Recent Forum Topics › Forums › The Public House › Omar Mateen and Rightwing Homophobia
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June 12, 2016 at 3:48 pm #45963znModerator
Omar Mateen and Rightwing Homophobia: Hate Crime or Domestic Terrorism?
Juan Cole
US law enforcement is at least initially categorizing the horrific Orlando shootings as “domestic terrorism.”
I don’t think it probably was terrorism in any useful sense of the term.
I used to know what domestic terrorism was, before the term became politicized in the past decade. It was defined right there in the Federal code of 1992:“(5) the term “domestic terrorism” means activities that—
(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;
(B) appear to be intended—
(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and
(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.”The great thing about this definition is that it focuses on the motive behind the act. And it specifies that the motive has to be to coerce people or influence or affect government policy.
So if the alleged shooter, Omar Mateen, was a terrorist you would expect him to make demands about US government policy. There will be more such acts, he would have said, unless the US government passes a law outlawing homosexuality. Or unless the US government withdraws from Afghanistan. (But if he aimed to change the latter policy, why shoot up a civilian gay club on Latin night? Wouldn’t he have targeted, say, a US Army base?)
Shootings like Orlando that hit “soft targets” such as restaurants or nightclubs are not a form of classical strategic terrorism. Serious terrorist would hit military targets, e.g.–an act that might hope to degrade US security. Shooting down people at a nightclub has no obvious strategic goal. Such a goal is intrinsic to the tactic of terrorism, and its absence should cause us to question the use of the term.
What we know about Mateen so far doesn’t indicate that he was a member of a terrorist organization. If the authorities thought that he was, the crime would have been labeled international terrorism, not domestic.
We know that his father, Seddique Mateen, is a Pushtun nationalist from Afghanistan who objects to the 1893 Durand Line that the British drew between British India and Afghanistan, which cut the Pushtun ethnic group in two. Today, the Pushtuns (called Pukhtuns in the local dialect) are a majority in the province of Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa of northern Pakistan, while the Afghanistan Pushtuns dominate a number of provinces stretched across eastern and southern Afghanistan. Decades ago a Pushtun nationalism that wanted to unite Pushtuns into a single country and secede from both Pakistan and Afghanistan had some popularity, but it is now a fringe movement.
Mateen senior goes on a California Persian-language tv and promotes this subnationalism. He is also said to support the Taliban, but that may be because he sees them as authentically Pushtun and oppressed by the Punjabi Pakistani officer corps, rather than because he is a fundamentalist. His big emphasis seems to be on erasing the Durand Line. He asserted that his son’s action had nothing to do with Islam. Although the US press is depicting Seddique Mateen as himself perhaps unbalanced, his position isn’t crazy, it has just become a minority idea.You could imagine Mateen being brought up to resent that the West had divided and weakened the Pushtun ethnic group. But there isn’t any evidence that Omar shared his father’s separatist politics.
We know that Omar Mateen’s marriage failed because, his ex-wife alleges, he beat her. Her Muslim relatives were so appalled on hearing this that they extracted her from the match.
She says he wasn’t religious 8 years ago.
We know that a co-worker when he was employed as a security guard considered him unbalanced, racist and homophobic, and even left his position rather than continuing to have to work with him.
We know the FBI investigated him twice and found no reason to pursue the inquiry or to keep him on a terrorist watch list.
So this person looks as though he was unbalanced and extremely prejudiced individual who bought two semi-automatic weapons only last week and then committed a mass shooting against a group against which he was bigoted.
He may have invoked Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) as he began his mayhem, but there is no reason at the moment to think that he was involved with them in any practical way.
He was about to commit a mass murder that he must have known would likely end in his own death as well.
So it may be that he was searching for a way to make sense of his homicidal impulse, a way to give meaning to his senseless killing and senseless death.
So, a major, major hate crime for sure. But terrorism? What is the governmental policy he wanted changed?
If it was about gay marriage, well, there is a lot of political opposition to that on the Republican Right, and violence against gays has been a feature of the American far right.
In fact, you could argue that the American evangelical groups that successfully lobbied Uganda to execute gays were engaged in a form of international legislative terrorism–they are certainly driven by a political agenda and wanted to see people killed; they were just more patient about it.
In a mirror image of Mateen, police in LA arrested James Wesley Howell , a right wing white conspiracy nut. Howell was found with high powered rifles and bomb-making materials. He says that Hillary Clinton is Hitler, and he is a truther, alleging that the US government is behind terrorist attacks since 2000. He was headed to the Gay Pride parade in Los Angeles, though friends of his denied that he is a homophobe. (Friends don’t always know these things).
If Howell was planning an act of violence at the parade, it was forestalled by his arrest, so it is hard to compare him to Mateen, especially since we know so little about Howell’s intentions. But these two men both seem to have been unbalanced, and both intended to go to a gay event.
The biggest thing they had in common between being off their rockers was that they had free access to high powered firearms despite all the signs they exhibited of being one can short of a six-pack.June 12, 2016 at 3:48 pm #45925znModeratorOrlando Shooting Suspect Omar Mateen’s Ex Wife Says He Was Violent and Unstable
https://www.yahoo.com/news/orlando-shooting-suspect-omar-mateens-175248182.html
The ex wife of suspected Orlando gay bar shooter Omar Mateen claims her former spouse beat her during their relationship.
In an interview with the Washington Post in which she remains anonymous, the woman said Mateen was violent and emotionally unstable.
The 29-year-old died Sunday morning after police believe he killed at least 50 people during an early morning assault rifle attack at Pulse nightclub.
“He was not a stable person,” the ex-wife told the Post. “He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn’t finished or something like that.”
The attack is being called the worst ever mass shooting in America’s long history of gun violence.
