This is so sad and painful...

@ 2 - If those possessed people didn't have easy access to such deadly inanimate objects, their rampages would be severely limited in scope.

A thousand "meh" to you.

#2, how about you fuck off.

Get ready for the "Islamic Terror" vs. Homophobia debate. See FNC's headlines. Ugh.

CNN is pushing that this was ISIS inspired attack. Whatever the hell that means. Though lots of pointless prayers are being offered to the family and victims...

Tell me again how religion makes us better people?

@2- Shut up, idiot.

Texas LG Dan Patrick, is already celebrating. He tweeted the Blblical verse, "You reap what you sow this morning."

My condolences to everyone. This is horrible.

@2/6 - What a sad, unfulfilling world you must live in.

How many of haven't thought in the back of our minds that some deranged religious nut could walk into The Cuff on a busy Saturday night and do something like this?

Y'all need to stop feeding the troll. This is a horrific event.

Unfortunately if the death of grade school kids in Connecticut doesn't change things...

Goddamn the NRA. Shame shame shame shame.

So here's the thing.

Politics is broken. We know that Congress won't lift a finger to do anything that might help.

The police are all very well, but they can't be everywhere and can mostly only intervene after the damage has been done and then investigate after the fact.

What do we do to protect our community?

I'm a big guy. 6'4", 235#, lift 4-5 times per week. I spent five years as an active duty infantryman in the Army. I know how to look intimidating. Hell, if it comes right down to it, I know how to handle a firearm. Should I be one of the ones to step up and do something to protect ourselves? What? How?

@13 A single-shot hunting rifle and a shotgun? A crossbow and a pistol?

It's not just aesthetics; you don't need a rapid fire, large cartridge weapon for hunting or home defense.

Is there any chance the shooter wasn't gay? One thing we've learned over the years: if someone truly hates the LGBT community, they always turn out to be gay and self-hating. The straight haters are icked out, but they don't care nearly enough to go on a suicidal mass shooting.

And yes, this won't stop until there's reasonable gun control.

Fucking awful.

@17: Given your knowledge of how much training it takes to fire accurately even when not under pressure, what do you think of twenty civvies pulling out their pistols and trying to drop a gunman, like the NRA thinks we should have? What's your over/under on the net change in casualties resulting from that action?

@10: ++

BTW, welcome back Pridge.

It probably needn't be said, but I will: Stay our of the comment sections on your local news sites. It got real ugly real fast and will get worse.

What will The Donald say? "We will wipe out ISIS, even if they're killing fags."

Getting ready to go out clubbing with my husband: Party shirt and hot shorts, check. Sunglasses, check. Charged phone, keys, card holder, check. Coke spoon, check. Glock 27, check. Because I want to be able to return fire in a dark room with flashing lights, loud music, and people running everywhere. With a really good buzz on. Something tells me that even with all of my prior firearms training, that won't work out well.

We will never stop seeing harmless religious belief advance to full-blown insanity. Where does one become the other?

A truly horrific event.

To be followed by truly horrific reasoning:

Let's go out on a limb here and say that the guy wasn't made a hating, armed radicalist created by conservative Christianity, Trump, the NRA, Koch brothers or any other convenient bogeymen that spark the senses.

This guy was filled with hate and violence because – and write this down – Hate and violence are widespread phenomena around the world. (Anyone watching Euro 2016 this week? You think the Europeans are beating the shit out of each other for the next 3 weeks because, hey, their lousy Emergency Rooms are free?)
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/rus…

Notwithstanding the rights of people – gay people – to enjoy and drink, dance together without being beaten and/or shot, there is a psychic dissonance in America between how we "feel" the world is, and how the world "actually" is.

Soft parenting has led a generation of soft-headed Millenials to "feel" like the world is a sun-shiny place where violence and hate intercedes. It's not. The real world is at a constant point of tension between people wanting to do you harm, with the odd chance that grace and love may occasionally break-out.

This constant tension is why people own private guns. Trying to address guns (and not mental and social health, which is the crisis), is a fools errand. The cities that have virtually eliminated gun possession consistently demonstrate the highest levels of violence. Chicago. Detroit. Baltimore. Washington DC. Indisputable facts.

And cultures riddled with possession of high-capacity, high-power semi-automatic rifles live quite peaceably. Switzerland has a higher household saturation of weapons (a requirement for all service-aged men to have a battle-ready weapon at home), yet its murder rate is 0.77 per 100k. In the US its 3.88 (And appallingly, 19.4 among African Americans).

We don't actually have a widespread gun problem. We have a massive don't-care-about-people problem concentrated in the poor, urban, black community.

And nobody on the Left wants to say anything. Because, appearances... as that's an inconvenient narrative to the Left.

