The big news we all woke up to this morning:
A gunman wielding an assault-type rifle and a handgun opened fire inside a crowded gay nightclub early Sunday, killing at least 50 people before dying in a gunfight with SWAT officers, police said. It was the worst mass shooting in American history.
Authorities were investigating the attack on the Florida dance hall as an act of terrorism. The gunman’s father recalled that his son got angry when he recently saw two men kissing in Miami. He said that might be related to the attack.
At least 53 people were hospitalized, most in critical condition, officials said. A surgeon at Orlando Regional Medical Center said the death toll was likely to climb.
Mayor Buddy Dyer said all of the dead were killed with the assault rifle.
President Obama will deliver a statement at 1:30pm, Eastern time, today. About the time I finish typing up this quick post.
Before all the facts are even in, people from all sides are projecting their ideological beliefs onto the motive: Islam is to blame, Islam is a religion of peace, it was mental illness, it was guns, ISIS is responsible, it’s a mass killing, it’s a domestic terror attack, it was LGBT mass murder, it’s radical Islam.
I’ll weigh in with my own speculations and you’re free of course to take them for what they’re worth. We all know how early “facts” and opinions can turn out to be wrong.
Rep. Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN that Omar Mateen pledged allegiance to ISIS before attacking an Orlando, Florida gay nightclub and killing 53 people.
cited intelligence sources to say that there “appears to be a link to Islamic radicalism .. some kind of connection to ISIS,” ABC News reported.
According to his parents, seeing gay men kissing angered him. Is this a case of a homophobic mass murderer? Islamist homophobe?
According to his ex-wife about Mateen,
he wasn’t very religious and worked out at the gym often. She said in the few months they were married he gave no signs of having fallen under the sway of radical Islam.
It’s possible that a number of factors came into play here. Disturbed human being. Tribal/ethnic instincts (2nd generation Afghan-American who may feel ethnic and religious ties; and being an apparent registered Democrat, may share the anti-American liberal belief that we invaded a sovereign nation and are terrorizing the Afghan people and are at war with Islam). He may have been influenced by the allure of adventurism and excitement that ISIS offers, moreso than actual religious devotion. He may have contacts with ISIS; or he may have acted upon his own impulses and instincts as a lone wolf, answering ISIS advertisement to jihad in Florida, 3 days ago.
And now, because of all the media attention and sensationalism that will surround this act of terror, because his name is splashed across headlines and every aspect of his life will come under scrutiny and he will garner postmortem fame, you can be assured others will try to top this with copycat attacks, whether motivated by religious fanaticism, mental illness, politics, nationalism, or pure evil.
FA reader thoughts?
A former fetus, the “wordsmith from nantucket” was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1968. Adopted at birth, wordsmith grew up a military brat. He achieved his B.A. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles (graduating in the top 97% of his class), where he also competed rings for the UCLA mens gymnastics team. The events of 9/11 woke him from his political slumber and malaise. Currently a personal trainer and gymnastics coach.
The wordsmith has never been to Nantucket.
LA Times man arrested with guns and exposives on his way to West Hollywood Gay Pride Parade.
Indiana plates on car.
Neighbor’s tip led to his arrest.
YEAH!
See something, say something…..even at the risk of being called an Islamophobe.
The blame goes to…..
I’m sure it is all the fault of the guns, right?
Oh, wait!
Both men had explosives, the FLA man also had knives.
What could it be????
Workplace violence. Lone wolf. Had nothing to do with islam.
Off to the first tee
Hello from London!
@DrJohn:
Don’t you mean Londonistan”?
@Wordsmith:
Right you are, Gov!
There is a fatalistic recognition here of the future. As someone who has been traveling here for more than 25 years I find it distressing. We thought we’d be in greater jeopardy here than at home.
And in my neighborhood:
Right now the big thing here is soccer (football) violence in Marseilles.
It took 90 seconds to mention guns and this being another reason for stricter gun control. I guess he showed extreme restraint to wait that long to go for the 2nd.
