Not Again----50 dead at Orlando LGBT Club in mass shooting

At around 2 am Florida time on June 12, 2016, Omar Mateen walked up to a Florida gay club with an AR-15 and started shooting. The security officer engaged him, but was unable to stop him. The gunman went in, killed 50 people, wounded many more. Eventually, a SWAT team went in and killed the shooter.

A domestic hate crime, certainly. But because the shooter had Afghan immigrant parents, it is being spun as a possible foreign terrorist incident.

So sick of this shit. When will we accept that not everybody gets to have whatever fricking guns they want??

Grieving for the victims.

[video:

]

I tried to post video, but it hasn't posted, so here's another link:
https://www.rt.com/usa/346296-mass-shooting-orlando-video/

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Lookout's picture

USA today
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/06/12/shooting-orlando-cl...

A federal law enforcement official told USA TODAY the suspect had been identified as Omar Mateen of Port St. Lucie, Fla.

FBI Special Agent Ronald Hopper said the case was being investigated as a possible act of terrorism, either domestic or international. It was not clear if the shooter acted alone, he said. He said authorities were trying to determine if there was a connection with radical Islam.

"We do have suggestions that the individual may have leanings toward that particular ideology," Hopper said.

There was also this:

June is Gay Pride month across the nation, and Orlando recently wrapped up its annual weeklong Gay Days festival. Up to 150,000 in the LGBT community attended area theme parks, gay nightclubs and special events. It remains one of the largest gay pride events in the world.

Probably wise not to jump to conclusions yet.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

All sympathy to the friends and relatives

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

Alphalop's picture

religious superstition.

Religion has killed far more people than civilian gun owners ever have...

Until we grow the hell up and stop believing in fairy tales I don't see much hope. You can't argue logically with people who's very world view is built upon a foundation of fallacies and fable.

More and more I fear that humanity may not survive it's own ignorance.

Of course, our loose gun policies with no public mental health system to speak of is going to lead to shit like this.

IMO, the most likely reason why you don't see more mass killings like this in other nations is not due to a lack of access to guns over there, as anyone that wants one and is willing to break the law to get them still can, it's that they actually have a public mental health system where people can go and get help when they need to that I feel is a bigger contributing factor, but I could be wrong.

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"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me

detroitmechworks's picture

Right after a mass shooting they get a lot of press, but then go right back to being ignored 2 weeks later.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Thaumlord-Exelbirth's picture

People care more about the guns than the people with mental health problems.

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Damnit Janet's picture

Ideas can be shared, changed even for the better. Ideas can evolve. Take shape. Form new ideas.

Beliefs... people will die for them and kill for them if you even question them.

I work in an actual factual Medical Marijuana Dispensary. Ask me the difference between greedy weed shops and true mmj dispensary some day) I am told many times a day that people "don't believe in medical marijuana". What's to believe or not believe??

Americans are pretty much a nation of scared of their own shadow. Bigots and ignorant jack asses.

As someone who has worked in retail for way too long, this nation needs Mental Health facilities as much as we need to rebuild schools and universities.

Last night, I had to go pick up my daughter where she worked because one too many lonely, mentally ill person stayed too long in the store after hours and my daughter missed her bus. She said, this person is known to be mentally ill and although she isn't homeless, all she does is just walk around in the malls and shops.

Many just take out their frustrations on clerks. Take out their bad days on cashiers.

50 dead... would not have happened if he had stormed the place with a knife. Easy access.... it's easier to buy a gun than it is to get a dental appointment for my kid..

Hell it's easier than trying to vote.

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"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison

Alphalop's picture

I was more pointing out the fact that Prohibition of something doesn't stop people from getting access to that thing.

I have several "friends" that would be considered less than savory that live in a few different nations that have very strict gun control laws and they all claim that they could easily enough obtain an illegal firearm through the very same market that they obtain other illegal substances from.

