The Orlando mass murder-terror attack was the most deadly such incident in U.S. history (aside from outright war). At least 50 people were killed and over 50 injured. To donate in support of the victims, visit this GoFundMe site.
News reports indicate the shooter, Omar Mateen, was the son of an Afghan father and influenced by Muslim extremist views. The attack on the Pulse nightclub, frequented by the LGBT community, further supported the view that this was a homophobic hate crime.
Given this complicated set of motivations, it’s important to cut through the web of smug, self-satisfied counter-hate spun by the MSM and far-right politicians like Donald Trump, in particular.
What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016
Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don’t want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016
Though the killer supposedly pledged allegiance to ISIS, it’s far too early to tell whether he did so as a lone gunman or as part of a larger conspiracy or under direct training or instruction. But given his Afghan background it’s safe to say that a fundamentalist version of Islam molded the views which played a part in the massacre.
To those Islamophobes like Pamela Geller, Daniel Pipes and David Horowitz who are celebrating these killings because they “confirm” their own prejudices, we must remind them that the vast majority of terrorism in this country is perpetrated by white Christians against Blacks, Muslims and Jews. The views of the majority of domestic terrorists are closer to Donald Trump than they are to ISIS or al-Qaeda.
Who among us can say there aren’t 100 white men who could’ve just as easily attacked that club filled with members of the LGBT community. In fact, scores of gays in this country have been killed by just such people.
But we shouldn’t omit his ex-wife’s statements that he was not only regularly abusive to her, but that he was mentally unstable. She’s called him “bipolar” and said he’d had a history of abusing steroids, a condition common to the leader of the Boston Marathon terror attack. His father apparently also suffers from similar delusions. In most cases of mass shootings of this sort, even when there is a political or racial factor, mental illness plays a role. Yet, this country spends pitifully little to support mental health services.
Another factor in common between this attack and the Boston bombing was an immigrant Muslim family trying to find a footing in this country and failing to do so. The acculturation process for some of these families is unsuccessful. Thus the children are left to fend for themselves. As a result they flounder, turning to drugs, hardcore religion or crime. The Muslim community, state, local and federal governments should do more to create, or strengthen youth outreach/social programs for at risk immigrant youth.
There will be Israeli security consultants and their GOP friends who will be wagging their fingers saying “I told you so.” If you’d only adopted Israel’s approach to security, you’d avoid these incidents. Here is Gabriel Sherman, the national editor of New York Magazine:
At what point do we say we need to become like Israel and post armed guards and metal detectors at almost every public building?
— Gabriel Sherman (@gabrielsherman) June 12, 2016
What they won’t tell you is the price that must be paid for adopting Israel’s model of racial profiling and its sacrifice of human and civil rights. If you embrace the Israeli security model you’re not just adopting a few tactics like armed guards and metal detectors, you must adopt the entire world-view. You must turn your country into fortress America. You must militarize security and policing. You must suspect the alien, the foreigner. Especially those from Arab lands. In short, you must become Donald Trump or something very much like him.
Thankfully, America isn’t prepared to go that far. It isn’t prepared to sacrifice its founding document, the Constitution.
Mateen worked as a private security guard for a Florida-based subsidiary of G4S, the international security consultancy which recently ended all its Israel contracts under pressure from the BDS movement. At least in part because of this work, he had several firearms licenses which permitted him to purchase the weapons he used in the rampage. Given that the FBI interviewed him three times in recent years, I don’t understand why a red flag wasn’t raised concerning someone with his views having access to firearms.
Islam doesn’t have a monopoly on homophobia or hate crimes related to it. A single Haredi Jew obsessed with homosexuality stabbed a man during the Jerusalem Gay Pride parade a few years ago. After he was freed from prison he went back to the same Pride parade, without any police monitoring him, and this time killed a young girl marching in solidarity with the city’s gay community. He did these things because the Torah harbors deeply hostile views toward homosexuality. But I would never make the mistake of saying that all of Judaism or a majority or even a significant minority of Jews today share those views. Just as I would not say that mainstream Islam supports mass murder for the “crime” of homosexuality.
Returning to Israel, a few years ago an unknown assailant attacked a Tel Aviv gay community center and murdered two young people there. That crime was never solved. No one has been apprehended or punished for it due to the incompetence or contempt of the police for Israel’s LGBT community.
So before everyone clamors to become more like Israel, they might want to step back on consider what that really means.