@Wordsmith:
Meanwhile, liberal judges in San Francisco rule that self defense is no reason for legal concealed carry. Those liberals… always right.
Orlando shooting suspect’s father hosted a political TV show and even tried to run for the Afghan presidency:
@Wordsmith:
That’s very interesting.
I wonder what his political stand had been on Bachi Boys, who are pre-pubescent prostitutes in Afghanistan.
As far as being offended by two men kissing, as was alleged, in Islam, especially in Afghanistan, a man kissing a BOY is just fine.
Two men of the age of consent kissing is the crime.
What did he hope for after death?
Not a wife who forgot to finish the laundry.
No.
An eternal sexual party with ”wives,” concubines and boys.
A river of wine and tables of rich foods.
How utterly opposite what the God of Jews and Christians promise the faithful.
@Wordsmith:
God Almighty I’ve written about that guy- the father
Another religious right wing extremist
Muslim + Gun-Free zone = 50+ murdered (and counting)
So naturally we must be lectured against “islamophobia” and the need for even more gun restrictions, despite the fact that this muslim scumbag broke the state law against having a firearm in a place that sells liquor, not to mention the law against murder.
Obama and the rest of the leftards will insist the ONLY solution is to bring in hundreds of thousands more 3rd world muslims (at taxpayer expense) while prohibiting law-abiding citizens from owning firearms.
Leftists are more than just mentally ill.
@John:
Yet another leftist trying to project their stupidity, blindness and hypocrisy on others.
Right on point as usual, Johnnie.
@Pete: Self defense… it’s not just for conservatives any more.
@Bill: And the gays on the web are calling for training so they can all be as ready as this guy.
Gotta love that Louie Vitton ammo bag!
the word mass shooting needs to be revised by definition
They’ll blame this on the NRA and the Gun Lobby they’ll blame the staes Castle Doctrine/Stand your Grounds Law Obama will oink for more Gun Control Hillary the Hag will push for Gun Confiscatiopns if elected Bloomberg and company will demand the repeal of the 2nd Amendment and the Usless Nations will send out its blue Helmet SS goons to consifcate all privatly owned guns the liberal media reptiles will also blame the Gun Lobby wait for the usial infernal scibblings from Toles,Babin,Bennet and well the Hollyweed bunch cant wait
@John:
Muslims are left wing. Islamists are the golden children of the let.
I do wonder whether the conventional right-wing extremist groups: the KKK, the Westboro Church; will feel a trite conflicted in how to respond to this one…
(in the “the enemy of my enemy” sense…)
I tell you what. When and if I reach 90, I want my party in London.
A registered democrat at that
I see the Athiests Communists & Lawyers Undergound(ACLU)is blaming christians and the GOP for this just typical of these bottom dwelling muck suckers to blame others instead of the ISIS reptiles who did it
@Spurwing Plover: Oh, they already are. Over on the Dallas Morning News blog, everyone from all Republicans, Rev. Jeffreys, the NRA, Christians in general are to blame for this tragedy.
Everyone but radical Islamic terrorists. Is it any wonder liberals get absolutely everything wrong? Liberals DREAM of tragedies like this… they can’t wait for the next one to occur. As soon as one happens, they launch out on their favorite-villains blame list. It took Obama a mere 90 seconds to blame the gun. Despite how flawed and open to corruption (especially by such anti-Constitutional fiends as Obama and Hillary) using the terrorist watch list as a means to restrict gun ownership has been proven to be, THAT is getting new life.
Everything is being considered except for what would solve the problem.
You’re living in a propaganda-induced alternate reality, bub. Hardly anyone has any problem believing Islamic extremism has something to do with this attack. Everybody understands that pathological homophobia is part of their profile. The only question at this point is whether he was a lone-wolf mass murderer inspired by ISIS, or some homicidal psycho having actual connections with an ISIS network.
Your problem is the same as Trump’s problem. You primarily view things in the context of political opportunism. You want this to somehow be all about leftists.