Yes, it may be a bit more difficult and expensive to acquire, but only slightly so if they are at all to be believed.

I guess what I am saying is that we are nipping at the edges of the problem and not the root causes, such as the war on drugs, lack of mental healthcare, etc. and the edge we are nipping is one that has been holding us back from fixing those other problems.

We have to face the fact that the America we live in, right or wrong, is a nation that loves it's guns for whatever reasons, so if we really want to reduce these deaths (because reduce is all we can ever hope to achieve, total elimination is an impossibility) we need to address the root causes and focus on those.

Not only is it likely to be more effective of an approach, it is also going to get us less pushback from roughly half the country IMO.

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"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me

hecate's picture

once loved their cigarettes, too. No longer. They were transformed in the public mind from something cool and sophisticated, to a deep dumbness that is stupid and filthy. The same should occur with guns. The firearm fondler should be regarded with the same loathing as the fondler of a child.

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Alphalop's picture

The firearm fondler should be regarded with the same loathing as the fondler of a child.

I, like many Americans own firearms. I have my whole life.

I own enough of a variety of them that I would probably fit into what you would consider a "Firearms Fondler" in your broad brushing.

You know what I shoot anymore?

Holes in paper. Generally at exceedingly long range.

That's it.

Why?

Because I find it to be personally challenging. It takes years and years of careful practice and skill to gain a true mastery of such things and a lot of self-discipline and patience.

Making sweeping generalizations is almost always bad, but making generalizations comparing one very large group of people to child molesters?

That's just gross.

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"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me

elenacarlena's picture

too broad. But if you knew, for a fact, that giving up your guns would save children's lives, would you do it? And use video game guns from now on to practice your skills, or find some new challenge? Saving lives would be worth your hobby, wouldn't it?

BTW, I also own a gun, but for personal/home protection. Yes, I am considering giving it up.

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Alphalop's picture

then yeah, I would be ok with it.

But that is never going to happen. If anything with the upcoming increase in availability of 3D printing technology the ability to acquire a firearm is only going to become more easy for those willing to break the law to do so.

So we need to focus on the root causes of the problems because like it or not, guns, and other ways to induce mass death, are not going to go away.

Prohibition NEVER works. It never has, and it never will.

So the only question is what are we going to do to fix the problem? Proposing more new gun laws is unlikely to be successful. (Not that I am against more requirements such as universal background checks, requiring gun owners to attend classes and be able to demonstrate safe firearms handling techniques with periodic re-certification requirements, etc.)

I really do want to see these things stop, but I think we need to do what is going to be effective. That means ending the prohibition related gun deaths by ending the war on drugs and providing access to mental health treatment services. The first will seriously reduce the crime related shootings taking place daily and the latter on those like today. (look at the amount of mass shootings during our last prohibition and you will see why we are having them again in our cities)

I can tell you there is not a SINGLE drug free prison in our nation, and if we can't enforce prohibition in a prison there is no way we could ever enforce it in a free society, whether the object of the prohibition is Alcohol, Drugs or Guns.

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"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me

elenacarlena's picture

unpopular. We have had remarkably few nuclear bombs going off, for example.

So I think we need to keep striking back against NRA memes as an educational effort: Numbers of accidents and suicides, for example, versus lives actually saved by the good guy with a gun. And how difficult it is to respond to a surprising shooter, such as demonstrated by Diane Sawyer:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QjZY3WiO9s width:500]

Maybe eventually most people won't see the need to own guns, or won't accept the risks especially around children.

But everything you propose is important in the fight too.

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I support a ban on assault weapons. These weapons have no sporting or esthetic purpose. They were designed by military leaders around the world to kill large number of people for minimal expense. Gun manufacturers like them and market them because they are inexpensive to produce and have high profit margins.

I own sporting and collector firearms, to paint them with a broad brush with assault weapons is a ridiculous over simplification. No I am not willing to give them up.

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hecate's picture

hurt and kill more people each year, in the US and around the globe, than do the fondlers of children.