Instead of looking at the evidence:
- That banning weapons actually makes people less safe.
- That gun murder isn't a widespread phenomena.
- That lawful societies can live peaceably...

Its somehow easier to try and project the Muslim son of a war-torn Afghan immigrant family, whose centuries-old cultural senses were offended – and say he was contemporaneously motivated by Christian evangelicals, the NRA and Donald Trump. What a fantastic fable.

The Orlando shooting is reprehensible.

In the kooky-rationalizations of the Left, sense and reason have also being massacred.

Bullshit, klyecheez, everyone knows that when faced with a Bad Guy with a Gun, the Good Guys with Guns immediately morph into highly trained snipers with perfect situational awareness.

@9 (and DAN) : Which do you think is more likely that am extremely PR-conscious politician deliberately Tweeted support for a mass shooter, or that (as he claimed) this was a generic Bible quote of the week he scheduled weeks in advance that just happened to coincide with a tragedy?

@26, Good thing we have you here to demonstrate the appropriate way to respond to this senseless tragedy.

My heart goes out to the loved ones of the victims.

First, this is fucked up. My heart goes out to the victims who did NOTHING to deserve this.

Second, before we blame Islam, religion in general, guns, Fox News, Trump, whatever, remember this shit cuts both ways: http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/19/justice/dc…

The problem is simple: violence. Violence used for any means aside from defense or to secure freedoms when there is no other choice is the only time violence is justified. I don't care what your politics are, just don't resort to aggression in a free society. It achieves nothing.

@30: Ah yes, the old Switzerland canard. Yes, guns are issued to practically everyone, since practically everyone is a reservist. But guns are also tightly controlled; you need a permit to take one out in public, and you have to account for every single round of ammunition, and keep everything tightly locked up.
Maybe if we had Swiss gun laws we'd be safer. But in America, more guns just means more death, particularly suicide.

@36: Well put.
That said, Floyd Corkins is the exception rather than the rule as far as ideology goes.

It's not only guns, I wouldn't be surprised if the shooter was a closet case. When people are accepted there are less reasons for murders and suicides.

This is the result of the culture of hate and bigotry that Trump and his ilk promote.
And what would have been his response, if he were President?

@20 No, I get that once the bullets start flying, things get really confusing and actually being able to locate the shooter is damn near impossible.

I was thinking more along the lines of scaring them off before the shooting starts. Give them the thought that things aren't going to go down as they hope they will. Make them think twice.

Put it another way: when I park somewhere where I know there's car thefts, I'll put a club on my steering wheel. Not because it will make my car impossible to steal, but because it will make it a relatively harder target.

Is there some good way to make our community a harder target? Because this isn't the first time we've faced this sort of thing.

First of all, this is absolutely horrible. Most tragic. My condolences to the families & friends of the victims. I'm shocked and heartbroken.

@30,
You bring up some valid points. I'm at a loss as to how America is so hyper-violent. Most confounding. There is a strange disconnect. I believe America is coming apart not uniting. Whether it's race, gender, religion or sexual orientation, we seem to be more polarized than ever. And all it takes is one hater (or among a collective of) to manifest the most terrible damage. In addition to my sadness, I remain confounded. Sigh.

@40 Anti-gay violence from Islamists and ISIS long predates Trump's arrival on the scene. ISIS has been murdering gays in Iraq and Syria by throwing from the roofs of buildings for years now. They don't need Trump's encouragement.

@38 Bullshit

In Switzerland citizens can carry an unloaded gun in transit. Legally carrying a loaded weapon requires a permit (waffentragbewilligung), which is hard to acquire. (But most criminals here in the US don't bother with concealed carry permits, so...)

The Swiss only have to account for all issued ammunition as part of their militia program. All semi-automatic standard ammunition is subsidized by the government to encourage marksmanship training. Swiss gun clubs proliferate, and additional ammunition is widely available by simply showing ID (and not being a convicted criminal). As this is the only limitation, you can be sure that blackmarket ammunition is readily available to criminals.)

Your distortion of the Swiss relationship to guns is a deluded, fact-less effort to wish-away how the world ACTUALLY works, and backfill with illiberal nonsense.

The Swiss (the world's oldest democracy, with decentralized federal powers) have fostered a society with mutual respect for the individual, self-reliance and healthy distrust of the central state. (Growing up next to the Germans will do that). Relative cultural harmony has ensued. Maybe that – instead of the possession if inanimate objects, and the conjuring of feel-good-do-nothing gun legislation – should be the focus of your attentions.

@30 Soo. is your point that it's real important we not mention trump, or the NRA, or neocons, or anyone whose beliefs coincide with the shooter's, because hey, he's a muslim and they aren't? Why is this important? ps Please practice communicating your ideas with less than 10,0000 words, you look vain writing so much.