@Greg: “SOMETHING” to do with it?!? Are you kidding me? What else motivated him? Transgender access to bathrooms? The NRA? Abortion access?
Sheesh, you liberals are going to break your necks stumbling over yourselves trying to get away from the obvious.
@Greg:
And on cue, the Soros-paid troll exhibits classic projection of his leftist psychosocial worldview onto others.
Facebook and Twitter have already been caught scrubbing posts calling the Orlando muslim terrorist attack what it was.
Multiple asshats leftist celebrities spewing nonsense about the necessity for gun control – too clueless to understand that the law declaring the bar a ‘gun free zone” was willfully ignored by the muslim scumbag. (Who, coincidentally was also a registered democrat.) There has also been reporting that this muslim scumbag was a ‘licensed security guard’, which means that despite being considered a person of interest by the FBI on 2 separate occasions, he presumably passed a background check to be able to carry a firearm for his job. Reports also are out that he claimed to have ties to ISIS, and ISIS has claimed responsibility for the murder of 50+ Americans by this muslim scumbag.
Yet with all those facts, idiot leftists want to blame GUNS rather than the fundamental nature of islam. Incomprehensible, willful stupidity.
@Bill, #26:
Yes. Something. What that something might be isn’t yet known. The history of mass murder doesn’t belong exclusively to Islamic extremists, does it?
ISIS ideology might only be this guy’s rationalization and excuse for what he did. It might turn out, as it has with many such killers, that he wasn’t a particularly religious Muslim—that religious extremism was just what his alienation or mental disorder fixated on when he finally popped his cork.
Alternately, he might actually have been under direct ISIS influence and control—the trained instrument of a terrorist organization who executed a planned attack when instructed to do so.
Something acknowledges a wide range of possibilities.
@Pete, #27:
People on left have correctly observed that we live in a nation heavily populated with mentally unbalanced and overly impressionable people, that our entertainment industry glorifies violence, that guns are seen as a compensation for personal insecurity and as symbol of personal empowerment, and that the gun industry is cranking out record numbers of military-purposed firearms and accessories and making them too damn available to people who shouldn’t have them and have no legitimate use for them.
This, it’s pointed out, is a problem. If you doubt it, consider the consequences. It’s only natural that the topic should come up with each new instance of mass murder. The killer could have gone berserk with a handgun capable of firing six or seven shots without reloading, or even with a knife, but I’m guessing we’d be looking at a far lower count of dead and wounded.
I don’t see any signs that sanity and self control are on the upswing. Consequently, I would tighten the controls on firearms. I don’t believe the 2nd Amendment guarantees a right to bear arms to mentally unbalanced people.
@Greg:
Yet consider the illogic that your post demonstrates.
You twist more than a pretzel to avoid acknowledging this was -by the scumbag’s own admission of his ISIS connection, not to mention the ISIS claim of responsibility – an act of muslim terror, as you push the erroneous idea that islam is not the problem, but rather mental instability. Yet you want all law abiding citizens to be deprived of their 2nd Amendment right to have firearms for self protection, even those who aren’t mentally unstable.
The irony is the left insists that “you can’t legislate morality”, while they push the dubious concept that it is a moral necessity to deprive law-abiding citizens of the right to protect themselves. The fact that this muslim scumbag broke existing firearms laws in the commission of his slaughter only highlights the illogic of the leftist position.
@Greg:
You know, that’s something I always admire about you leftists.. you are always so open minded and objective about situations.
Sure, you never jump to conclusions about Bush lying about WMD’s or a Tea Party officer being a mass killer or EVERY shooter being a right wing NRA zealot (which of course NEVER seems to apply) and every objection to every liberal agenda being based on racism or any idiocy like that, do you?
Now, just because the guy has a Muslim name… just because he is a Muslim or just because his father is a Taliban supporter nor because he was reportedly shouting “Allah Akbar” as he slaughtered the mortal enemies of his religion… gays… or that he had made comments before about allegiance to ISIS is any indication or reason to assume the guy was a radical Islamic terrorist that had been radicalized by ISIS propaganda.