The ex wife, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear for her personal safety, said she married Mateen about eight years ago after meeting him online.
When they first met, “he seemed like a normal human being,” the woman said.
However, after she said violence became the norm in the home, the woman’s family flew to Florida to help her get out of their Fort Pierce home.
The woman said she fled with none of her possessions. She said, in the wake of the attack Sunday, that she feels lucky to be alive.
Mateen was born in New York to parents from Afghanistan, the woman said.
Mateen’s father disavowed his son’s alleged actions. In an interview with NBC News, the father described an incident in Miami in which his son became enraged after seening two men kiss.
“We were in downtown Miami,” Mir Seddique said. “He saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kids and he got very angry. They were kissing each other and touching each other and he said, ‘Look at that. In front of my son they are doing that.’ And then we were in the men’s bathroom and men were kissing each other.”
June 13, 2016 at 8:36 am #45964znModeratorFather of Orlando Shooting Suspect: ‘I Don’t Think He Was Radicalized’
The father of Omar Mateen, identified by officials as the shooter who killed at least 50 people at an Orlando gay nightclub early Sunday morning, said if he could ask his son one question, it would be: “Why?”
In an interview with ABC News at his home in Fort Pierce, Florida, Seddique Mateen said he was shocked and saddened to learn that his only son was the man authorities say is behind the carnage at Pulse nightclub.
“I didn’t see anything irregular with him. I saw him yesterday [Saturday] afternoon,” Seddique Mateen said. “It makes me upset, it makes me mad that I didn’t see anything unusual.”
Seddique Mateen and his wife were born in Afghanistan, and moved to the United States before having children. His son was born in New York and grew up in St. Lucie County, Florida. Seddique Mateen told ABC News his son was a family man and a devout Muslim who never showed any signs of extremism, violence or hatred.
“I don’t think he was radicalized,” Seddique Mateen said. “That’s what my gut feeling tells me.”
In an interview with ABC News, Omar Mateen’s ex-wife said he was religious but showed no indications of radicalism. Sitora Yusufiy said she was shocked by her former husband’s attack.
As a husband, however, she said Omar Mateen was abusive and mentally unstable. When he was angry, he would sometimes rant about homosexuals, Yusufiy said.
“He would be perfectly normal and happy, joking, laughing one minute — the next minute his temper … his body would just [go] totally the opposite,” Yusufiy, 27, told ABC News. “Anger, emotionally violent and that later evolved into abuse, to beating.
In the four months that they were married, Yusufiy said he cut her off from her family and regularly beat her. She said her family “rescued” her from the abusive marriage while visiting.
“After being abused and after trying to do that and see the good in him, I can honestly say this is a sick person. This was a sick person that was really confused and went crazy,” she said.
When she left Omar Mateen in 2009, Yusufiy assumed the “horrible mistake” she had made was long behind her. He had tried to contact her through Facebook a year ago, she said, but she blocked him. Then she turned on the news today.
“I thought I had closed the chapter on this horrible mistake that I had gotten myself into and forgot all about it and we’re free from it. But this is the most shocking, heartbreaking experience,” she said.
Seddique Mateen said this is the first he’s heard about his son’s abusive behavior toward Yusify. Omar Mateen later remarried and had a 3-year-old son with his new wife. Seddique Mateen said his daughter-in-law is “a typical American” and “a nice lady” who also never showed any signs of radicalism.
Seddique Mateen told ABC News he’s unsure of his son’s possible motive for the attack at Pulse nightclub, which bills itself on its website as “Orlando’s Premier Gay Night Club.” He said he and his wife raised their children to always be accepting of others.
“I didn’t raise him that way,” Seddique Mateen said. “We gave him enough love and care and education that he knew better.”
Omar Mateen started taking hostages shortly after he entered Pulse nightclub, according to officials. He later died in a gunfight with a SWAT team, authorities said.
Law enforcement officials said the shooter called 911 to pledge his allegiance to the Islamic State group after the attack began. ISIS supporters have cheered the massacre online and an ISIS communique referred to the shooter as an ISIS “fighter,” but there’s no evidence that the jihadist group directed or had prior knowledge of the attack, terrorism observers told ABC News.
“At this time we’re looking at all angles right now,” an FBI official said. “We do have suggestions that that individual may have leanings towards that, that particular ideology. But right now we can’t say definitively, so we’re still running everything around.”
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating Sunday morning’s shooting as “an act of terrorism.” It said it will determine whether it is “domestic or international” terrorism.
June 13, 2016 at 8:37 am #45965znModeratorFather Of Orlando Gunman Reveals Motives For Fatal Nightclub Shooting
https://www.yahoo.com/news/father-orlando-gunman-reveals-motives-154936794.html
Police continue their investigation into the Orlando shooting that left 50 people dead and more than 53 injured at Pulse nightclub in Florida. Amid the tragedy, the father of the gunman–who has been identified as Omar Mateen–has revealed his motives.
Mir Seddique told news sources his son was not driven by religious ideology, but instead, he grew irate after witnessing two men kissing in Miami a few months before the shooting took place.
Understanding the severity of the situation, Seddique offered his apologies to all of the victims. “We’re apologizing for the whole incident,” he wrote in an official statement to NBC. “We weren’t aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country. This had nothing to do with religion.”
Authorities have previously reported Mateen is suspected to have acted alone when he opened fire with an assault weapon and handgun on the nightclub. Mateen is cited to have strong convictions of the Islamic faith. Suspicions of terrorist activity heightened following an ISIS news agency taking responsibility for the attack, as reported by CNN. The gunman also allegedly pledged his allegiance to the organization. Mateen’s connection to the terrorist group has not been confirmed thus far however, despite claims formed by the FBI.
Stay tuned as the story continues to develop.