@30 - What's the difference between religious inspiration for acts of violence and "centuries-old cultural senses" being the cause? If religion didn't generally teach people that homosexuality was sinful and unnatural, it would be accepted as part of the natural world, which it is in nearly all warm-blooded animals and many birds. But Abrahamic religion teaches the unnatural order of things and that teaching leads to violence. The easy access to assault weapons in this country is icing on the cake. So assigning blame is a useless exercise unless both religion and the NRA are subject to some serious recalibration.

Another horrible tragedy. My heart goes out to friends and loved one of the victims.

We're fortunate compared to European countries like France and Belgium in that we don't have as many Muslims who are susceptible to ISIS's call to murder people at "soft targets" but we still have some (and perhaps many more than people think.) Considering how easy it is in this country to obtain weapons capable of tremendous carnage and how easy it is to carry out an attack on any "soft target", I'm surprised there haven't been more attacks like San Bernadino and now this tragedy in Orlando. But I know one thing: there will be more*. And I don't think it helps one bit to have the media trumpeting this as the "WORST MASS SHOOTING IN U.S. HiSTORY." I think that just encourages other would-be terrorists to try to top it.

*There will also, of course, be more mass killings by people who aren't motivated by ISIS (or by killing "infidels.") There are just too many angry and/or crazy people in the U.S. and, as noted above, it's just too easy to obtain weapons capable of tremendous carnage and, as a society, we appear to be incapable of dealing with either the former or the latter.

My deepest condolences to the families, friends and loved ones of the dead and wounded.

@41:

This guy had a death wish, and nothing would have prevented him from acting out on it, short of removing his ability to commit mass-carnage in the first place. I simply cannot imagine that things would have gone down much differently, even if he had known for absolute certain there were people carrying in that nightclub; it wouldn't have reduced the number of casualties, and most likely would have increased them as those carrying attempted to engage the shooter under those conditions. This guy wanted to die and his goal was to take out as many others as possible before he was taken out himself. He succeeded, and the only difference between this horrific tragedy and one in which armed citizens intervened in the moment would have been the exact number of dead and wounded, and I am in no way convinced the number would have been significantly lesser in the latter scenario.

This has to stop. We have to stop it. Responsible gun owners have to work with us towards some sort of sensible, effective legislation to ban assault rifles, register firearms, require competency training, and to weed out those who cannot be trusted to operate them responsibly. If they can't or won't, they need to step the fuck aside and let the rest of us do what's necessary to stop it to the best of our ability.

42/lark: I'm at a loss as to how America is so hyper-violent. Most confounding.

It might be in our "cultural DNA". Here's an interesting piece in The Smithsonian: The Shocking Savagery of America’s Early…

@46 and @47. If it follows that organized religion = violence, then be consistent and agree with Donald Asshat Trump that Islam is a religion of hate, and that Muslims should be banned from the US.

Oh, I see, the argument is a little more nuanced than that. In fact human beings have a natural relationship with hate & violence (and love & acceptance) for which religion presents a forum for resolution. And in the name of religion some go on killing sprees, and some dedicate themselves feed and care for the sick, elderly. (Faith communities are by far the largest public aid providers in the region, regardless of the recipients' fatih).

Because its not religion that is bad, its' people that hide behind it, or absolve themselves of thinking because some mighty Allah in the sky of Imam in the mosque "told" them something. Those are human problems, not religion problems.

In fact, most Abrahamic faiths abhor violence against gays. But that's inconvenient to your sense of hysteria.

Factually, reducing access to guns (see Chicago, DC) doesn't reduce violence. In fact, it may increase violence, as it diminishes deterrence.

Blaming "religion" and "guns" for everything furthers the Lefts insistence that individual people aren't responsible for their own choices and actions. There are outside forces that seek to do us harm and and only a large, centralized state government can "protect" you.

But first, they'd prefer a disarmed citizenry.

(Don't read much history, do you....?)

A serious question for Log-Cabin Republicans:
I understand that previous versions of Republicanism were fiscally conservative and inclined to MYOB. And it's nice to believe that we can separate that ideal from the people holding office as Republicans, and say that the ideal is what we're voting for, not the people.
But the people you are voting for -- the TX LGs, the GA Sen - have put targets on your backs, on the backs of your friends and families, on the backs of all of us who are 'other."
They do not represent the Republican ideal.
Why do you keep choosing them to represent you?
I'm truly interested in the answer(s).

@28 The post I was responding to specifically mentioned, in order, hunting and home defense. So I was giving examples of hunting and home defense weapons, also in the same order, that weren't AR-15s. A crossbow is a terrible home defense weapon, but fine for hunting. A shotgun is great for home defense, but not so great for hunting.

