Reports of at Least 20 Victims Amid Active Shooting Incident in San Bernardino

[RavenSky]

If you confuse rational thinking and politics your arguments make sense. These weren't Syrian refugees and they may have targeted his workplace because Karl's a dick and steals his food (or some other dumb reason).

You have a president one week removed from trying to tell people ISIS isn't coming with refugees and don't be afraid of women and children who's now standing up saying "wait and see" it could be workplace violence rather than terrorism. While pushing gun control as if this shooting is the same as any other shooting when it likely has more in common with the Boston Marathon bombing.

Here is a DHS "vetted" woman from the middle east who came here, armed herself, took up kitchen bomb making as a hobby, was part of a plot that shot and killed a bunch of people, and pledged allegiance to ISIS. Commiting the crime with a state government employee who I assume was screened at some point. Yet, the White House's position is it wouldn't happen with the people actually coming from ISIS controlled territory. It doesn't take a lot to convince voters that Obama's position is not sound.

We all like to say the left is great at loosing elections they should win. I have a feeling, a couple more of these types of events and Obama won't be standing next to many candidates in the next election cycle.

The DHS is not the PreCrime division from Minority Report. People who are vetted and allowed into the country may one day turn out to be violent killers, even if they were polite and law-abiding when they immigrated. Nobody has any control over that, and it isn't a uniquely middle eastern problem. If this is an argument against allowing Syrian refugees into the US, it works for any country that has potentially violent people in it--in other words, any country.

He also overlooks the fact that the woman came into our country as the man's spouse, and thus underwent far less scrutiny than the Syrian refugees do/will.

 

[RavenSky]

Looking as an outsider I will offer my 2 bob's worth
1. Guns seem too easy to get. I cannot understand why?
2. In general I am astounded at how you yanks seem to hate each other. Your 1st recourse, instead of your last, seems to be a gun. Ignoring incidents like San Bernardino where foreigners seem to be involved.

San Bernardino is almost certainly an Islamist terror cell that went off prematurely. No gun control would have worked, they would have foreign sources of weapons.

Except they didn't. It is already known that two of the guns were bought here in the US "legally"

 

[barbos]

San Bernardino is almost certainly an Islamist terror cell that went off prematurely. No gun control would have worked, they would have foreign sources of weapons.

Except they didn't. It is already known that two of the guns were bought here in the US "legally"

If they could not get guns they would have used only bombs. Determined person will find a way.
We would never know, but the fact they had guns may have saved us from bigger massacre.

- - - Updated - - -

The DHS is not the PreCrime division from Minority Report. People who are vetted and allowed into the country may one day turn out to be violent killers, even if they were polite and law-abiding when they immigrated. Nobody has any control over that, and it isn't a uniquely middle eastern problem. If this is an argument against allowing Syrian refugees into the US, it works for any country that has potentially violent people in it--in other words, any country.

He also overlooks the fact that the woman came into our country as the man's spouse, and thus underwent far less scrutiny than the Syrian refugees do/will.

No scrutiny other than total ban on muslim and people from muslim countries could have prevented her coming to US.

 

[barbos]

While it is very likely the two are members of a terrorist cell, it is premature to conclude that this incident was purely an act of terror. Your very own link indicates it is possible it was a reaction to his workplace environment. I think it is too early to jump to conclusions about the motivation behind this horrendous act.

You're denial of the obvious has reached absurd levels now that its known the wife had pledged support for ISIS. For someone so open minded about possibilities before making a judgment about motive, you certainly don't show that caution anytime the victim is black and you immediately assume racism motivated the suspect.

Stop discriminating ISIS members, not all of them are terrorists, they are good people, some of them are well educated and US should welcome immigration of ISIS members.

 

[George S]

The killings will continue. Both kinds of religious killings will continue. Abortion doctor killings. Islamic Jihad killings.
Imagine a world with no religion. The only hope for peace.

 

[barbos]

The killings will continue. Both kinds of religious killings will continue. Abortion doctor killings. Islamic Jihad killings.
Imagine a world with no religion. The only hope for peace.

That would mean no crazy people, that's not possible

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But how many of those "mass shootings" were simply criminals shooting criminals?

Are such things common, rival gangs going gangbusters?

Mass shootings with innocent victims make the news--and there's nowhere near 355 cases that made the news.

And you are probably correct. According to this site, the number of attacks that led to the deaths of at least 4 people (not including the shooter) is 29 for 2015. 1 was gang related, 2 likely terror related. The rest, 132 not so lucky people who were murdered. So yeah, definitely not nearly as bad as 355. I think I'll sleep easier tonight knowing that there have only been 26 mass murders in 2015.

If anything, this seems to imply that Americans need better arms training so that those 355 mass shootings lead to more victims.

The ones that aren't gangs are family cases. The lack of a gun won't stop those.