June 13, 2016 at 9:21 am #45971znModeratorarticle title is misleading, in the sense that the article covers a lot more ground than just the drag queen friend angle…the title should be, the guy changed across the years for some reason
…
Drag Queen: Anti-Gay Terrorist Omar Mateen Was My Friend
Omar Mateen committed the most horrific act of anti-gay violence on U.S. soil. But there was
FORT PIERCE, Florida — Years before he shot up an Orlando gay club in what became the largest mass shooting in American history, Omar Mateen regularly picked up lunch from a drag queen at Ruby Tuesday. He may have even gone to see a drag show or two, a former high school classmate told The Daily Beast.
About 10 years ago, Mateen, a few years out of high school, was working at the supplement store GNC. Samuel King, a year ahead of him in high school, was working next door at the restaurant chain. Mateen was a few years out of playing football in high school while King, who is openly gay, had long, flowing extensions, and prettier hair than most of his female co-workers.
“He always had a smile on his face,” King told The Daily Beast on Sunday. “Maybe it’s because he was working in customer service.”
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After seeing the trending news story about the Orlando shooting, King posted his disbelief on Facebook. “I can’t believe i knew this dude…. He worked at GNC at the treasure coast mall when i was at Ruby Tuesday’s and he Graduated from the same high school in 2004,” he wrote. “He was a jokester and at the time didn’t have an issue with the LGBT community.”
Mateen’s father told NBC News that Mateen “got angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami a couple of months ago” and that he “thought that might be related to the shooting.”
But King saw none of that homophobia. Quite the opposite: He said Mateen knew that he and many of his co-workers at Ruby Tuesday were gay, and didn’t seem to have a problem with it. “That’s the thing that’s pinning me to the wall the most, that it was a gay nightclub,” King said. “Because he would come into the [the restaurant] and laugh with us.
“He might’ve even sat down at the bar and had a drink and laughed with the bartenders, knowing that they were lesbians,” King added.
These interactions shed new light on a man believed to be motivated by blind hatred for gay people. By the end of his rampage, Mateen had killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in the most deadly terror attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. During his attack on a sea of dancing young men, Mateen called 911 and pledged allegiance to the leader of ISIS, announcing himself as a terrorist and mentioning the Boston marathon attackers.
Yet if Mateen was a religious extremist, King didn’t know it, and the topic of religion never came up in conversations. Instead, the two men would greet each other on the street. King likely showed him, like the rest of the employees and regulars, photos in full costume from his performances.
“I can’t pinpoint a date that he went with us, but he probably gone there with us once,” he said.
Syed Shafeeq Rahman, Imam at the Islamic Center in Fort Pierce where Mateen worshipped, said he had been a sunny child who enjoyed skipping but something had changed in recent years. “He would not talk to anybody, but would just smile,” he said.
Recent co-workers described Mateen’s demeanor as aggressive and anti-gay. Daniel Gilroy, who worked with Mateen at the security company G4S, told Florida Today that he was “unhinged and unstable.”
“I quit because everything he said was toxic, and the company wouldn’t do anything,” Gilroy told the news outlet. “This guy was unhinged and unstable. He talked of killing people.”
He said Mateen stalked him with dozens of text messages a day, but the company didn’t take action because Mateen was Muslim.“When I saw his picture on the news, I thought, of course, he did that,” fellow security guard Eric Baumer told Newsday. “He had bad things to say about everybody—blacks, Jews, gays, a lot of politicians, our soldiers. He had a lot of hate in him. He told me America destroyed Afghanistan.”
Indeed, it was a co-worker’s tip that set off an FBI investigation into the man in 2013. “The FBI first became aware of him in 2013 when he made inflammatory comments to co-workers alleging possible terrorist ties,” Ronald Hopper, an assistant agent in charge of the FBI’s Tampa division, said at a press conference. The ties were unconfirmed.The following year, the agency investigated his potential links to an American suicide bomber in Syria, Moner Abu-Salha, but found the connections negligible. Mateen was still able to purchase both weapons he brought to the attack legally last week, according to Trevor Velinor, an assistant special agent in charge of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Tampa.
Mateen had worked at G4S since 2007, and cleared their security checks when he was hired and again in 2013. The company said they were made aware that Mateen had been questioned by the FBI in 2013 and knew that the investigations had closed.
“We were not made aware of any alleged connections between Mateen and terrorist activities, and were unaware of any further FBI investigations,” G4S communications director Monica Lewman-Garcia told The Daily Beast in a statement.
Mateen had a gun because of his work as a security officer.
G4S provides guards to more than two dozen juvenile detention centers in Florida, and Mateen’s ex-wife told The Washington Post that he’d worked at one such facility near their Fort Pierce home. A spokesperson at the St. Lucie Regional Juvenile Detention Center directed queries about Mateen to the State of Florida Department of Juvenile Justice. The agency directed inquiries to G4S, which did not return requests for comment.
But the company’s employees have been accused of abusing children in the centers where they work. A male Palmetto Youth Academy guard was arrested in 2014 on charges that he sexually assaulted two teenage boys, ages 15 and 17. A judge set his bond at $250,000, but the disposition of the case remains unclear. A female employee in Tampa was accused of engaging in sex acts with a boy that same year.
“I’m amazed at the amount of violence that goes on over there, both against staff and other inmates,” Assistant State Attorney Vicki Nichols, Martin County Florida’s juvenile prosecutor, told the Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers of one facility that employs G4S guards.
Residents of Mateen’s quiet neighborhood, made up largely of retirees, construction workers, and families with toddlers, were shocked by news of his rampage on Sunday. The Woodland Condominium complex where he lived was roped off with yellow police tape as the FBI and local authorities investigated the gunman’s residence.