Sensible people can agree that there's little reason for the AR-15 to be sold to the public for any reason other than for white dudes to show them off on Facebook, and for them to buy parts on Amazon (!) to create their own builds. It's a $1500 man toy.

Not sure why Switzerland is cited so often when they have about 1/4 of the guns we have per capita, including guns that are not taken home by militia members.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_…

Looks like Omar was a registered Democrat. Here's his registration record.

Just like after the similar attacks in France (a gun control paradise) this shows why we need Trump so badly. Has Jimmy Ocarter made any typically impotent statements yet?

http://flvoters.com/by_number/1144/84524…

@50Roma,
Thanks, I shall read it.

@55. Need Trump so badly? It is his call to violence that has helped create this culture of hate. Giving everyone permission to hate.

51/Zoner: In fact, most Abrahamic faiths abhor violence against gays.

When you say "faiths" what, exactly, are you referring to? All the people in those faiths or the faiths "themselves" (i.e. the "holy" scripture that is the basis for the faiths)?

Because its not religion that is bad...

If you don't see religion as "bad", then would you say it's not "good" either?

Blood needed in Seattle too
(They ship it to where needed)
Go to
http://www.bloodworksnw.org/programs/ind…

@45: "In Switzerland citizens can carry an unloaded gun in transit."
Wow, the contortions implicit! Not only do you neglect to mention that the "transit" must have a valid purpose like taking it to the range or to a gunsmith (just carrying it around like people here like to doesn't count), how much crime do you expect unloaded guns to prevent WHEN EVERYONE KNOWS THEY'RE UNLOADED?
"additional ammunition is widely available by simply showing ID"
Except that you also have to show proof that you passed a background check, your residency information, and a valid weapon permit. If we required those here in the USA, the gunhumpers would throw a fit! And given the controls on the sale of ammunition and the oversight of those selling it, I'd love to see some evidence for your assertion that ammo is easy to acquire on the Swiss black market.
Also, you say that the Swiss have a distrust of authority inherent to their culture while entirely glossing over the mandatory military service and the whole thing about HOW THEY HAVE A STRONG FEDERALIST SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT. They've got bureaucracy at all levels! Efficient and well-designed bureaucracy, but still vastly different from the renegade-libertarian-freedumbs system you impute to them.

Are you at all familiar with the facts here?

@51, "Faith communities are by far the largest public aid providers in the region, regardless of the recipients' fatih." Citation, if you don't mind, since I'm getting quite different data. Religious organizations certainly RECEIVE a lot of money (link 1), but they most certainly do not distribute it generously, nor particularly well to those who need it (link 2).
Also, the bigotry that commenters above are objecting to concerns the singling-out of Islam as violent, when it's a bug of many other religions; so yeah, no, I will not partake of your illogical Trumpesque Islamaphobic straw man arguments, tyvm.

http://nccs.urban.org/nccs/statistics/ch…
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-welfarec…

Not "disarmed," just reasonably-armed. I have my hopes that this is not too much to ask. In fact, historically-speaking we have had much MUCH better gun control in this country, with little loss of freedom for responsible citizens.

@55: So, what exactly would Trump have done to prevent this?
I'm all ears.

@54 Because "guns per capita" isn't statistically relevant. Individual access to a gun – not the number of total guns divided by population -- is a measure.

On background, gun violence in the US has fallen dramatically –50% since its peak in the early 90's. And while the number of guns is up significantly, rates of gun ownership have fallen -30%. It's not that more people have more guns and and so violence is increasing. Quite the opposite.

- 39% of total white US households report living in a household with a gun.
- 18.1 percent of black US respondents reported that they lived in a household with a gun.
- 29% of Swiss households own a gun (2005)

Switzerland's gun murder rate is 0.77 per 100k. In the US its 3.88 overall, though appallingly 19.4 among African Americans. Statistically: white Americans live in "Belgium." Black Americans live in "Iraq."

Adjusting gun murder rate (per 100,000) by presence of guns in households clearly demonstrates that we don't have a gun problem. We have a culture and mental health problem.

http://www.vpc.org/studies/ownership.pdf

@55, they have 1/5 the per-capita number of gun related deaths. A worthy goal, no?.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co…

@63, thanks for the info.

We have both a gun problem and a testosterone problem. The two are incestuously closely tied.

@60 How fantastic is Switzerland then, when they pass a law about guns – and everyone obeys it! Amazing. (Your euro-fantasies get the better of you.)

Having done a 2-year stint in Bern, I can assure you my comprehension of the facts.

The Swiss "presidency" is a ceremonial gig, for a one-year term, representing a 7-person council designed to keep an executive in check. Notably, he/she can't stand for a consecutive 2nd term.

Most of Swiss policy and budget is devolved to the 26 cantons. It is widely regarded as the closest thing to direct democracy in the world.