What we don’t know and need to find out is who is associates are and if he has any direct links to ISIS. We need to find out if any other attacks are planned. The rest, well, we are pretty well solid on all that.
Record numbers of guns are being bought by law abiding citizens… RECORD numbers… and violent crime is on the steady decline. Something about the liberal mantra of “what we need is more gun control” when example after example after example of liberal failure because, well, you are ALWAYS headed in the wrong direction
What is it about reality you find so objectionable, Greg?
@Pete, #30:
A claim of ISIS affiliation by a mentally unbalanced mass murderer isn’t any more conclusive than ISIS publicly taking credit on the internet for somebody’s actions. They also claim that homicidal psychos get double points for slaughtering innocents during Ramadan. They’re a pack of suicidal/homicidal lunatics, and a certain sort of suicidal/homicidal lunatic is likely to identify with them. In their minds it confers some sort of meaning and purpose on what any normal person sees as contemptible and crazy.
There’s Islam. And then there’s a viral, homicidal form of crazy within Islam, masquerading as religion. I believe it’s counter-productive to conflate the two things. I’ve got no problem with the eradication of anyone advocating the latter. I had no problem with Obama’s order to take out Anwar al-Awlaki, for example, U.S. citizen or not. That’s more than some on the right can say. It’s hard-line pragmatism.
@Greg:
Utter balderdash.
The FBI had this muslim terrorist scumbag on their radar TWICE but mistakenly decided he wasn’t a muslim threat. Now we have 100 dead or wounded victims of one of the followers of this satanic death cult who acted in accordance with islamic beliefs.
You are pushing the islamic concept of taqqiyah in claiming that this muslim scumbag doesn’t represent fundamental islamic thought. One has only to read the koran, study the hadith, learn about the history of the spread of the cancer of islam, and listen to the imams – like the one from Orlando who is on video saying homosexuals should be killed out of islamic “compassion” – to understand the inherently evil nature of islam.
You can blather on in ignorant sanctimony about this muslim scumbag not being representative of islam, but it doesn’t match reality. And it is beyond reprehensible ro make such biliously bogus excuses for such a horrific act while calling for law-abiding citizens to be deprived of constitutionally protected rights.
islam is the religion of peace and it is not responsable for that killing ;the terrors are in every part of the world and with diferrent religions .the real muslimans don’t hate america or any land ;they want just peace ,just freedom and against sex ,againt violence and save childhood,islam for save the spirits and save bloods.please don’t speak about thing you don’t know his reality
And, lest we think he came to radicalization recently, we have a guy who was on the same school bus with him in 9th grade on 9-11-01.
He was making plane crash noises as well as building falling down miming.
But it is because of daddy that he was cut loose by the FBI.
http://injo.com/2016/06/627509-the-father-of-the-orlando-shooter-recently-visited-state-department-writes-open-letters-to-president-obama/
Mateen met with Reps Charlie Rangel, Dana Rohrabacher and Ed Royce.
Royce is the Chairman of the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Here he is getting ready to meet a liason officer at the US State Department.
@the peaceful girl:
Baloney.
I lived for over 2 years in muslim controlled countries, specifically Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Afghanistan. I wanted to learn about the people who lived there, and in trying to understand them, I read their bloodthirsty koran, and various collections of the hadith. I provided medical care to anyone who could get to my aid station, and went out on missions to bring medical care to places outside our outposts. I have never seen such abject poverty, nor such mistreatment of one’s fellow man. I had to care for an autistic muslim who was raped by his father, brothers and cousins who had smoked hasish….while on duty as Afghan National Police officers. I had to build shoes for a little muslim girl out of MRE cardboard boxes and ace bandages so her feet could heal from the horrific cellulitis she had, because despite her brothers all having shoes, as a female she was not given any by her family, because women are not comsidered as important as men under islam. I had to threaten the muslim military commander whose unit was co-located with our US unit to withhold any medical care from all of his troops if he refused to allow the local muslim civilians to come to my clinic to get medical care, as I was the only physician in an 80 km radius of our base, and they had no other access to medical care.