The area has many Hispanic immigrants, residents gathered outside the complex said, but doesn’t have a large Middle Eastern or Muslim community.
Esmeralda Gonzalez, whose parents live adjacent to the gunman’s parents said that she hadn’t seen Omar but his father “seems really nice.”
“You see it in the news and all the sudden it happens right next to you. My mom is scared and wondering if they should sell the house,” she told The Daily Beast.Mateen’s father Seddique Mir Mateen did appear to have extreme views, however. In videos on his YouTube channel he has previously paid tribute to the Afghan Taliban.
Early Monday, he posted a new video in which he described his “sadness” over the death of his son. “I did not know and did not understand that he has anger in his heart,” he said. “Only God can punish homosexuality… This is not an issue for humans to punish.”
The 29-year-old Mateen, who has a 3-year-old child, married Sitora Yusufiy, an immigrant from Uzbekistan in 2007. The couple officially divorced in 2009, but Yusufiy told reporters on Sunday that they only lived together for a few months, during which time he beat and emotionally abused her. From her home in Colorado, Yusufiy told reporters on Sunday that Mateem was bipolar and abused steroids.
“A few months after we were married I saw his instability, I saw his bipolar, and he would get mad out of nowhere, and that’s when I started worrying about my safety,” she said. “Then after a few months he started abusing me physically, very often, and not allowing me to speak to my family, and keeping me hostage from them.”
At Mateen’s regular house of worship, the Fort Pierce Islamic Center, Imam Rahman assured visitors that the community had no idea about the storm brewing in the gunman’s heart—or the FBI’s investigations into him.
Meanwhile protesters outside called for authorities to shut down the Islamic center, with some driving by urging people to “burn it down.”
Rahman, also a medical doctor, said that Omar Mateen attended the mosque service Friday night with his young son curled up next to him. “He was the last to arrive and the first to leave,” he said, but recalled nothing else about Mateen wasn’t regular in his attendance.
“One hundred and thirty people came Friday so I don’t notice,” Rahman said.
Fellow members of the mosque said they knew little about Mateen. “He wasn’t rude, but he wasn’t very friendly either,” said Mohammad Jamil. Sometimes he would come for prayers in his security uniform and Jamil noted he was very muscular. “He would say, hello, but that was about it.”
As tradition, the women and small children gathered in a separate room for their feast. The mood was somber and Lucy Haq, a member, said the crowd was lighter than normal. She said that Mateen and other radical Islamic terrorists like him hurt all Muslims. “What they are doing is not Islam,” she said.
Rahman, who has been Imam at the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce since 2005, said Mateen was sporadic in his attendance to prayers. He might come for prayers two or three times in a week and might not show the following week.
Mateen’s father, by accounts was more outgoing. Rahman said the elder Mateen was in the insurance business and offered his services to fellow worshippers and he offered to help with any problems. “He said he knew police chief and authorities and he could help us if we ever had problems.
“Always told if anything bad was happening we could contact the father and he would take care of it,” Rahman said.
Rahman said the center did not promote violence and that Mateen did not get his radical ideas from the center. “We do not want these things to happen. We condemn radical Islam.”
The FBI has not talked to Rahman. “What could I share with them? I have nothing because we did not know. Of course we would have called them. In our religion it says he who kills one person kills all mankind.”June 13, 2016 at 10:02 am #45975wvParticipantThe ‘drag queen article’ is the best of the bunch so far.
It gave me the best glimpse so far into who this guy was.Authoritarian, Bipolar, paranoid, alienated-outsider. Mix in a little
fundamentalist-superstition (Islam in this case) and some homophobia,
as well as some actual defensible-grievances against ‘America’ and….Ah well.
You could call it ‘terrorism’ but it fits the ‘mental illness’ category a little
better I think.“…he beat and emotionally abused her. From her home in Colorado, Yusufiy told reporters on Sunday that Mateem was bipolar and abused steroids.”
w
vJune 13, 2016 at 10:45 am #45981bnwBlockedYet he is a registered DEMOCRAT. Oops.
The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.
Sprinkles are for winners.
June 13, 2016 at 10:46 am #45982znModeratorYet he is a registered DEMOCRAT. Oops.
And apparently against gun control.
June 13, 2016 at 11:16 am #45983bnwBlockedYet he is a registered DEMOCRAT. Oops.
And apparently against gun control.
No he had gun control.
The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.
Sprinkles are for winners.
June 13, 2016 at 4:38 pm #45999MackeyserModeratorYet he is a registered DEMOCRAT. Oops.
I really appreciate everyone who posts here and all the contributions.
That said, don’t fucking do that. Just fucking don’t. Don’t play puerile politics days after the mass murder of 50 people.
There is no political party affiliation that makes any difference here.
The man had serious mental illness. The man may or may not have engaged in terrorism in addition to the hate crime it clearly was.
You know what doesn’t matter? What corporate fucking club he belonged to.
So can we please NOT?
If for no other reason than out of respect for the dead.
Sports is the crucible of human virtue. The distillate remains are human vice.
June 13, 2016 at 9:22 pm #46023bnwBlockedYet he is a registered DEMOCRAT. Oops.
I really appreciate everyone who posts here and all the contributions.
That said, don’t fucking do that. Just fucking don’t. Don’t play puerile politics days after the mass murder of 50 people.
There is no political party affiliation that makes any difference here.
The man had serious mental illness. The man may or may not have engaged in terrorism in addition to the hate crime it clearly was.
You know what doesn’t matter? What corporate fucking club he belonged to.
So can we please NOT?
If for no other reason than out of respect for the dead.
Respect for the dead demands we can’t say he is a registered democrat? I disagree. The democrats are using this to try to deny our 2nd Amendment right. You know it too. It was an act of terrorism. You know that too.
The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.