Perfect? No. But far more liberal (meaning freeing) than your "liberal" authoritarian party politics could every imagine (or see as desirable).

German @ 44- Danke

Venomlash @ 55
Who knows, maybe creating a political climate to close all gay clubs and once there are no gays there are no problems. Apparently Iran and Russia are our role models nowadays.

66: We have both a gun problem and a testosterone problem.

That second part is certainly true. Have there been any mass slaughters where the murderer was a woman? (If there have been any, they are definitely the exception.)

@61

As you asked, about half of the largest aid/relief/care charities in the US are religious affiliations.
Group – Annual Revenue / Efficiency
Salvation Army – $4.1B / 90%
Catholic Charities USA – $4.4B / 89%
St Jude’s Children’s Research - $1.3B / 83%
YMCA – $6.6B / 86%
World Vision– $1.03B / 87%
Food for the Poor – $1B - 93%
Compassion International – $.7B - 89%
Habitat for Humanity – $1.53B / 86%
Catholic Relief Services – $.69B / 92%

http://www.forbes.com/top-charities/list…

From food banks, to shelters, to meal programs to meeting (AA) facilities -- "organized religion" represents the most significant aid infrastructure in Seattle. (Union Gospel Mission, Providence (largest uncompensated healthcare provider), Catholic Housing Services (shelters 4,000 per night), Catholic Community Services, runs 12 soup kitchens, countywide, each day.

One of my husband's oldest friends lives in Florida. His son, whom my husband used to tutor in CS worked at the nightclub at issue. We are grateful his son is fine. We are heartbroken that so many of his friends died. We are heartbroken than anyone's son or daughter died.

I used to be a staunch 2nd Amendment advocate in my bad old libertarian days. I was raised with guns, responsible gun ownership, in a southern setting. But all of us (in my family) have turned against the type of wild west horse shit that exists now. Having children really changed everything for me.

Blessings from (whatever you choose to insert here) to all the families touched by this. Loving kindness to all.

@32 you are an optomist. Right after 911 a Baptist church a few blocks from my house (in Georgia) put up a banner essentially blaming the attacks on our "toleration"of gays. As far as I can tell I was the only person who objected. He put up that quote to appeal to his base who feel that way. I speculate that somone from the governors's office, looking for national office, made them take it down.

@67: How about Switzerland, where they pass a law and it's actually enforced? Right now, you're supposed to be required to pass a background check to get a gun here in the USA, right? Well, the states don't contribute to the database the way the law requires (it's a mostly unfunded mandate thanks to Republican opposition to actually funding the background check system), the agency that processes background checks faces a perpetual backlog, and we STILL refuse to close the gun show loophole. As opposed to Switzerland, where they presumably make an actual effort to enforce their laws?
Still waiting on your evidence of an ammunition black market, by the way. No, hand-waving is not evidence. (Protip: if you tightly regulate legitimate manufacturers, importers, and dealers and hold them accountable for stuff that goes missing on their watch, it makes it a lot harder for merchandise to be sold under the table. All guns and all ammo comes from somewhere...)

And an executive council rather than executive officer doesn't make for the sort of libertarian paradise you seem to have inferred. You're making shit up as usual.

Of course every POTUS has to say Move Along Nothing To See Here, Keep Shopping! But if I owned a club I would be very tempted to treat it as an airline with its own TSA instead of bouncers, that's how paranoid I'm feeling right now.

@66 Being male is not a disease.

WRT gun control, here's the problem with that: there are already about 300 million priv….

Suppose you passed whatever your ideal gun control law is. Background checks, restrictions on magazines, hell...let's just go whole hog and ban the sale of guns altogether, shut down Colt and Smith and Wesson and all the rest..

What do you do about those 300,000,000 weapons that are already out there? Do you send the police door to door to confiscate them? How's that going to play out? Do we even have the resources to do it, even if every last person is cooperative? Do we want to live in a country where the police can go door to door like that? Can search your house looking for contraband?

This is exactly the same problem that Trump's arguments about rounding up all the undocumented falls apart on. Even if we agree that that is a desirable thing to do, both the logistical problems and Constitutional issues make it impossible. This is obvious on its face to liberals. Why is it not so for weapons?

As a practical matter, even with the most favorable political climate, the guns are simply not going away. We need another solution.

This was a gay nightclub. This was motivated by homophobia. All those who have spent the last year or so damning same sex marriage, have blood on their hands. They have fed this hate.

Zoner, why have you insisted on referencing black people and black culture in this discussion? The killer was not black and had no connection to the black community in Orlando or anywhere else. It's not as though what happened in Orlando was caused by the existence of black people in this country, or that it would have been prevented if only the cops were even more repressive towards black people or if the Jim Crow laws were still in effect.

And a fair amount of the victims were black, so it's not as though blaming the black community is in any way appropritate. Black people care just as much about human life as anybody else.