I don’t know how many of these mass murder episodes it will take before America finally wakes up to the absolute necessity for gun control. How long before the NRA and its political lobbying will be drowned out by the cries of the dead and wounded. But one thing I can tell you is that the Democrats are not the answer on this subject. They are as complicit in the shame of not passing gun laws as the Republicans. After all, the shining light of the political revolution, Bernie Sanders, sided with his state’s hunters in voting to protect all gun makers from liability for their products. If Bernie isn’t going after the killers, then who among Democrats will? And if anyone supporting Hillary thinks she’ll be any better, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. She is even more beholden to these corporate interests than Bernie.
The mark of a country’s health is its ability to conduct its affairs sensibly and reasonably despite the vagaries of human prejudice and close-mindedness. Israel is a perfect example of a country beset by pathologies which prevent it from being such a healthy society. No matter what it does or how hard some Israelis try, the majority are imprisoned by ancient hatreds and fear which prevents them from ever leading normal lives.
Though I believe the U.S. functions better as a society overall, guns are one indication of a serious sickness that afflicts us. Racism and slavery too are other elements that taint us. But we’ve been more successful at addressing and ameliorating their impact. How long will it be before we can slay this ravening beast of gun violence?
In Israel, and many places in the US, where there are armed trained people (whether on or off duty) – a single-shooter wouldn’t have been able to claim 100+ casualties (of which 50+ are fatalities). An armed responder would’ve felled the attacker.
We can see these playing out recently in the Sharona attack, in which two armed gunmen were brought down after they claimed ~10 casualties (of which 4 were fatalities) – mostly in the initial firing spree.
In Israel it would be highly unlikely that a single shooter would survive (and kill!) for 3 hours until police storm in.
Determined assailants will always find a gun. Guns in France are illegal, yet the assailants in the Paris attacks were able to get their hands on AK-47 in the black market. If the would-be willing to die assailant has a few thousand dollars on hand – he’ll manage to get his hands on a black market firearm.
Perhaps the answer is more guns in the hands of loyal law-abiding citizens?
One must also note the stupidity regarding this assailant (and others like him which are walking free) – who was already flagged and investigated for his anti-American views (on two separate incidents one must note), yet was allowed to remain in American society free to do his his macabre intentions.
Sorry Richard
I enjoy most of your work, but this post is inane, and your take is inane. Don’t be a useful idiot, or tool. Yes, Geller and Spencer have an ax-to-grind, but since when do progressives defend retrograde medieval religions?
Since when is it progressive to defend the regressive? You dont like racism? You don’t like bigotry?
Then get off your protecting Islam donkey, and be ideologically coherent. Islam = KKK.
get over it.
@ AriP: Islam is medieval but Judaism isn’t?? Now who’s being inane? You’re an Islamophobe &, for violating the comment rules, moderated.
You can’t possibly “like most of my work” because an integral part of it involves explaining & defending tolerant versions of both Judaism & Islam.
Ari, here is a great article from Ha’aretz that explains why academics, liberals and progressive have hard time seeing reality for what it really is.
When Truth Is Prohibited: Why Western Leaders Refuse to Call Jihadist Terror by Name
Academia has undergone an astounding revolution in the last half century: Whole disciplines have replaced their original vocation, the quest for truth, with the diametric opposite – a prohibition on truth.
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.692890
@Israel
Israel where have you been this last half century that this stuff can strike you as so enlightening? Similar comments about postmodernism have been made all along.
As a matter of fact I myself published a book in Dutch now forty years ago that was based on my Leiden PH.D.thesis. Its title was “Toetsing en Kritiek” (Testing and Critique) and if I translate part of the blurb for you you might realise that I was talking about similar things (on a somewhat higher level of sophistication I hope). “The concepts truth and objectivity … belong in present day social science to the sort of contraband that is only allowed in when accompanied by quotation marks. The roots of this scepticism are to be found in historicism and the relativism linked to that, for which not only norms and values, but also logical categories are totally submerged in the “flood of history”. Nowadays people speak of frames of thought or paradigms. A frequently used argument against the possibility of objectivity is that knowledge is obtained selectively.
The idea however that such selection is incompatible with objectivity does not have to be accepted without further ado. In this book this idea is analysed by a study of the epistemology of Weber and Habermas, two scholars who agree that selection in the gathering of knowledge is based on an “interest” but who provide different answers to the question how the variety in those interests can be combined with scholarly objectivity”
Your Mr. Tabi has mixed a run of the mill comment on postmodernism with a self serving political tract. He is apparently upset that postmodern relativism encourages a kind of political correctness in which the “truth” about Islam cannot be said. Doesn’t he realise that many people feel exactly the same about Israel?