Sprinkles are for winners.
June 13, 2016 at 9:44 pm #46024znModeratorThe democrats are using this to try to deny our 2nd Amendment right. You know it too. It was an act of terrorism. You know that too.
See we;re not very big on the simplistic party trashing discourse. The discussion on this forum should be better than that. I get Mack’s point.
And no, you are probably the only one here who believes someone is trying to “deny rights.” You are free to assert it all you want, but, no one else “knows” that…here anyway, that’s just you who believes that.
And many people, me included, don’t think it was an “act of terrorism.” From everything I see, this is just a normal homophobe nutcase who lost it (actually he made other employees he worked with quit because of his open racism.) Some people want to make politics out of it though so to them it becomes “Islamic terrorism.” Sorry I just see another american mass killer nutcase. Like the Charleston shootings.
June 13, 2016 at 9:48 pm #46025nittany ramModeratorYet he is a registered DEMOCRAT. Oops.
I really appreciate everyone who posts here and all the contributions.
That said, don’t fucking do that. Just fucking don’t. Don’t play puerile politics days after the mass murder of 50 people.
There is no political party affiliation that makes any difference here.
The man had serious mental illness. The man may or may not have engaged in terrorism in addition to the hate crime it clearly was.
You know what doesn’t matter? What corporate fucking club he belonged to.
So can we please NOT?
If for no other reason than out of respect for the dead.
Respect for the dead demands we can’t say he is a registered democrat? I disagree. The democrats are using this to try to deny our 2nd Amendment right. You know it too. It was an act of terrorism. You know that too.
Why does it matter what party he was registered with? He obviously wasn’t against gun ownership. The motivation behind shooting all those people had nothing to do with political parties or gun rights. His motivation was homophobia ignited by extreme mental issues.
June 13, 2016 at 10:02 pm #46027InvaderRamModeratorit’s a hate crime. it’s terrorism. it’s mental illness. it’s all those things.
and i don’t know if anybody has seen but his father is a piece of work himself.
i just wonder why we always have to classify something as just one thing.
June 13, 2016 at 10:03 pm #46028bnwBlockedThe democrats are using this to try to deny our 2nd Amendment right. You know it too. It was an act of terrorism. You know that too.
See we;re not very big on the simplistic party trashing discourse. The discussion on this forum should be better than that. I get Mack’s point.
And no, you are probably the only one here who believes someone is trying to “deny rights.” You are free to assert it all you want, but, no one else “knows” that…here anyway, that’s just you who believes that.
And many people, me included, don’t think it was an “act of terrorism.” From everything I see, this is just a normal homophobe nutcase who lost it (actually he made other employees he worked with quit because of his open racism.) Some people want to make politics out of it though so to them it becomes “Islamic terrorism.” Sorry I just see another american mass killer nutcase. Like the Charleston shootings.
Wow. You must have missed the posts about Scalia’s death? Those were very simplistic. I may be the only one here who knows that the 2nd Amendment right is threatened. Then again I may be the only one who exercises their 2nd Amendment right. The shooter pledged allegiance to the leader of ISIS. That is terrorism.
The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.
Sprinkles are for winners.
June 13, 2016 at 10:06 pm #46029bnwBlockedYet he is a registered DEMOCRAT. Oops.
I really appreciate everyone who posts here and all the contributions.
That said, don’t fucking do that. Just fucking don’t. Don’t play puerile politics days after the mass murder of 50 people.
There is no political party affiliation that makes any difference here.
The man had serious mental illness. The man may or may not have engaged in terrorism in addition to the hate crime it clearly was.
You know what doesn’t matter? What corporate fucking club he belonged to.
So can we please NOT?
If for no other reason than out of respect for the dead.
Respect for the dead demands we can’t say he is a registered democrat? I disagree. The democrats are using this to try to deny our 2nd Amendment right. You know it too. It was an act of terrorism. You know that too.
Why does it matter what party he was registered with? He obviously wasn’t against gun ownership. The motivation behind shooting all those people had nothing to do with political parties or gun rights. His motivation was homophobia ignited by extreme mental issues.
His motivation was radical islamic extremism.
The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.
Sprinkles are for winners.
June 13, 2016 at 10:12 pm #46031znModeratorThe shooter pledged allegiance to the leader of ISIS. That is terrorism.
I see a nutcase who never had anything to do with radical fundamentalist Islamic politics in his entire life who in the end made some kind of stupid statement. I just take that statement as the kind of thing a nutcase would do. He was motivated by the fact that he saw 2 men kissing in front of his son. In fact he was nutcase enough that he was shocked his son would see that, but is fine with his son knowing he’s a mass murderer. But we don’t expect logic from a nutcase.
Or you can be consistent and call the Charleston shootings terrorism, since he said he did it to start a race war and was heavily identified with white supremacists.
I call them both nutcases. You can call them both terrorists if you want to be consistent.
Oh and I grew up in Canada, which owns more guns per capita than the USA. My father paid his way through grad school by being a scout and leader for hunting expeditions. He had a nice collection of hunting rifles. He was showing me how to use a rifle when I was 10-11 or so.
June 13, 2016 at 10:26 pm #46033znModeratorIn a 2011 analysis of FBI hate-crime statistics, the Southern Poverty Law Center found that “LGBT people are more than twice as likely to be the target of a violent hate-crime than Jews or black people,” said Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the center. Because the population of LGBT Americans is relatively small, and the number of hate crimes against that group is significant, LGBT individuals face a higher risk than other groups of being the victim of an attack. “They are more than four times as likely as Muslims, and almost 14 times as likely as Latinos,” Potok added. Sexual orientation motivated roughly 20 percent of hate crimes in 2013, according to the FBI; the only factor that accounted for more was race.