I.AM.SO.ANGRY! I don't know what to do!

@75

....so desperate for a nanny state to hold your hand through life, you can't even be objective...

As for Switzerland, ammunition is a portable, non-traceable, high-value commodity with regulation and restrictions, attractive to the criminal class. A prohibition climate. So is there any reason you would think it WOULDN'T be available in a black market?

Or in your fantasies about all Swiss obeying all guns laws, do your Swiss criminals trade in heroin and ex, but not bullets. You live in a state of denial.

Further, Switzerland's laws are much less restrictive than the crackdowns in Chicago, DC (and Russia) – yet those places with bans have runaway gun murder rates, much higher than the Swiss.

Saying gun violence can be cornered with licensing, training and registration is like saying whale hunting is a boat-licensing problem, drunk driving can be solved by driver's-ed classes, and arson is a problem due to the unregulated sale of matches.

Jesus, the news came out that the FBI did three in-person interviews with the Orlando shooter and STILL couldn't ascertain a threat. You think some background check and training is going to stop the committed criminal from attaining a weapon? (Like the AMAZING success of Brazil, with its mandatory licensing, registration, and maximum ownership quotas, and bans for new owners. Because their homicide rate 3x higher than the U.S)

Grow the fuck up.

Whatever the fix, it won't be easy.

I may vanish for a bit due to not wanting to see the attempts at point-scoring.

@77 It's not every kind of gun that's doing those mass executions. It's the Valentine's Day Massacre kind of guns that are doing it. It's the human lawn mower that's doing it.
Ban assault machine gun type of weapons. NO ONE NEEDS THOSE...do they? NO. They don't.

77/Corydon: @66 Being male is not a disease.

You're correct. It's not. Just like being a human being is not a disease. But human beings are afflicted by diseases and violence is a disease that the male "humankind body" has. Women are not immune, of course, but their tumor is far smaller.

@79 Because the question was raised about remedies to gun violence, citing the level of ongoing gun violence in this country.

And so I drew the apparent contrast between the two Americas, with the incredible divergence in gun violence by race and locale. Overall gun violence in America appears high, until you isolate for variables and find-out that, statistically, gun violence in most of America is like much of gun-free Europe.

I don't doubt that many, many, many individual black people care very, very much about humanity. Unfortunately, what is commonly "black culture" (refusing to cooperate with police, unwed parenting, tribalized gangs, rejecting educational attainment) creates a crisis proliferating in Democrat-controlled cities, and for which "Progressives" won't even address for dear of being called 'racist.'

@84 Great argument. Weak finish.

Cato @ 12
Some 26 years ago there was a plot to call Neighbors and declare a bomb, then as people rushed to the alley drive by and drop a real one.
One of the plotters, needless to say all are from the state on our east, felt this is wrong at some point and decided to cal the FBI just before things got serious.
At least this is what we were told.

originalcinner @ 66 Roma @ 70
I don’t like Mondays either

Lava @ 78
I wouldn’t be surprised to find out the killer had homosexual tendencies which terrified him.

#84 You forgot to mention what we still need those assault weapons for in 2016. Be specific. Getting technical about gun names doesn't show why we need anything that's only good for mass executions in the shortest amount of time.
Do we really need to keep building the metaphorical mass graves for people to stand next to just because the NRA is afraid to get anything banned now?

Make love, you'll feel much less inclined to make war.

Assault weapons huh? The most emotional of the anti-gun red herrings. This weekend was a relatively light weekend in Chicago for shootings as they're often worse. 7 dead 32 wounded. There were no assault weapons involved. Just an average weekend in Chicago.

*crickets*

http://www.fox32chicago.com/news/crime/1…

CMD. I saw an interview with his
ex wife, she stated he was violent towards her. That he was very mentally unstable. When she was married to him, seven odd yrs ago, he wasn't into any radical politics. Though it seems his
father was/ is a supporter of the Taliban.
And there is that shit stain Trump tweeting thanks for congratulating him. for what? He didn't call for any haters of homosexuals to be banned from entering the country.

NYTimes: Was Orlando Shooter Really Acting for IS…

As early as September 2014, Mr. Adnani made clear that anyone and everyone could, and should, carry out acts of terror in the group’s name. “Do not ask for anyone’s permission,” he said, and suggested that sympathizers who could not buy weapons should instead use rocks, knives or even cars to kill infidels. . . . In this case, there was a stark resonance between Islamic State propaganda and the killer’s choice of target. The jihadist group has publicized its hatred of homosexuals, including releasing images of fighters killing people suspected of being gay by throwing them off tall buildings.

