Another fucking spree shooting. Great.

i love that this is a "handgun". that you can actually buy. i guess you buy this to protect your other smaller guns.

http://www.gandermountain.com/modperl/product/details.cgi?pdesc=CZ-USA-805-Bren-S1-Handgun&i=913928

like is this an unfair characterization: many people on the left are much more concerned with anti-muslim blowback to islamic terror than they are with islamic terror? acknowledging that they're both legitimate and real problems i'm questioning whether that makes a whole lot of sense. i'm more concerned about islamic terror for probably selfish reasons - it frequently targets jews and jewish spaces (which is why my daughter's montessori is put under police observation whenever there's an elevated threat and why they recently installed an expensive and complex security system in the building). i'm also concerned about anti-muslim backlash but tbh that's a secondary concern to having my family personally targeted.

I'd point out that data appears is totally context free. A simple google search will indicate that concerns about spikes in hate crimes re: Muslims are pretty high and rates have jumped considerably in recent years (heck even in the last year).

xp that's an unfair characterization.

But at same time this particular crime is so fucking weird I don't really blame people for being like "oh great dude's got a Muslim background now that's all we'll hear about for a few moments".

many people on the left are much more concerned with anti-muslim blowback to islamic terror than they are with islamic terror?

i think it almost insane to suggest that, actually.

^^^ amateurist otm

Well Idk I had to spend three days of the Thanksgiving holiday listening to people say that Muslims are uniquely evil among all other faiths of the world and shouldn't be allowed into this country so I might have a different perspective on this ish right now (also am still furious).

i can see where mordy is coming from. i think such public declarations to be concerned for muslims ring falsely. empty platitudes on the level of "praying for you".

let's see some real action towards protecting their rights. no politician has the balls to say anything positive, it always has to be negative.

But at same time this particular crime is so fucking weird I don't really blame people for being like "oh great dude's got a Muslim background now that's all we'll hear about for a few moments".

like i'm not sure it's a bad thing to hear for a few minutes about how he's a religious muslim who became radicalized in saudi arabia (assuming that information turns out to be true). that's not just an incidental factor in the event. it's not like this is really about gun control but those nasty right-wingers want to trick us into thinking it's about radical islam. it's most likely about both things. nb in orbit i love muslims and i love islam and don't think it's a uniquely evil religion. i do think that radical islamic terror is a major problem, though.

cool then let's not isolate it to just religion and guns, but talk about US foreign defense policy as well then

wait, has there been any sort of connection between the san bernardino coule and being "radicalized" in saudi arabia or pakistan or elsewhere? admittedly i haven't read the news on this in over 2 or 3 hours, but the last i heard was that the guys parents were born in pakistan, his fiancee was in the U.S. on a work visa, and that they had been in Pakistan in 2014 (presumably because that's where she's from and where his parents are family are from). none of that implies radical terrorist indoctrination

i linked to this above about possible radicalization: https://twitter.com/CNN/status/672464419620810752

and this says he went to saudi arabia recently where he met his wife?
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-syed-farook-had-traveled-to-saudi-arabia-married-appeared-to-live-american-dream-co-workers-say-20151202-story.html

They said Farook recently traveled to Saudi Arabia and returned with a new wife he had met online. The couple had a baby and appeared to be "living the American dream," said Patrick Baccari, a fellow health inspector who shared a cubicle with Farook.

his father said he was very religious. it seems possible that his religious beliefs contributed to his actions.

then let's just arrest allah and get this over with

we can rehash the statistics but from what i've seen blowback against muslims is not particularly significant as far as hate crimes go compared to other groups

Well done USA, you must be unique in the Western World there.