The vast majority of those crimes are not carried out by Muslim extremists, Potok said. “It’s a mix of white supremacists and their ilk and people who would be considered relatively normal members of society,” Potok said. “The majority of attacks on gay people do not come from people who are members of organized hate groups.”
June 13, 2016 at 10:32 pm #46034InvaderRamModeratorit is a form of terrorism. isis spreading it’s message of hatred and taking advantage of poor individuals like this guy. almost as if they lit a fuse on a ticking time bomb waiting for him to go off. it didn’t matter that he didn’t have direct ties to them. but they spread their message knowing that there are those who will latch onto that message and act almost as a weapon on their behalf.
a guy with mental issues who wasn’t given proper treatment and reared by a father who hates homosexuals. his father said that all homosexuals will perish in hell. how can it not be a hate crime?
June 13, 2016 at 10:33 pm #46035InvaderRamModeratorIn a 2011 analysis of FBI hate-crime statistics, the Southern Poverty Law Center found that “LGBT people are more than twice as likely to be the target of a violent hate-crime than Jews or black people,” said Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the center. Because the population of LGBT Americans is relatively small, and the number of hate crimes against that group is significant, LGBT individuals face a higher risk than other groups of being the victim of an attack. “They are more than four times as likely as Muslims, and almost 14 times as likely as Latinos,” Potok added. Sexual orientation motivated roughly 20 percent of hate crimes in 2013, according to the FBI; the only factor that accounted for more was race.
The vast majority of those crimes are not carried out by Muslim extremists, Potok said. “It’s a mix of white supremacists and their ilk and people who would be considered relatively normal members of society,” Potok said. “The majority of attacks on gay people do not come from people who are members of organized hate groups.”
but in the middle east you better believe there are a multitude of muslim extremists who carry out hate crimes.
June 13, 2016 at 10:35 pm #46037bnwBlockedThe shooter pledged allegiance to the leader of ISIS. That is terrorism.
I see a nutcase who never had anything to do with radical fundamentalist Islamic politics in his entire life who in the end made some kind of stupid statement. I just take that statement as the kind of thing a nutcase would do. He was motivated by the fact that he saw 2 men kissing in front of his son. In fact he was nutcase enough that he was shocked his son would see that, but is fine with his son knowing he’s a mass murderer. But we don’t expect logic from a nutcase.
Or you can be consistent and call the Charleston shootings terrorism, since he said he did it to start a race war and was heavily identified with white supremacists.
I call them both nutcases. You can call them both terrorists if you want to be consistent.
Oh and I grew up in Canada, which owns more guns per capita than the USA. My father paid his way through grad school by being a scout and leader for hunting expeditions. He had a nice collection of hunting rifles. He was showing me how to use a rifle when I was 10-11 or so.
The USA (ranked #1) has more guns per capita than Canada (ranked #12). The USA per 100 people has 112.6 vs. Canada per 100 people has 30.8.
I would call anyone carrying out mass murder a terrorist.
The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.
Sprinkles are for winners.
June 13, 2016 at 10:38 pm #46038Billy_TParticipantRespect for the dead demands we can’t say he is a registered democrat? I disagree. The democrats are using this to try to deny our 2nd Amendment right. You know it too. It was an act of terrorism. You know that too.
No. The Democrats aren’t trying to do that, bnw. Nothing they have EVER proposed would take away your Second Amendment right. Nothing. Nothing they’ve EVER proposed would come within light years of doing that.
Again, you’ve never had a Second Amendment right to an AR-15 or any weapon of you so desire — without restrictions. That’s never existed. Not here. Not in any nation on earth. Never. And if we do someday wake up and realize that it’s utterly insane to allow the manufacture, sale and possession of weapons of mass destruction like the AR-15, and then ban them, at every possible level, we STILL won’t be taking away any of your rights. None. You never had the right to unlimited consumer choice in the first place. There was never a right to the total absence of restrictions on your purchasing and possessing weapons.
Btw, you should capitalize “Democrat.” Hopefully, we’re all “democrats” here. As in, lovers of democracy.
June 13, 2016 at 10:54 pm #46045znModeratorI would call anyone carrying out mass murder a terrorist.
Then the word “terrorism” does not mean anything.
It makes no sense, for example, to say that James Holmes, who shot up the movie theater in Colorado, was a “terrorist.” And did you call the Charleston shooter a terrorist when it happened?
June 13, 2016 at 10:55 pm #46046znModeratorREPORT: Orlando shooter was a regular at the gay nightclub he attacked, used multiple gay dating apps
Natasha Bertrand,Business Insider
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/report-orlando-nightclub-shooter-visited-222620444.html
The man police say killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando early Sunday morning had visited the club at least a dozen times before carrying out his attack, a witness told the Orlando Sentinel on Monday.
The suspected shooter, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, may have also used several different gay dating apps, according to reports from MSNBC and the Los Angeles Times.
Three additional witnesses confirmed that they had seen Mateen at the gay nightclub more than once before.
“Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent,” one witness, Ty Smith, told the Sentinel.
“We didn’t really talk to him a lot,” he added. “But I remember him saying things about his dad at times. He told us he had a wife and child.”
Chris Callen, who performs at Pulse under the name Kristina McLaughlin, told The Canadian Press and CNN’s Anderson Cooper that Mateen had been going to the bar one or twice a month “for at least three years.”
Smith later told The Canadian Press that Mateen said that he “couldn’t drink when he was at home—around his wife, or family. His father was really strict.”
Smith and Callen say that they stopped talking to Mateen when he pulled a knife on them after they made a religious comment.
“He said if he ever messed with him again, you know how it’ll turn out,” Callen said.
Reports of Mateen’s flashes of anger and aggression align with what Mateen’s ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, told CNN on Sunday night.