@81: You're awfully eager to dodge the question!
We can go back and forth all day about whether or not we think there's an active black market for ammunition in Switzerland. You say it's portable and non-traceable? I say it's more traceable than you think, and because it can't be home-manufactured all that easily the supply can be controlled by proper oversight of manufacturers. But that's all just hand-waving, which is why I'm asking you once more: do you have any EVIDENCE to back up your assertion that ammunition is easily acquired on the black market in Switzerland?

Chicago and DC suffer from the problem of open borders; any yahoo can go to a gun show one state over, buy a gun from an unlicensed dealer sans oversight, and bring it in without having to go through customs. That's the problem, and you know it. (A full 60% of guns recovered from crime scenes in Chicago came from states with looser regulations, especially Indiana. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/…) Russia, meanwhile, is plagued by pervasive corruption at all levels of power, making an analysis of its laws unreliable at best.

The bastard who shot all those people in Orlando was on the FBI's radar for a while, but they didn't have enough evidence to actually charge him. They didn't think he wasn't a threat, just that he wasn't an actionable one. Meanwhile, the NRA ensures that people on the no-fly list are allowed to buy whatever firearms they like. Your argument against background checks is the same one they always advance: that we shouldn't enforce background checks because they don't work because we don't enforce them.
And no, training isn't to stop gun homicides; it's to stop accidental deaths.

Don't be such a mermaid.

@33: Maybe he took our down because he realized it could be misconstrued and was in poor taste, given the timing. Would you have given him the benefit of the doubt had he left it up?

@74: I have no doubt that bigots exist, or that they would be crass enough to celebrate this. What I doubt is that such a high-profile politician's PR team would do so.

I don't think he's a saint. I just know that people in his position usually do plan their Tweets well in advance, and the Tweets are usually posted by interns. If you believe a politician's social media posts are from the guy himself, I've got this bridge...

@25
Where are you fitting a double stack gun in your sequin short-shorts, brah? Besides, 9milley or bust.

My bad @31 but a relief as well. Guess I'll be lobbing slugs at the Bad Guys from a protected corner of the PA stack with fierce accuracy that would put my former Olympic buds to shame. I just hope I have a halfway decent drink and a deck of smokes handy for the aftermath.

@95 A tropical themed button down party shirt could hide pretty well if I wanted it to. Also, I got a good deal on the compact fo-taay, otherwise I agree.

@93 -- Golly, so you're surprised that (in the case of Chicago and DC) that criminals broke the strictest laws, and do so with abandon? But if there was a national ban (say, like the illegality of heroin, cocaine, etc), that'll solve it? Hahahahahaha!

So two questions: What OTHER laws (aside from those NATIONAL bans woefully failing in Russia and Brazil) would cause intent criminals in the US to obey?

What is the magical quality of the Swiss that they obey their laws on ammunition, but still have a nice little crime rate -- higher than Greece, Hungary, Portugal?

What a fantasy world you live in....

Fool.

Port Arthur Massacre: The Shooting Spree That Changed Australia's Gun Laws.

Australia had experienced mass shootings before, but the Port Arthur massacre shook the nation to its core. . . . The Australian government subsequently introduced the National Firearms Agreement — legislation that outlawed automatic and semi-automatic rifles, as well as pump-action shotguns. A nationwide gun buyback scheme also saw more than 640,000 weapons turned in to authorities.

An article published online in July by the NRA claimed "This gun-control regime ... robbed Australians of their right to self-defense and empowered criminals, all without delivering the promised reduction in violent crime," Research, however, suggests otherwise. Gun-related homicides decreased 7.5 percent per year following the reforms, while firearm-related suicides have also fallen, according to one Australian study. Although there have been calls to revisit the laws, most Australians haven't looked back.

There is this caveat:

[Former Prime Minister John] Howard acknowledges that "major cultural and historical differences" make it difficult to draw comparisons between the gun cultures in the U.S. and Australia.

My heartfelt condolences to all--this is absolutely and inexcusably sick.
I am performing in a pit orchestra for a local musical, and we wore ribbons
on our black dress outfits at today's show upon hearing this dreadfully heart-
breaking news.
This madness has to stop now. If Congress, US House and Senate won't
stop this, then we need to overhaul Congress, the House and Senate.

And now that there's a gun ban – Australian authorities are shitting themselves over the rise of lucrative black market gun sales, as in March 2016 there were 15 separate shootings in a span of 6 days – in the city of Melbourne alone....

http://www.minister.border.gov.au/peterd…

The Australians have simply resorted to knives and matches since Port Arthur. The law can't prevent a committed criminal.

Cairns Murders – 19 December 2014 – Stabbing attack. 8 children aged 18 months to 15 years killed. Thirty-seven-year-old woman also found injured.

Quakers Hill Nursing Home Fire - 18 November 2011 - Arson attack by Roger Kingsley Dean, a nurse, which killed 11 people

Churchill Fire - 7 February 2009 - Arson attack by Brendan Sokaluk that killed 10 people.