#NotAllAllahs

tbf to europe they might have significantly more anti-jewish crime if they hadn't done such a good job getting rid of most of them

#NotAllAhs

"it's most likely about both things"

Well that's still assuming it's about the second thing at all and of course it's possible for this dude to be radicalized and this to still have been about something else more mundane (it's not like there was manifesto that's been found yet that says "we struck this holiday work party in the name of Allah").

it seems unlikely to me that his wife participated in the shooting bc of his workplace rage

I don't think either scenario makes a heck of a lot of sense, frankly, so I'll reserve judgment until something definitive comes out.

i guess all mass shootings are inherently bizarre and somewhat incomprehensible, but this one is off the charts

dunno if this was covered earlier -- current NYT lede:

The couple suspected of killing 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., had built more than a dozen pipe bombs and stockpiled thousands of rounds of ammunition, officials said.

so, likely not essentially party-argument-related

is there precedent of a terror attack (assuming for the sake of argument this is what this was, not actually assuming this) against workplace colleagues?

not that the party argument line makes any more sense obv

and not counting the armed forces

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Fort_Hood_shooting

and not counting the armed forces

i guess the ft hood shooting violates that restriction, although probably not in the way you meant

I think that's exactly what he meant.

the workplace thing to me just seems like a target of opportunity or like he had work rage and wanted to (ugh) kill 2 birds etc

Vester Flanagan left a political manifesto iirc but that is an arguable case. Xps

there was a lot of criticism directed toward, I dunno, everyone from Obama to holder and on down for labeling the ft hood shooting as workplace violence as opposed to Islamic terrorism, but I am personally unclear on the benefit of labeling it as one thing rather than another

I thought some sort of legal definition was required? What do I know about the US legal system though.

why is it beneficial to know the motivations of any shooting? it seems important that dylan roof was inspired by white supremacist and eliot rodgers by misogyny. isn't it also important to know what inspired the ft hood shooter?

or are only certain crimes or perpetrators emblematic of underlying cultural problems

it certainly seems clear he was radicalized in some manner somewhere at some point, although they don't seem to have uncovered much recent communication with known people on the terrorist watchlist. Perhaps he was communicating via something else, maybe not. I expect this will bring up more calls for strengthening surveillance/patriot act/prism etc since most radicalization of US sympathizers is happening online now.

I think it's possible this is an example of someone responding to the call for diy indie attacks. It doesn't feel like something that was "sponsored" as it were.

acc to CNN quoting the FBI he had been in touch with ppl on terror watchlists

"Yet Farook himself had talked by phone and on social media with more than one person being investigated for terrorism, law enforcement officials said."

Seems highly unlikely that there was any large organization directly behind this one, although some mix of political and personal vendetta seems possible.

I mean but I've probably talked to people on "terror watchlists" just from having friends who are journalists or w/e.

There's over a million names on it.

I mean not ruling out an organization, but why attack a random disability center in San Bernardino? Not exactly the most visible/symbolic/attention-grabbing target.

i think the disability center was chosen bc of convenience. also while high profile targets are valuable to ISIS there is a benefit for terrorism that seems like it could strike anywhere - even places that you wouldn't think would be a target. after all the whole purpose is to terrorize you into thinking there's nowhere safe.

Had no idea my expression of sympathy for US Muslims in the wake of this would be at all controversial (here, anyway)! FTR, Mordy, that's just one strand in the web of awful feelings I'm feeling for people who have been affected by this in any number of different ways (family of the victims, family of the perpetrators, survivors of the attack, anyone and everyone who's lost that little bit of faith in their own safety, etc.). I get that some people do that thing where they appear to be ticking boxes in a list of liberal concerns but, unless expressed in terms of excluding someone in particular, it's pretty reductive to assume that an expression of sympathy in the wake of something like this isn't implicitly applicable to everyone affected.

Of course, Tsarnaev was never linked to an organization either, iirc. Inspiration of lone wolves can be an "organized" terrorism strategy. I've been making that argument about what the far right does to abortion providers -- they know they're going to inspire some lone wolf attackers and frighten a lot of people out of being abortion doctors, and it works. That said, this still seems like a weird target.

it's undeniable that people have a grim hope that the perpetrators of mass violence aren't shown to be "one of theirs."

the proposed solutions for tackling the revealed misogyny and racism of violent men isn't state violence against them. (unless you consider all imprisonment to be state violence, which, ok, that's a consistent position of a kind). usually there aren't any proposed solutions at all! it's just, "we need to talk about this" or "men are in such a bad state right now, ugh"

a lot of the proposed solutions for the religious fanaticism of violent muslims is to crank up violence against muslims generally -- more exclusions, more selective borders, more bigotry, more surveillance, more wars

i thought i remembered that the tsarnaevs had recently visited chechnya and there was some speculation they had become radicalized there? am i misremembering?