I have absolute pity for the people enslaved by the satanic, inhuman ideology of islam. I completely detest the ideology of islam that slaughters those who are not “of the book” who refuse to join such a barbaric set of beliefs, and who demand that I submit to enslavement or be killed.
@Pete, #33:
You don’t know any more about this particular situation than what you’ve heard on the news, as it is with me. I’ll wait for more facts before I draw such conclusions. Some people apparently don’t believe they need to. They think they just know things. This, no doubt, explains their affinity for Donald Trump, who also thinks he just knows things.
This incident will end our long national nightmare of the mass murderous presidency of Barak insane Obama.
It will doom Killary Ramrod WDDIM (what difference does it make) Cunton.
It wifi usher in the mighty Furhor do Donnie Jackobiean Trump.
Siek Heil Donnie. Seek Heil.
@Pete:
Greg
RW,
etc’ He’s talking about you.
Hey RW, you need to stay away from that Pride Parade if those Islamists are headed that way with guns.
@Greg:
LOL, mass murders committed by Islamic extremists are exclusive to those Islamic extremists.
@Greg:
So, you believe there are mentally balanced mass murderers?
Who conflates them? Almost everyone takes great pains to specify RADICAL Islam. The complaint is, our gutless “leaders” can’t even bring themselves to do that. For, if they did, they would lose that valuable opportunity to turn this into a gun control issue instead of how this administration’s excessive PC caused this guy to drop from the terrorist list. Politics first, Greg. Politics first.
No, here is what you will do. You will DENY facts. Many facts are already clear and you pretend they need to be clarified. Just as you cannot face the facts of Hillary’s corruption, so to you will continue to deny and excuse the facts of radical Islamic terror being right here on our doorstep.
-orlando-gay-nightclub-and-the-blame-goes-to/#comment-501717″>the peaceful girl: I tell you what; you let me know how to tell the peaceful, loving Muslims from the ones that suddenly take up arms and go into clubs to massacre and we’re cool. Better yet, why doesn’t the peaceful Muslim community start dropping dime on Imans that preach hate and jihad and those you KNOW are radicalized and intent on committing such crimes? Thus far, all your community does is come out after the fact and say, “Gosh, that’s awful.”
These Imans don’t preach to just one individual. If the actions are that offensive to you and your religion, then do something about shutting down the message.
You passed a bad experience just does not attach blame to all Muslims, it is true some Muslims if you know you will not be a Muslim, but Islam is a religion of peace and security no doubt about it, the Muslim prophet Mohammed Muslims recommends invitation to God with wisdom and good advice and not to kill Muslims and infidels unless they fight them
@the peaceful girl: I will take you at your word that YOU believe in the peaceful nature of your religion. That belief, however, does nothing to address why hundreds of thousands of members of your religion commit heinous acts In the name of your religion. Your leaders could fight this by shutting down the mosques that spread violent, hateful messages but they don’t. All your leaders do is say, “Hey, don’t blame US!”
I see a pattern emerging between this gay bar attack and the one in Seattle on New Years’ Eve in 2014.
Seattle police arrested Musab Mohamed Masmari for pouring gasoline down the front stairs of the Seattle gay bar and lighting it on fire as 750 gay men inside were celebrating the holiday.
Masmari had been employed by Obama, as had been Mateen.
Mateen worked for a tentacle of the Department of Homeland Security.
Masmari was on the State Dept payroll as one of Obama’s Arab Cultural Ambassadors.
@the peaceful girl: Do you give the zagat to your mosque, girl?
Do you know where one portion of that money MUST go?
Read up on it.
One portion MUST go to support jihadi fighters so they don’t have to work on top of fighting.
YOU support jihad every time you donate to your mosque.