Childers Palace Backpackers fire – 23 June 2000 – Arson attack by Robert Paul Long, which killed 15 student backpackers.

#90 Did it all happen in the time it takes for one song to end? The ONLY guns I'm concerned about are the ones people KNOW full well can kill the most people in the shortest amount of time. If you're in a hurry, you leave the gun and cannoli and take the AR 15 to shoot up a place with as many people as possible. And why would hunters want their big game full of holes anyway, wouldn't it make the meat taste bad? Using something that needs to put more than two bullets into the animal seems like a waste of money and makes it seem like you can't even hit a target unless you have something that sprays bullets at it instead of just trying to be a good shot.

@70 (Roma):

We have both a gun problem and a testosterone problem.

After reading all the stuff here about Switzerland, I read that as We have both a gun problem and a Toblerone problem. Time for me to hit the sack.

@97: Are you stupid or just pretending?
The whole point is that gun control only works if it's actually consistently enforced. It's not a difficult concept, and yet you seem to be unable to wrap your head around it.

And hey, you want to know what crime doesn't happen as much thanks to it being outlawed, and the relevant laws being aggressively and consistently enforced? Murder.

@100: What's that? Gun control didn't stop ALL murders from happening in Australia?
Well, time to go home then! After all, no point in just preventing SOME murders; why, if we can't prevent them ALL we should just give up?
Imbeciles like you are the common criminal's best friend in this regard.

I'm still trying to come to grips with the Sandy Hook massacre, so I know that puts me something like 2600 American mass shootings behind the present. But if a score of first graders being slaughtered in a public school, along with a half dozen teachers (and the murderer's own mother) weren't enough to get something to change, I don't think anything will ever be enough.

@103

No you don't seem to realize – see Chicago, Brazil, Russia – that cracking-down on guns actually INCREASES murder rates, as criminals find leverage over everyday citizens.

I'll ask again – what law are you proposing that would lower gun deaths, and where else has that been proven to work?

Perhaps you haven't noticed, from Sandyhook to Orlando, that these mass murders are in "Gun Free Zones"

Florida statute (790.06):

Zoner. After a mass shooting in Australia in the 90s, new gun laws were introduced. A national recall of guns happened, and we have had no mass shootings since.

Knives and matches. Yes, murders still happen in Australia. There are still some shootings, mainly criminals shooting each other. Not with weapons like the one used in Orlando.

A little light late night reading...
https://leb.fbi.gov/2014/january/active-…
Also important are the actions that civilians take to protect themselves during the 3 or more minutes that it takes the police to arrive. Civilians need to be trained about what to do if one of these attacks occurs. A variety of resources are available at no cost. Federal agencies, including both the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency, endorse the use of the teaching technique of Run, Hide, Fight to explain to civilians how they can protect themselves and others around them.[8] Police departments and the communities they serve should work together to implement this training.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/a…
What’s Pro-Life About an AR-15? The right to life takes second place to the Second Amendment.

@Zoner Bless your heart for jumping up and down and dancing on the bodies of the dead.

To cap it all, about the second sentence I heard when my radio alarm turned on this morning was a description of the blood drive, and how some people waited seven hours to donate. Then I heard that, despite the federal guideline change, "men who have sex with men" are being turned away if they attempt to donate.

I think something stronger than LMB is required for this one. I trust the assembled company will have no or little difficulty in deciphering the meaning of SMN.

@110

Frankly, you're disgusting for even mentioning victims in this context.

The discussion others were having is about whether prescriptions for gun control are reasonable and effective. Using the deceased as human shields, to defend the weakness of an political ideology, is vile.

I've expressed my sincere condolence (@30), which you're invited to take on face value. And while you're at it – remember that ineffective gun control robs gay citizens of their rights to self defense as well.

Classless....

@112 Zoner,
Good discussion between you and Venomlash. Granted it's heated but I've learned much. Thank you to you & VL. And I agree with you regarding @110. He or she is out-of-line. The victims' families deserve only sympathy & support. I believe you, me and many others on SLOG have given it. This is a most unfortunate national tragedy.

@96
Printed button-downs are the best for that CC life, cheers mate :)

I couldn't get through this terrible article. Danny Boy was grasping at straws to incorporate any hated group he could lambaste by association: white, republican, Trump, Aurora, SC (therefore racist and homophobic by proxy.)

Danny Boy, how come you never mention www.pinkpistols.org? It's an LBGTQ group that supports the right to keep and bear arms. That's pretty cool because it would seem to me that oppressed and disadvantaged minorities should be embracing the precepts of self-defense to protect themselves and their civil rights from people that hate them for their identity. Like Islamic extremists.