Another fucking spree shooting. Great.

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?

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.

― Mordy, Thursday, December 3, 2015 4:48 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

But it doesn't seem particularly effective in this case -- attacking one's own workplace DOESN'T give the same impression that it could "strike anywhere" as killing hundreds enjoying Paris nightlife.

I guess the question is what we mean by "radicalized"? The Paris attackers (or at least the planner) actually had trained with and had ties to ISIS, iirc, like they could actually be said to be striking on behalf of the organization.

yeah it seems to me that something set him off and he advanced this plan forward for some bizarre reason.

why is it beneficial to know the motivations of any shooting?

indeed, a good question

also goole otm in making some points i had wanted to make but could not articulate

"I guess the question is what we mean by "radicalized"? "

http://www.theiacp.org/portals/0/pdfs/radicalizationtoviolentextremismawarenessbrief.pdf

the san bernardino shootings are so crazy i'd be hesitant to say anything about them. religion is a possible motive, sure.

but "the disability center was chosen bc of convenience" or "he was radicalized in saudi arabia" or (god help me i've seen this already today) "his jihadi wife brainwashed him". fuckin hell we don't know any of this.

there have been a fair number of documented cases of online 'grooming' to a POV lately the weirdest being this one: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/world/americas/isis-online-recruiting-american.html

xp any conjecture along those lines i've made in this thread are just gut feelings. not only do i agree that we don't really know any of those things but it seems likely we'll never have answers for some of them. it's not like a cleric in KSA is gonna call up the FBI to tell them about their late night rap sessions

well sure, who knows what evil lurks etc

in the next several days i'm sure we'll learn more about their internet habits, maybe more about travel, and for sure a lot more about the people they killed.

odds are, before they learn anything substantial about motives we'll all be talking about the next mass shooting instead

BC none that information Helsinki anyone other than armchair true detectives

No idea why autocorrect changed help to Helsinki

Karl Malone otm, like the PP shooting from last week was getting to the point of figuring some things out, when "we interrupt this story to bring you breaking news, mass shooting in san bernardino"

i don't see how this couldn't be both about a workplace grievance /and/ political terrorism. in some ways i can imagine someone taking a personal grievance and 'ennobling' (in a sick sense obv) an act of personal vengeance by turning it into an act of political violence.

otm

Which is more or less what happened with Flanagan.

They exclude me from their clique AND they are decadent westerners who reject the true path etc.

Agreed. Would be very unusual though. Keep expecting to find out the argument that supposedly kicked it off was about politics/religion.

i think that's how a lot of political paranoia begins, or rather isn't that a defining feature of paranoia -- the idea that behind all these personal slights (real or simply perceived) is some larger conspiracy that extends up and out?

xposts

there was a detail i'd read early on that said there was an argument that led to dude storming out and coming back armed up, but everything new i'm reading--escape SUV rented 3 days in advance, 12 homemade pipe bombs left sitting in the house, all their hard drives & cell phones & motherboards methodically destroyed before cops showed up--is really confusing me. why go to such lengths to hide your motivations?

i always sort of assumed that the "radicalization" of the tsarnaevs and (potentially) this guy had less to do with a particular org or a particular plan and was instead almost like an "activation." like, dudes travel abroad, and get inspired to do a lil terrorism of their own --- their own design, their plan, etc.

ISIS doesn't need to export trained soldiers, or help cells acquire materiel --- they just need to convince a couple ppl to ~consider~ making a trip to walmart or wherever and load up on guns'n'ammo. maybe they'll go through with it, maybe they won't.

decades of homegrown terrorism and the best gun markets in the world provides an almost by the numbers approach

many xps

"in some ways i can imagine someone taking a personal grievance and 'ennobling' (in a sick sense obv) an act of personal vengeance by turning it into an act of political violence."

I can totally believe that being one person's motivation. But getting your wife to go along esp. when you have a six month old child?!?!? It starts to get harder to imagine that.

ISIS doesn't need to export trained soldiers, or help cells acquire materiel --- they just need to convince a couple ppl to ~consider~ making a trip to walmart or wherever and load up on guns'n'ammo. maybe they'll go through with it, maybe they won't.

decades of homegrown terrorism and the best gun markets in the world provides an almost by the numbers approach

Yes and no. It's still going to be far more effective to have coordinated attacks by trained individuals loyal to an organization than to rely on randos who may or may not do shit. Paris had a lot more impact on people and policy than something like this will.

it seems like maybe they thought they'd get away with it? i was surprised when it turned into a manhunt. i mean on some level they must've known that you can't do this kind of thing in the US and get away.

the detail that's stuck with me was them dropping off their six month old in the morning and saying something about a dentist appointment, and then he went to the party alone, then left.

i think that's the timeline there. if i'm remembering it right, that means they were going to do this and it wasn't spur of the moment or initiated by some argument at the party.

I mean 100-200 deaths caused by a resourced organization makes you think "What if they have sleeper cells in other world cities? Maybe they're planning an attack near me? How powerful are they?" It's scarier (to me at least) than an unhinged guy reading stuff on the internet and shooting up his office.

(On Tuesday, in fact, a measure that would have prevented people on the terrorism watch list from buying guns was defeated in the House of Representatives.)

this country is so sick why would you not want to prevent people on the terrorism watch list from buying guns???

because what if dear leader obama finally unveils his plan to capture the united states and become a dictator and he declares all good conservative americans to be "terrorists" and then they can't go buy...another gun to add to their collection. hm. yeah it doesn't add up, even on the crazy conspiracy side of things

also you'd think if you were the POTUS and were going to stage an anti-democratic coup you'd probably have more powerful levers at your disposal than changing gun access laws for terrorists