And as for the prevalence of mass killings:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015...im-that-us-is-only-host-to-mass-killings.html

Yeah, it's John Lott but his basic numbers are sound even if his interpretations leave something to be desired.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Irrelevant. Australian styled gun control, which included a form of confiscation, is not what Americans normally consider "common-sense" gun control. We are speaking of those proposals that have been offered in the American context.

The murder rate remained constant in Australia for seven years after the mass confiscations. That fact alone disproves anti-gun nut assertions that less restrictive gun laws cause higher murder rates

No--the murder rate is going down but there's no visible change to that with their gun banning.

The crazies that do mass killings are simply too small in number to show up in the stats and they are the only ones really affected by the gun bans.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The ones that aren't gangs are family cases. The lack of a gun won't stop those.

What???

"The lack of a gun" is the ONLY thing that would stop those.

Yeah, it's John Lott but his basic numbers are sound

Yeah, it's John Lott, and no they aren't.

 

[Nexus]

The murder rate remained constant in Australia for seven years after the mass confiscations. That fact alone disproves anti-gun nut assertions that less restrictive gun laws cause higher murder rates

No--the murder rate is going down but there's no visible change to that with their gun banning.

It started to go down seven years after the confiscations. And there had been a worldwide decrease in violence in that same time period. The gun ban isn't correlated with Australia's murder rates.

no they aren't.

What are your numbers?

 

[Harry Bosch]

The killings will continue. Both kinds of religious killings will continue. Abortion doctor killings. Islamic Jihad killings.
Imagine a world with no religion. The only hope for peace.

DITTO!

 

[crazyfingers]

The killings will continue. Both kinds of religious killings will continue. Abortion doctor killings. Islamic Jihad killings.
Imagine a world with no religion. The only hope for peace.

Islamic Jihadist terrorist attacks
Christian white supremacist terrorist attacks on black churches
Christian Anti-abortionists terrorist attacks on health clinics and doctors

When will Christian Anti gay bigots start killing gays? They are already calling for the execution of gays.

 

[RavenSky]

San Bernardino is almost certainly an Islamist terror cell that went off prematurely. No gun control would have worked, they would have foreign sources of weapons.

Except they didn't. It is already known that two of the guns were bought here in the US "legally"

Updated news reports say that all 4 guns are confirmed to have been bought in the US "legally"

 

[Horatio Parker]

Does organization matter? In counter-terrorism, you always seek to disrupt the enemy’s command and control abilities. The San Bernardino killers, as things now stand, did not partake of any formal structune within Daesh that day. Nor does Roof appear to have a strong organizational context in, e.g., the Ku Klux Klan such that anyone gave him an order to kill African-Americans in their church. Dear was also a loner.
In fact, a major US newspaper called Dear a “gentle loner.” Hmmm.
Where persons do not have a witting relationship with a terrorist group, officials refer to them as ‘self-radicalized.’ All three, Dear, Malik and Roof were obviously self-radicalized (at the least) and developed a vague identification with movements they felt represented their grievances over identity politics.
If Tashfeen Malik, the female shooter, actually swore allegiance via Facebook to Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) leader “”Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,” then her motives in the shootings were political. But her target was not political. Roof’s target was more obviously political than a facility for treating challenged people– >he killed a sitting state senator, which is almost never mentioned by the US press. Dear’s target was also political– he wanted to overturn the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision.
So is a vague organizational affiliation more important in determining whether a killing is terrorism, or is the character of the target more important?

http://www.juancole.com/2015/12/radicalized-terrorism-standards.html

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Updated news reports say that all 4 guns are confirmed to have been bought in the US "legally"

Wow, that is interesting and really speaks to the issue of guns. The primary purpose of these types of guns is in killing people, too, not hunting.

I read they also had a ton of ammo.

How does one buy 7000 rounds of ammo with guns that are used primarily to kill people without any alarms going off?

 

[laughing dog]

Updated news reports say that all 4 guns are confirmed to have been bought in the US "legally"

Wow, that is interesting and really speaks to the issue of guns. The primary purpose of these types of guns is in killing people, too, not hunting.

I read they also had a ton of ammo.

How does one buy 7000 rounds of ammo with guns that are used primarily to kill people without any alarms going off?

I suppose you can buy from lots of suppliers.

 

[maxparrish]

San Bernardino is almost certainly an Islamist terror cell that went off prematurely. No gun control would have worked, they would have foreign sources of weapons.

Except they didn't. It is already known that two of the guns were bought here in the US "legally"

Except it does not matter, no form of gun control being touted by US leaders on the left would have deterred or mitigated this shooting. Apparently all the guns were, originally, purchased legally by individuals who passed "gun control" background checks (California requires background checks for rifles as well as handguns).

The rifles, may or may not, have been transferred illegally to the shooters by a third party purchaser (although given that the shooters already passed background checks they could have also purchased them had they wished).

Flouting "gun control" law, the weapons were then illegally modified and violated California's ban on assault weapons. The magazine locking devices (bullet buttons) were removed or altered and one rife was modified in an attempt to convert it to a fully automatic weapon, while the other was modified to carry a large capacity magazine.

