever territories it feels like invading demonstrates that it is in practice one of the most militarily-minded nations on earth. Persuading US to effect drastic tightenings of its gun legislation would almost certainly first presume equally substantial cultural change in its militarism, so I'm sadly not about to hold my breath for the emergence of either.

[ahinton]

If, but only if this is right, it would stand as the useful counter not deployed by the British reporter to the woman present at the massacre who stated that if only she had been in possession of the gun she had at home, she would have been able to make short shrift of the gunman.

But (since (unless I misheard) she stated that she didn't actually see the gunman, her statement would seem to bear little credibility. Even had he been within her sights, she could not have known in advance and in the heat of the moment whether he was a better shot than she might be. Not only that, but had other armed individuals nearby taken the matters into their own hands in the manner that she claims that she would have done had she been armed, it would not be hard to imagine how the bloodbath and body count would soon have increased out of all proportion even to what the gunman managed to accomplish alone. Moreover, her statement begs the question as to the kind of gun that she'd left at home? Was it an automatic weapon equivalent to that used by the gunman? If not, the very inequality in the balance of weaponry would alone have undermined her claim unless she happened to be a higly trained marksperson and got lucky.

[Flosshilde]

Still, why gun availability is part of the problem,m we can't overlook who is doing the shooting. It isn't rabid Christian Fundamentalists

Not in this particular event, but rabid Christians have been 'doing the shooting' in the past, or have you forgotten about all the black people killed by the Klu Klux Klan, who could, I think, be described as 'rabid Christians'.

[Dave2002]

Persuading US to effect drastic tightenings of its gun legislation would almost certainly first presume equally substantial cultural change in its militarism ...

This statement has no logical foundation, even though you may wish it had.

[Beef Oven!]

I know it's been said before, but this is a very different threat and the liberals and leftists among us are unable to get their heads around it - "when people are learning a new language, they habitually translate it back into the one they already know".

[Stillhomewardbound]

<<Still, why gun availability is part of the problem,m we can't overlook who is doing the shooting>>

That's a bit too close to the NRA/Charlton Heston reasoning ... guns don't kill people, people kill people.

[jean]

...I don't claim to have more Muslim friends than you, but what they say sounds different...

What do they say?

[P. G. Tipps]

Not in this particular event, but rabid Christians have been 'doing the shooting' in the past, or have you forgotten about all the black people killed by the Klu Klux Klan, who could, I think, be described as 'rabid Christians'.

I'm not sure the Klu Klux Klan could ever be described as 'Christian'. It is viruntly both anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic and all the main Christian denominations have condemned it. To equate a tiny minority of murderous Islamists with Christianity and its 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' command is clearly arrant nonsense put out by the faith-phobics.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan

As for the main topic of the terrible Orlando massacre it has been reported that the mass murderer was himself gay who used the venue regularly so 'homophobia' is not the issue here.

The issues are Islamist terrorism and the easy availability of guns in the USA. Whilst combating the former is going to be a long, hard struggle the latter could be solved at a stroke if a real will to curb guns in that country were there.

[ahinton]

This statement has no logical foundation, even though you may wish it had.

Really? I don't "wish" anything of the kind, but there's no smoking gun without gunfire. If US were a far more peace-loving nation, do you not think that it might be easier for it to tighten its gun laws without the dreaded gun lobby opposition?

[Serial_Apologist]

You seem to have a million friends, any one of whom can be called upon for an anecdote. I don't claim to have more Muslim friends than you, but what they say sounds different. In fact what you say your Muslim friends are saying, sounds suspiciously like what you are saying.

By personalising your positions the way you always do, eg "you don't understand people coming from where we do", you attract similar treatment in return:

Now that's out of the way, I think you are an apologist for this death cult.

is another trait of yours: the unsupported final rhetorical flourish, following an evasive now-we've washed our hands-there's-no-reason-for-anybody-to come-back-to-it.

It's a shame that your way of conducting disagreements invites the treatments you get in return, especially given your strong point about us on the left not acknowledging the very different motivations of those who join ISIS from those who in the past have taken up the gun to create what they perceive as a better world - whether it would or could be. Where you or I are coming from is neither here nor there a regards this particular debate, ironically, because, as you say below, the dangers ISIS presents are unprecedented and call for unprecedented thinking about.

Make no mistake, what is under consideration is an attack by theocratic fascists on the ethos of the multicultural, the cosmopolitan, the sceptical, the secular and the belief in scientific discovery. And your tired old vocabulary is not up to the challenge.

All true.

[french frank]

That doesn't make sense. MrGG started it off with his personalised stock in trade anecdote, so quite what I'm supposed to be attracting in return is mysterious.

Gongers has asked for his posts on this subject to be deleted so I've done so, but I cannot agree that there was anything 'personalised' that involved you and there was no call to make the response that you did. There's no reason for you to be argumentative on every thread you contribute to.