He complains about “ U.S. President Barack Obama’s verbal gymnastics to avoid calling jihadi terrorism by name”. What about the “verbal gymnastics” of recent presidential candidates (except Sanders) trying to avoid calling the (Israeli) occupation by name?
We are told that Chris Christie used the term “occupied territories” in what he believed to be an innocuous description of a trip to Israel. Unfortunately for him he did so in the presence of Sheldon Adelson.
“Not long after his speech, Christie met with Adelson privately in the casino mogul’s office in the Venetian hotel and casino, which hosted the RJC meeting.
The source told POLITICO that Christie “clarified in the strongest terms possible that his remarks today were not meant to be a statement of policy.
Instead, the source said, Christie made clear “that he misspoke when he referred to the ‘occupied territories.’ And he conveyed that he is an unwavering friend and committed supporter of Israel, and was sorry for any confusion that came across as a result of the misstatement.”
Adelson accepted Christie’s explanation, the source said.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/chris-christie-occupied-territories-apology-105169#ixzz4BYlorROo
Now that was real big of him.
Tabi has the hide to remark:
“Above all, we should never say that upholding Western values like universal human rights, even by force in some cases, is sometimes desperately needed by those many Others who suffer oppression, violence, terror and genocide.”
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.692890
Again for him that should apparently apply everywhere (though especially to Islamic regions) except to, you guessed it, Israel.
Come on, this is all too obvious.
Arie, the specific case isn’t interesting and doesn’t worth arguing over.
What I found fascinating is the explanation of why intelligent people choose to see or at least speak about small part of the reality in front of them.
Taub explains it very clearly and obviously people don’t like it when their behavior is being examined and dissected
@ Israel: It’s not a “great article.” It’s a piece of tripe from a lecturer in creative writing and screenwriting opining on subjects he knows little about. He’s as much an expert on the historical development of various academic fields of research (the subject of this op-ed) as I am about brain surgery.
What an answer!!!
“He is stupid”
Apparently, Haaretz editors disagree with you but according to you, they are imbeciles themselves , right?
@ Israel: I didn’t say Taub was “stupid.” I said he was “a hack.” Those aren’t the same.
Lawdy, Haaretz editors published a lib-Zio hack. I’m shocked, I say! They’ve never done that before! As for being “imbeciles,” I think that’s closer to describing you & your endless nattering, rather than Haaretz editors.
Hilarious article as it gives a perfect description of Yehuda’s attitudes here: There is no objective truth, only points of view, so any historical injustices against the Palestinians are just their ‘narrative’, which we do not have to take seriously, let alone investigate.
Like Yehuda, Taub is incapable of looking in the mirror.
And let me tell you: I have heard people say openly, often enough, that they find it easier to sympathise with the suffering of Israeli’s than with the suffering of Palestinians, because Israeli’s resemble us western Europeans more. They look like ‘our kind of people’, (So much forJews as ‘the Other’. What a joke.)
The US cannot adopt the Israeli security model. It would not get away with it. As a relatively small and unimportant country, Israel can, but turning America into an Israeli style fortress, with all the ethnic profiling, would attract much more attention, and would not go down well at all worldwide.
“the vast majority of terrorism in this country is perpetrated by white Christians against Blacks, Muslims and Jews. ”
Any statistical evidence. The majority of people in America are white, so it would surprise no one if whites would commit more terror. Are you factoring in the low percentage of Muslims living in America?
“So before everyone clamors to become more like Israel, they might want to step back on consider what that really means.”
Israel’s strict gun control makes random gun violence and street crime, negligible. Unlike, Chicago.
Israel’s strict gun control means simply, that no guns to Palestinians.
Abby write Google’s image search simply SETTLER GUN and you get an astonishing picture cavalcade of Jews of all ages wandering around and practicing with guns. And those guns in pictures are no light hunting guns, they even children are practicing with automatic weapons designed to kill maximum amounts of people. As Abby you can see from the pictures they are no soldiers in uniforms.
Why Abby those people whose lands are under attack are not allowed to have weapons, but those threatening, stealing and vandalizing are allowed? Give automatic weapons to all Palestinians so they can defend themselves and their families and there is no longer a settler problem.
PS
Now in news
Netanyahu: Israel Will Never Accept Arab Peace Initiative as Basis for Negotiations
Interesting to see what the Israeli Jewish elite considers as the “basis” and what will they “accept”. Well Palestinians will be happy with the one state solution, which is the only thing Jewish side soon has left to offer. Either that or mass slaughter.