California, with one of the strictest gun control laws in the country, has accomplished little (other than making legal gun recreation and collecting more expensive and less enjoyable).

 

[fromderinside]

Except it does not matter, no form of gun control being touted by US leaders on the left would have deterred or mitigated this shooting. Apparently all the guns were, originally, purchased legally by individuals who passed "gun control" background checks (California requires background checks for rifles as well as handguns).

The rifles, may or may not, have been transferred illegally to the shooters by a third party purchaser (although given that the shooters already passed background checks they could have also purchased them had they wished).

Flouting "gun control" law, the weapons were then illegally modified and violated California's ban on assault weapons. The magazine locking devices (bullet buttons) were removed or altered and one rife was modified in an attempt to convert it to a fully automatic weapon, while the other was modified to carry a large capacity magazine.

California, with one of the strictest gun control laws in the country, has accomplished little (other than making legal gun recreation and collecting more expensive and less enjoyable).

OK you made your case except you didn't make your case. Any extremist would do what you say can be done to get and make guns more lethal. Any Immigrant bent on killing could avoid US scrutiny and carry out the act.

I'll give you more. People who want to can order gun stock and manufacture guns, can gain access or develop quantities of ammo, can make bombs from commercially available materials.

Worse. Anybody can become radicalized by propaganda from any source.

So all we've argued about here is moot.

What is needed is to detect those who are likely to be radicalized as a policing step, to monitor them, and to intervene.

As citizens we need to recognize that denigrating others or advantaging ourselves to the severe disadvantage of others makes candidates for terrorism. Mental illness can produce candidates for terrorism. Abusing children can produce criminals and terrorists.

As society we need to understand that depriving others leads to increased population growth among those deprived driving average age of those populations down into the 15 to 30 age range where most crime and murder is committed.

So we should first get off the its this or that and get to its us and our methods that are bringing on our grief.

Suggestions. Be good parents. Be good citizens. Be helpful. Value others. Minimize thinking of one's profit and more of one's humanity and connection to others. Practice humanist methods. Always think the most of others.

We an lock ourselves off, insulate ourselves with technology at all personal encounters, we can embed technology into lethal things making only the one who purchased it a candidate for spotting as a terrorist, go to war with every ism and group. Or we minimally do any of the above while we get about being better human beings and world citizens.

Religion in a problem where inequality magnifies mobilization so we can't just focus on Muslims. Christians, Buddhists, whatever have belief systems where inequality is reinforced by anger.

Its never that guns are the problem it is that guns are a convenient solution. As long as we are self interested we'll misuse things that can kill easily. Your freedom doesn't depend on your ability to shoot someone of different minds. It depends on you participating in your culture as a good friend and citizen. If you hate you need to get off that track and find ways to bring people together. If you can't do that then you need to at least give others a favored place at the table.

We are in an age of centralization and co-dependency. We need to find ways to get along in that environment. Having easy solutions like go fight, kill, deprive, segregate, won't work. We need to learn as did Rodney King.

 

[ronburgundy]

Except they didn't. It is already known that two of the guns were bought here in the US "legally"

Except it does not matter, no form of gun control being touted by US leaders on the left would have deterred or mitigated this shooting. Apparently all the guns were, originally, purchased legally by individuals who passed "gun control" background checks (California requires background checks for rifles as well as handguns).

The rifles, may or may not, have been transferred illegally to the shooters by a third party purchaser (although given that the shooters already passed background checks they could have also purchased them had they wished).

Flouting "gun control" law, the weapons were then illegally modified and violated California's ban on assault weapons. The magazine locking devices (bullet buttons) were removed or altered and one rife was modified in an attempt to convert it to a fully automatic weapon, while the other was modified to carry a large capacity magazine.

California, with one of the strictest gun control laws in the country, has accomplished little (other than making legal gun recreation and collecting more expensive and less enjoyable).

You're right. Gun control is meaningless unless it goes after what FBI research shows is the source of most guns used in crimes, legally purchased guns that are then given or resold to others. This requires the very reasonable requirements that every gun be registered to a particular owner and it being illegal to loan, give, or sell one's registered guns to anyone else without filing paperwork officially transferring to that person who must undergo background checks. Gun owners should be required to report any stolen or missing guns within 60 days, and have to physically show all guns they have ever bought an an annual basis (which would also help reduce illegal modifications). IOW, we could and should have a centralized database of every gun legally bought and who currently has legal possession of all those guns.

And yes, gun owners should be the one's who pay for all of this enforcement via annual registration fees, just like we do with motor vehicles.

 

[ImGod]

Good luck with that. It's not illegal to make your own. I'm going to put one together using an 80% lower and some hand tools. No serial number needed.

Next thing you know people will be asking for government registration to exercise your 1st ammendment rights too. Might as well since few people seem to care about their rights.