“In the beginning he was a normal being that cared about family, loved to joke, loved to have fun, but then a few months after we were married I saw his instability,” she said. “I saw that he was bipolar and he would get mad out of nowhere. That’s when I started worrying about my safety.”
She told reporters earlier on Sunday that Mateen had beat her and emotionally abused her while they were married between 2009 and 2011.
‘He was very creepy in his messages’
An Orlando man told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on Monday that he had seen photos of Mateen on the gay dating apps Grindr, Adam4Adam, and Jack’d over the last several years. At least two of the man’s friends had been contacted by Mateen on the apps.
“He was very creepy in his messages, and I blocked him immediately,” the man said.
Kevin West, another regular at Pulse nightclub, told the Los Angeles Times that he chatted with Mateen on and off for a year on the gay dating app Jack’d, but had never met him in person. Incredibly, West said he met him for the first time as he was dropping a friend off at Pulse on Saturday night.
“He walked directly past me,” West said. “I said, ‘Hey,’ and he turned and said, ‘Hey,’” and nodded his head, West said. “I could tell by the eyes.”
A regular performer at Pulse told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that he saw Mateen there a couple times a month, often with another man.
The reports come after Samuel King, a drag queen, told The Daily Beast that he had befriended Mateen while the two worked next door to each other in Fort Pierce. King said that Mateen had seemed generally accepting of the fact that he and his friends were openly gay. King said that he even recalls Mateen going at least once to the nightclub where King performed.
Pulse Nighclub Orlando Shooting
(REUTERS/Kevin Kolczynski)
Police lock down Orange Avenue around the Pulse nightclub, where people were killed by a gunman in a shooting rampage, in Orlando, Florida, on June 12.
Mateen, a US citizen born in New York in 1986 to two Afghan immigrants, was living in Fort Pierce, Florida, when he rented a car and drove to Orlando to carry out the attack on Sunday morning. An FBI representative said that he “was organized and well prepared” for the attack, and the ATF confirmed that he was armed with an AR-15 assault-style rifle and a handgun that he had legally bought a few days before.Mateen was a security guard and had a Florida firearms license that allowed him to carry concealed weapons. He called 911 during his rampage at Pulse and pledged allegiance to ISIS, while also expressing sympathy for the Boston Marathon bombers and an American suicide bomber who died fighting for Al Qaeda in Syria.
The overnight shooting at the gay nightclub is the deadliest shooting in US history, with more fatalities than the mass shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007 (32 dead) and the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012 (27 dead).
Mateen was the subject of two separate FBI investigations in 2013 and 2014 — the first after he made inflammatory and contradictory statements about terrorism that raised concern with his coworkers, and the second after a source close to the FBI indicated that he may have had ties to the American suicide bomber who prayed at his mosque in Fort Pierce.
The director of the FBI, James Comey, said on Monday that Mateen had mentioned having links to Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and the ISIS in the past three years, but that the FBI investigations were closed because of a lack of evidence.
June 13, 2016 at 11:12 pm #46052bnwBlockedBtw, you should capitalize “Democrat.” Hopefully, we’re all “democrats” here. As in, lovers of democracy.
No, we’re a republic.
The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.
Sprinkles are for winners.
June 13, 2016 at 11:16 pm #46053bnwBlockedI would call anyone carrying out mass murder a terrorist.
Then the word “terrorism” does not mean anything.
It makes no sense, for example, to say that James Holmes, who shot up the movie theater in Colorado, was a “terrorist.” And did you call the Charleston shooter a terrorist when it happened?
Of course Holmes was a terrorist. Mass murder is terrorism.
From FBI.gov-
Definitions of Terrorism in the U.S. Code
18 U.S.C. § 2331 defines “international terrorism” and “domestic terrorism” for purposes of Chapter 113B of the Code, entitled “Terrorism”:
“International terrorism” means activities with the following three characteristics:
Involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law;
Appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and
Occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S., or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum.*
“Domestic terrorism” means activities with the following three characteristics:Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law;
Appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination. or kidnapping; and
Occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S.
18 U.S.C. § 2332b defines the term “federal crime of terrorism” as an offense that:Is calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct; and
Is a violation of one of several listed statutes, including § 930(c) (relating to killing or attempted killing during an attack on a federal facility with a dangerous weapon); and § 1114 (relating to killing or attempted killing of officers and employees of the U.S.).
* FISA defines “international terrorism” in a nearly identical way, replacing “primarily” outside the U.S. with “totally” outside the U.S. 50 U.S.C. § 1801(c).- This reply was modified 8 years, 6 months ago by bnw.
The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.
Sprinkles are for winners.
June 13, 2016 at 11:21 pm #46055InvaderRamModeratorREPORT: Orlando shooter was a regular at the gay nightclub he attacked, used multiple gay dating apps
Natasha Bertrand,Business Insider
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/report-orlando-nightclub-shooter-visited-222620444.html
The man police say killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando early Sunday morning had visited the club at least a dozen times before carrying out his attack, a witness told the Orlando Sentinel on Monday.
The suspected shooter, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, may have also used several different gay dating apps, according to reports from MSNBC and the Los Angeles Times.
Three additional witnesses confirmed that they had seen Mateen at the gay nightclub more than once before.
“Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent,” one witness, Ty Smith, told the Sentinel.
“We didn’t really talk to him a lot,” he added. “But I remember him saying things about his dad at times. He told us he had a wife and child.”
Chris Callen, who performs at Pulse under the name Kristina McLaughlin, told The Canadian Press and CNN’s Anderson Cooper that Mateen had been going to the bar one or twice a month “for at least three years.”
Smith later told The Canadian Press that Mateen said that he “couldn’t drink when he was at home—around his wife, or family. His father was really strict.”