“Give automatic weapons to all Palestinians so they can defend themselves and their families and there is no longer a settler problem”
You’re supporting murder of innocent lives? You are a horible horible person. I cant believe richard allowed this comment.
@Tomer:
You’re lucky I permit comments by morons, otherwise you’d be the one banned.
Giving the same weapons to Palestinians as are available to Israeli forces would be the single biggest deterrent to Israeli mass violence. No innocent people would be killed if both sides were similarly armed.
Sure, no armed Palestinian has ever killed innocent israelis ever. Surely giving all of them weapons will result in deterrence, not a horrible war.
You are a war monger. Nothing good about you.
This Tomer guy is just unbelievable. He can only think of “innocent Israelis” being killed. Dead Palestinians, including children, just don’t count. Have never even existed.
Still that is how they produce them nowadays in Israel – fully fledged ignoramuses with the vacant space between their eyes full of propaganda.
I provide some figures here but they will probably be meaningless to him:
Israeli and Palestinian Children Killed
September 29, 2000 – Present
133 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians and 2,112 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis since September 29, 2000.
Chart showing that approximately 12 times more Palestinian children have been killed than Israeli children
Israelis and Palestinians Killed
September 29, 2000 – Present
Chart showing that 6 times more Palestinians have been killed than Israelis.
1,224 Israelis and at least 9,370 Palestinians have been killed since September 29, 2000.
Israelis and Palestinians Injured
September 29, 2000 – Present
11,755 Israelis and 87,305 Palestinians have been injured since September 29, 2000.
Chart showing that Palestinians are injured at least six times more often than Israelis.
Source: If Americans knew
Tomer settlers would not go burning olive trees, killing donkeys, poisoning water resources, arson Mosques and Churches, burning people in their homes during nights if those would be guarded by Palestinians with heavy machine guns. That is simply a fact. A fact is also that the only reason settlers dare to vandalize and steal from Palestinians is that they have automatic weapons (+ thousands of soldiers protecting them in all cases), when Palestinians have only sticks and stones. Settlers are simply despicable cowards, not heroic freedom fighters. If Israeli settlers would be demanded to have only stones and sticks, they would be still in those countries from where they came. Baruch Goldstein would be alive and be a retired doctor in New York.
It is easy to be a religious/ideological Übermensch having a rifle pointing at the slaves, without that gun this person would have to be a normal, polite Mensch. So in Germany in 30’s and so in Israel in 2016.
“…islamophobes like Pamela Geller, Daniel Pipes and David Horowitz who are celebrating these killings because they “confirm” their own prejudice …”
I wouldn’t be surprised if they had been high-fiving each other.
@Abby
“Israel’s strict gun control makes random gun violence and street crime, negligible.”
How did Baruch Goldstein get a gun then?
That was twenty five years ago. How should I know.
What a silly question.
@Abby
“That was twenty five years ago. How should I know.
What a silly question.”
I just wanted to remind you of something in view of your smug reaction.
For the rest I agree that the criminal use of guns there remains largely restricted to the army.
Yup. Checkpoints are more dangerous than Chicago for sure!
For sure. You are wrong.
http://crime.chicagotribune.com/chicago/shootings/
Elisabeth: Checkpoints are more dangerous than Chicago for sure!
Abby: For sure. You are wrong.
Well people might not be as frequently shot there but that is about it:
From an interview with Sergeant Furer, the author of Checkpoint Syndrome:
“Furer is certain that what happened to him is not at all unique. Here he was – a creative, sensitive graduate of the Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts, who became an animal at the checkpoint, a violent sadist who beat up Palestinians because they didn’t show him the proper courtesy, who shot out tires of cars because their owners were playing the radio too loud, who abused a retarded teenage boy lying handcuffed on the floor of the Jeep, just because he had to take his anger out somehow. “Checkpoint Syndrome” (also the title of his book), gradually transforms every soldier into an animal, he maintains, regardless of whatever values he brings with him from home. No one can escape its taint. In a place where nearly everything is permissible and violence is perceived as normative behavior, each soldier tests his own limits of violence impulsiveness on his victims – the Palestinians.”
More:
http://www.haaretz.com/twilight-zone-i-punched-an-arab-in-the-face-1.106307
And here is an English translation of Sergeant Furer’s book:
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/download/checkpoint_syndrome.pdf
Baruch Goldstein had a IMI Galil assault rifle and four magazines of ammunition, which held a total of 140 rounds in 35 rounds per each magazine and obviously hand grenades. Goldstein killed 29 people and wounded 125. The surviving Palestinians told that IDF soldiers continued shooting outside the cave after Goldstein was killed by Palestinians. 10 fleeing Palestinians were killed and then 21 in demonstrations after the massacre.