I find that "gross."

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as I always qualified Christmas Wreath in the Corps. But, honestly, for "exceedingly long distances", say over 500 yards, the skill factor is quickly over ridden by plain luck. Unless you're shooting in an evacuated tube. I live in Kansas and I've learned these rednecks hereabout don't give a rat's ass if they actually hit anything. It's all about bang and kick.
If you want to talk practice and skill I suggest billiards. Hell of a lot cheaper in the long run. A dropped pool ball won't injure or kill innocent bystanders even if the person were crazy enough to conceal one. While a poolball can inflict some damage, it's a one shot deal. I think it'd somewhat noticeable if a person came into a club with a 100 round clip of pool balls.

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There is no such thing as TMI. It can always be held in reserve for extortion.

Alphalop's picture

I am more in the 300-400 meter range (I prefer iron sites but as these eyes get older scopes are looking more attractive.

Yeah, 500+ is pretty much luck that has been given a slight edge by skill unless you are throwing something really heavy down range like a .50 but at $5 bucks a shot or have a truly match grade firearm and that's not a hobby I will be getting into anytime soon even with reloading my own stuff.

I would much rather spend that cash on bait and boat fuel. Smile

My wife also really enjoys target shooting (we met in prison, I love saying that when around her friends that don't know our history just to see the looks it brings. Smile ) and is much better with a handgun than I am.

For her 21'st birthday I bought her a Beretta 92FS and then a few years later when I elected to take a reduced amount on my pension so that if/when something happens to me she doesn't have to wait until she is 55 to collect it her father, at a family dinner, looked at me and said, "Damn man! There are easier ways to get yourself killed!" lol.

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"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me

JayRaye's picture

Where I come from hunting is part of survival. So you're comparing my family to child rapists, now?

Is this what c99 is becoming?

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Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.-Lucy Parsons

hecate's picture

is that firearms fondlers hurt and kill more people every year, in the US and around the globe, than do the fondlers of children.

If you read the thread with attention, you will note I was responding to alphalop's assertion that Americans love their guns. As they surely do. However, and as I pointed out, that love does not have to be always. Because there occurred, for example, a seismic shift in how Americans regard cigarettes. I suggested a similar shift could and should occur in how Americans regard guns. For instance, if the Americans considered firearms fondlers to be as loathsome as the fondlers of children, then firearms would surely lose their "cool." Just as did cigarettes. Only a change in attitude towards guns, will get rid of the damn things. I realize it's a long road. Exhibit A: people on this blog, fervently leaping, to fevered defense, of the killing machines.

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Alphalop's picture

I see nobody rushing to a fevered defense, just one troll rushing into an offensive one.

I offered what I considered to be honest statements to promote a reasonable discussion like we so frequently do here.

You respond with, "You touch kids, neener neener neener!!" over and over...

Someone here isn't engaging in a rational dialog about this issue and I am pretty sure it isn't me...

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"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me

hecate's picture

who is not interested in "reasonable discussion" or "rational dialog" is the person who whips out the "you're a troll" six-gun. That would be you.

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you've been too quick lately with the troll accusations. Hecate is passionate in regards to guns and gun control and may have used a poor metaphor, but he is no troll.

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lunachickie's picture

between "passion" and "overdoing it".

There have been repeated, pointed references here by this person, all through these comments, comparing gun owners to child molesters. Why does this need to be said more than once? I'm not even a huge fan of guns (I was rather cheering Bernie earlier today, actually). But I find that comparison gross and offensive.

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I take hecate to task also.

This place has become a real zoo to moderate the last couple of days, and I'm quickly tiring of it.

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Alphalop's picture

engages in dialog by calling you the equivalent of a pedophile what kind of behavior would you consider it?

I didn't say they were a "Corporate Sponsored troll" or anything but I do believe that repeatedly calling people child molesters should indeed qualify as such, wouldn't you?