Smith and Callen say that they stopped talking to Mateen when he pulled a knife on them after they made a religious comment.
“He said if he ever messed with him again, you know how it’ll turn out,” Callen said.
Reports of Mateen’s flashes of anger and aggression align with what Mateen’s ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, told CNN on Sunday night.
“In the beginning he was a normal being that cared about family, loved to joke, loved to have fun, but then a few months after we were married I saw his instability,” she said. “I saw that he was bipolar and he would get mad out of nowhere. That’s when I started worrying about my safety.”
She told reporters earlier on Sunday that Mateen had beat her and emotionally abused her while they were married between 2009 and 2011.
‘He was very creepy in his messages’
An Orlando man told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on Monday that he had seen photos of Mateen on the gay dating apps Grindr, Adam4Adam, and Jack’d over the last several years. At least two of the man’s friends had been contacted by Mateen on the apps.
“He was very creepy in his messages, and I blocked him immediately,” the man said.
Kevin West, another regular at Pulse nightclub, told the Los Angeles Times that he chatted with Mateen on and off for a year on the gay dating app Jack’d, but had never met him in person. Incredibly, West said he met him for the first time as he was dropping a friend off at Pulse on Saturday night.
“He walked directly past me,” West said. “I said, ‘Hey,’ and he turned and said, ‘Hey,’” and nodded his head, West said. “I could tell by the eyes.”
A regular performer at Pulse told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that he saw Mateen there a couple times a month, often with another man.
The reports come after Samuel King, a drag queen, told The Daily Beast that he had befriended Mateen while the two worked next door to each other in Fort Pierce. King said that Mateen had seemed generally accepting of the fact that he and his friends were openly gay. King said that he even recalls Mateen going at least once to the nightclub where King performed.
Pulse Nighclub Orlando Shooting
(REUTERS/Kevin Kolczynski)
Police lock down Orange Avenue around the Pulse nightclub, where people were killed by a gunman in a shooting rampage, in Orlando, Florida, on June 12.
Mateen, a US citizen born in New York in 1986 to two Afghan immigrants, was living in Fort Pierce, Florida, when he rented a car and drove to Orlando to carry out the attack on Sunday morning. An FBI representative said that he “was organized and well prepared” for the attack, and the ATF confirmed that he was armed with an AR-15 assault-style rifle and a handgun that he had legally bought a few days before.Mateen was a security guard and had a Florida firearms license that allowed him to carry concealed weapons. He called 911 during his rampage at Pulse and pledged allegiance to ISIS, while also expressing sympathy for the Boston Marathon bombers and an American suicide bomber who died fighting for Al Qaeda in Syria.
The overnight shooting at the gay nightclub is the deadliest shooting in US history, with more fatalities than the mass shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007 (32 dead) and the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012 (27 dead).
Mateen was the subject of two separate FBI investigations in 2013 and 2014 — the first after he made inflammatory and contradictory statements about terrorism that raised concern with his coworkers, and the second after a source close to the FBI indicated that he may have had ties to the American suicide bomber who prayed at his mosque in Fort Pierce.
The director of the FBI, James Comey, said on Monday that Mateen had mentioned having links to Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and the ISIS in the past three years, but that the FBI investigations were closed because of a lack of evidence.
i’m not surprised.
June 14, 2016 at 12:11 am #46066ZooeyModeratorYet he is a registered DEMOCRAT. Oops.
I really appreciate everyone who posts here and all the contributions.
That said, don’t fucking do that. Just fucking don’t. Don’t play puerile politics days after the mass murder of 50 people.
There is no political party affiliation that makes any difference here.
The man had serious mental illness. The man may or may not have engaged in terrorism in addition to the hate crime it clearly was.
You know what doesn’t matter? What corporate fucking club he belonged to.
So can we please NOT?
If for no other reason than out of respect for the dead.
Respect for the dead demands we can’t say he is a registered democrat? I disagree. The democrats are using this to try to deny our 2nd Amendment right. You know it too. It was an act of terrorism. You know that too.
Sure. But it is just as logical to point out that he worked as a security guard.
But you don’t do that because it doesn’t serve your political itch.
Mackeyser is right. You are politicizing mass murder to serve your own interest.
June 14, 2016 at 12:17 am #46067ZooeyModeratorSo what we have here is a sexually-conflicted man who suffered self-hatred because of all the “gays will go to hell” stuff he believed.
June 14, 2016 at 12:32 am #46069znModeratorto intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination. or kidnapping; and
There;s no reasonable way for those words to apply to Holmes, or to Dylan Roof, or to Mateen.
You;re just telling me you don’t pay close enough attention to legal language.
Terrorists act with specific goals in mind they need a government to concede to, such as the IRA wanting the British out of Ireland. The Weathermen wanted to end the Vietnam War. It is an act of war fought by other means (other than direct combat between military forces). Just pouring milk on the dictionary and watching all the ink run together isn’t analysis. Not every mass killing is an act of terrorism, and in fact not every act of terrorism involves mass killing.
Plus here’s the nutcase Mateen himself and his presumed threats before Orlando:
from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/14/us/orlando-shooting.html?_r=0
“First he claimed family connections to Al Qaeda,” which, like the Islamic State, is a Sunni Muslim terrorist group, James Comey, the F.B.I. director, said Monday. “He also said he was a member of Hezbollah,” a Shiite group in conflict with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. … He admitted making the statements his co-workers reported, but explained that he did it in anger because he thought his co-workers were discriminating against him and teasing him because he was Muslim.”
Based on those statements, I know more about the differences between and among different militant islamic fundamentalist groups than he does.
So what we have here is a sexually-conflicted man who suffered self-hatred because of all the “gays will go to hell” stuff he believed.
That is possible. It will probably become a theory.
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