So this Jewish civilian terrorist had an army weapon and a lot of ammunition. Strict Israeli gun control in Israeli style. During these past decades Israeli settlers have only got more weapons and ammunition. And one day they will begin to use them, there are now thousands of new mental Baruchs. What then Abby?
PS
Abby was Golstein’s home destroyed in the famous Israeli style after the attack? Would be interesting to know why not. Having the policy of destroying only Palestinians’ homes is racist.
A real eye-opener: ‘Was the recent mass shooting in Florida on June 12th, 2016, an Orlando false flag attack? Early signs indicate so…7 clues’ by Makia Freeman
http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/orlando-false-flag-mass-shooting/
Oh man…. even the number 666 is in there: The Zionist axis must have done it!
Totally convincing!
“The acculturation process for some of these families is unsuccessful. Thus the children are left to fend for themselves” I found this very insightful. I worked in refugee resettlement for Jewish family Services in Florida and in my experience these “resettlement” programs are a complete fraud. These programs, along with Americore, seem to exist solely as a resume point for social workers in training who spend the minimal time there and move on to a job with better benefits. When the money for that family runs out at the end of 3 months the provider walks away regardless of the condition of their client. The first relationship the family enters into with an English speaking American ends up to be a negative and the family withdraws into the comfort of the local “foreign” community. And there is no incentive for those adults ever to reach out as many of the periferal refugee support programs direct back into the refugee community rather than out into “white middle class America”.
And what of Jewish terrorists like
Zeda or even baruch Goldstein do you say blame the gun or do you attack their ideology?
@ Nearly 20% of Israelis share an extremist settler ideology that endorses violence against Palestinians. That is not true in this country.
And it is true that weapons are as available to settler extremists as they are to American serial killer/terrorists.
In other words if a Jewish terrorist attacked a Muslim center (in the us) would you be saying the same thing about guns and that we should ignore the shooters ideology?
John F.. do know who established Murder, Inc. and what did it do? Well Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel established that “company” which killed over 700 “problems”, witnesses, informers and political activists. Lansky, whose real name was Maier Suchowljansky, and Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel were not Italian Catholic gangsters from Sicily. Siegel started what the great financier Sheldon Adelson continues.
Should we ignore their background, ideology and effects to the society?
Huh
Richard writes – “But I would never make the mistake of saying that all of Judaism or a majority or even a significant minority of Jews today share those views.”
but then he writes “No matter what it does or how hard some Israelis try, the majority are imprisoned by ancient hatreds and fear which prevents them from ever leading normal lives.” or in so many other posts where the crimes of a handful of individuals are blamed for all settlers or even all Israelis as an ideology of murder.
Quite impressive how far blind can people get in order to self-convinced of certain views.
Here is a great read that explains how and why http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.692890
It also explains why Richard insists so many times he is a (progressive) Zionist and not anti-Israeli so he can speak about those matters as “WE”.
@ Israel: The “crimes” I write about are not those of individuals, but of an entire society and political system. Even when I write about crimes of individuals, those individuals are representatives of this system and commit their crimes in its name.
Please don’t promote the same article in two separate comments. That’s boring & repetitive & violates comment rules. One reference/link is enough (more than enough in this case). Gadi Taub is a lib Zio hack btw. It ain’t no “great read.” It’s typical lib Zio hasbara.
So put on some new glasses.
When a soldier does something wrong, you can MAYBE put it on the whole country. But now in the case of The Dawabsha family or Muhammad Abu-Khdier.
Your first sentence from my previous comment is a piece of self-righteousness that you don’t stand behind. And since you put the crimes of individuals on a community, why can’t you understand Islamophobs? You should literally look at the mirror because Islamophobs think exactly 180 degrees differently than you which actually make you quite similar.
@ Israel: YOu have been warned about violating the comment rules regarding your monopolizing the threads. Do NOT publish more than three comments in a 24 hr period.
The murder of the Dawabsheh family and Abu Khdeir were committed by settlers who do indeed represent the views of a significant portion of that community, which is perhaps the most powerful lobby in Israeli politics. The fact that no one has been charged in the Dawabsheh case indicates the State itself cannot or will not prosecute the crime. This is shameful and shames the State itself.