@Greg:
Your purposefully deceitful obfuscation is nothing more than typical leftist propaganda. Your blatant PC idiocy towards the real danger of islam is aptly described by a security guard who worked with Mateen in the following article:
http://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/crime/2016/06/12/who-omar-mateen/85791280/
And in absolutely sterotypical MiniTru behavior, leftists want to toss down any mention of Mateen being muslim right down the memory hole:
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/06/12/facebook-deletes-pamela-gellers-stop-islamization-america-page-orlando-attack/
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/06/12/reddit-topics-censored-users-banned-linking-orlando-shootings-islam/
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/4nq3uz/holy_shit_i_just_got_banned_from_rnews_for/
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/4nq3ib/rnews_locked_the_thread_about_orlando_shooting_as/
http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/12/reddit-bans-users-deletes-comments-that-say-orlando-terrorist-was-muslim/
Nothing like the leftist penchant for covering up evidence that refutes the progressive propaganda message, is there? It almost seems like a compulsive habit for leftists to lie and twist to conceal the truth, doesn’t it?
Even Reuters is reporting Mateen pledged his support to ISIS, but according to Greg, they have only fooled themselves into KNOWING anything, right?
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-florida-shooting-mateen-idUSKCN0YY0SY?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=Social
And Mateen’s father makes the laughable claim that he didn’t know his son was ‘radicalized’. Yet the DailyMail found the father’s videos praising the Taliban:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3637968/Father-America-s-deadly-mass-shooter-wanted-Afghan-president-job-TV-showed-support-Taliban.html
And CBS news has reported on Mateen and his father’s support of the Taliban:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/orlando-shooting-omar-mateen-father-seddique-mateen-taliban-god-punish-gays/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7e&linkId=25479970
So tell me again, Greg, how those of us who have had enough of the obsequious PC submissive act towards the evil of islam “don’t know anything”. Tell us again how the brutal murder of 50 Americans had nothing to do with muslim ideology.
Then put your money where your mouth is and emigrate to a muslim country to prove how peaceful and tolerant muslim ideology is.
It figures the left would be in meltdown mode over this. They were no doubt all giddy about a mass shooting because they could exploit it to push for gun control. Then when they found out it was a gay night club, all the better because now they can REALLY exploit it as a “hate crime”. They were no doubt hoping that it was a conservative so they could push for gun control and lecture about “right wing intolerance”. Low and behold to their dismay, it was an act of terror and the shooter was not only a radical Islamist but a registered Democrat as well. Now they have to jump through hoops to twist the story around to blame someone else. They could care less about the 100 plus AMERICAN victims or their families. A despicable bunch.
@Redteam: Actually by far the record for mass murder belongs to the various left wing Neo-Marxist dictators. Is it any wonder that the ones who make excuses for radical Islamic terrorists also happen to be leftists?
This man from a peaceful religion, did not choose a biker bar, he ever so carefully chose gay bar, insured to be full of liberals unarmed. He also chose closing time yes the liberals would be full of drink, reactions slowed. Certainly there would be no gun behind the bar everyone would be ever so polite as to not ignore the no carry rules, not even an ivory gripped 22 derringer was present for self defense.
The media does not blame the perp oh never, its the big nasty gun, he was not a terrorist, he was simply an offended soul that needed counseling to accept an alternative lifestyle.
What is the solution ? We must take these dangerous guns away from law abiding citizens who have done no crime at all.
Hows that working in Venezuela?
His call to 911 is not to be payed attention to. GET IT?
He is not a follower of a violent anti everybody death cult. He was not fully vetted by the FBI 3 times, His employer payed full attention to the fact he was a racist bigot and got him counseling for the issue all while ignoring his “religion”.
He obtained the weapons and the weapon took control of his body and mind. Turn this man into a killer. Guns fault case closed.
@John:
Still a small body count compared to your nutty religion of Atheism, John. You should show them how it’s done: Kill God, by killing His believers by the millions rather than the 50s.
At least we’re not dealing with another religious left wing extremist. That would really make the news…oh wait, not it wouldn’t…because religious left-wing nuts (Atheists) make sure the first thing they do is squash information and expression.