Comparing me to an Islamophobe is beyond ridiculous. Keep on this rant and you’ll be moderated or worse in no time.
What a joke!!!
When is the last time you even sat with a settler and spoke about opinions???
The fact you have an ideological dispute with them MIGHT allow you to call them thieves but murderers…??? The sentence you wrote “But I would never make the mistake of saying that all of Judaism or a majority or even a significant minority of Jews today share those views.” – is a completely hypocritical and self-righteous.
about the comment rules, I didn’t break them so why bring it up? even more so when another reader clearly broke them.
@ Israel: I read settler garbage virtually every day. I read Israeli government propaganda every day which mirrors settler views. Do I need to sit with a thief or murderer to “understand” his point of view?? Scores, if not hundreds of settlers have murdered & maimed Palestinians over the decades. It is a murderous cult.
About comment rules: You published more than three comments (4 to be exact) in a 24 hr period. Don’t do it again.
“Here is a great read that explains how and why link to haaretz.com”
Oh now Richard has to be sold on it as well.
See above.
Hi. Lost Messiah posted on this today. We thought you should see the following, which we find to be a disturbing trend. Whether or not you choose to use it or allow it, we leave to you. Enjoying your blogs and your point of view.
https://youtu.be/hGqTHPGuZX8
@lepxii
“Perhaps the answer is more guns in the hands of loyal law-abiding citizens?”
Bryant was a law abiding citizen – until then.
“‘The Port Arthur massacre of 28–29 April 1996 was a killing spree in which 35 people were killed and 23 wounded. It occurred mainly at the historic Port Arthur former prison colony,[1] a popular tourist site in south-eastern Tasmania, Australia.[2]
Martin Bryant, a 28-year-old from New Town, a suburb of Hobart, was found guilty and given 35 life sentences without possibility of parole.[3] Following the incident, it emerged in the media that Bryant had significant intellectual disabilities. He is now imprisoned in the Wilfred Lopes Centre near the Risdon Prison Complex.[4]
The Port Arthur massacre remains one of the deadliest shootings worldwide committed by a single person. Following the spree, the Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, introduced strict gun control laws within Australia and formulated the National Firearms Programme Implementation Act 1996, restricting the private ownership of high capacity semi-automatic rifles, semi-automatic shotguns and pump-action shotguns as well as introducing uniform firearms licensing. It was implemented with bipartisan support by the Commonwealth, states and territories.” (Wikipedia)
“Australia on Thursday marked the 20th anniversary of a mass shooting which led to strict gun controls that have in turn led to a huge decline in gun murders, undermining claims in the United States that such curbs are not the answer.
The chances of being murdered by a gun in Australia plunged to 0.15 per 100,000 people in 2014 from 0.54 per 100,000 people in 1996, a decline of 72 percent, a Reuters analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showed.
In 1996, Australia had 311 murders, of which 98 were with guns. In 2014, with the population up from about 18 million to 23 million, Australia had 238 murders, of which 35 were with guns.
It was the April 28, 1996, shooting deaths by a lone gunman of 35 people in and around a cafe at a historic former prison colony in Tasmania that prompted the government to buy back or confiscate a million firearms and make it harder to buy new ones.
The country has had no mass shootings since.
The figures directly contradict assertions of most leading U.S. presidential candidates who have either questioned the need to toughen gun laws or directly denounced Australia’s laws as dangerous.
In a January 2015 tweet, Republican front runner Donald Trump wrote “Fact – the tighter the gun laws, the more violence. The criminals will always have guns”. A year later, Republican hopeful Ted Cruz blamed Australia’s gun laws on a rise in sexual assault.”
link to reuters.com
Apparently, the rampage was inspired by jihadism.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/orlando-gunman-raged-against-filthy-ways-of-the-west/ar-AAh4kJx?li=BBnb7Kz
@ Abby: Apparently, you’re a mindless Zio-automaton who ought to wait before she speaks nonsense. At this point, we only know what Mateen said or wrote on Facebook. We don’t know the entire story. Mateen also apparently was either gay or a closeted gay. What part this played in his rampage neither you nor anyone else knows for sure. Before making a fool of yourself by speaking in ignorance take a deep breath and wait for further information (or for further instruction for Zio-Central).
“He consumed a hell of a lot of jihadist propaganda,”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/orlando-gunman-omar-mateen-searched-for-videos-of-isis-beheadings-a7081686.html
I stand by what I said, He was ‘inspired’.
@ Abby: If you stand by what you said, you’re standing by a pile of manure. And you’re wrong. See tonight’s post.