Would there be a better choice of descriptor I could use because I would be happy to do so, I don't want to break site rules, but the definition is: troll (/ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.

How could that type of comment be expected to garner any other response is beyond me.

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"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me

I take hecate to task also.

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has left this site. Is that what you really want? Yeah, he/she is a troll, and if "troll" isn't the right word, they're a troublemaker. Is that what you want here?

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JayRaye's picture

as bad as bunch of child molesters.

Surely statements like that will go a long ways toward helping to achieve the aim of sensible gun safety legislation.

It was just last week that I was told that the young libertarians in my family would leave injured people laying unattended in the middle of the road.

Obviously I come from a family that is just way too low-class for the high-minded folks of C99, so I will here and now take my leave. I don't need to be anywhere where my family members are considered worse than child molesters because they made sure that we always had food on our table on our backwoods farm.

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Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth.-Lucy Parsons

elenacarlena's picture

fondlers, she is not speaking of hunters.

We have problems with gun violence in the US that virtually no other country in the world has, right? Also giant rates of suicide and fatal gun accidents, right? What is the difference between us and Europe? Almost no one there owns guns.

So if we could take away all guns, we would be safer overall. Surely this is inarguable?

Meanwhile, isn't most hunting accomplished with rifles? Which are extremely difficult to carry concealed. And almost never used in a mass shooting.

So it seems to me that the thing to do is educate people that they are not going to stop a terrorist attack with a handgun, they are not going to stop government overreach even with an AK-47, they and their families and neighbors are in more danger from a gun than any likelihood it will ever save them. So ban all guns except rifles for food hunting, encourage people to turn them in as their patriotic duty, melt them down, make their manufacture and sale illegal. As crimes are committed with guns, melt down any newly discovered guns. Eventually I think we'd be at close to zero guns. Hunters could be required to keep their rifles under lock and key unless about to hunt, with appropriate criminal penalties if discovered with their guns unlocked.

I understand if you need to put food on the table. But beyond that, who can love their hobbies so much that they're willing for the price to be another Sandy Hook? Because you know this has continued. Look at the map (more details at the link); the red dots are one or more victims killed in school shootings (yellow, one or more victims injured) since Sandy Hook. What price hobbies?
http://graphics.latimes.com/school-shootings-since-newtown/

schoolshootings_mobile[1].png

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Pluto's Republic's picture

Americans have absolutely no nuance on this, and they are doomed to circle that drain forever, as a result.

Regarding hunting weapons, they are not an issue. Not in the US and nowhere else in the world, where people continue to hunt for food.

Americans are confused. The real issue is handguns and military-inspired weapons. The secondary issue is the preposterous notion that people have the right to remove such arms from their own property and carry them into the public square. No other nation in the world permits such savagery.

The Small Arms Survey out of Geneva, where I have done some freelance work, is the global guru-site on hand gun ownership and use in every country. They are currently tracking every handgun and hard-on rifle ever produced. (Your people and people like them in every country are regarded as the traditional good guys. They hunt to this day, globally.)

Americans are extremely confused because they live in bizarro world. But the Small Arms Survey has excellent news for the rest of the world. Now that Yeman is a failed state, the US remains the sole rogue nation on earth where handgun ownership is a "right" and not a "privilege". In the 1950s, there were still many nations that had handgun rights in their constitutions. By the 1980s, there were only nine such nations. By 2016, all nations had either changed their constitutions or they rapidly devolved into failed states, Yemen being the most recent.

Now, the US stands alone in the free world with free trade, free guns, and cheap lives to waste.

Travel advisories concerning the US have been updated and are in place for global travelers.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
hecate's picture

to this continent managed to thrive here some 15-20,000 years without firearms. I imagine your family could, too.

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and disgusting.

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KyleGNally's picture

Sad and preventable, as in, coronary heart disease, which causes one death of four total deaths. Since we're talking about how many killed by legal but reasons, etc.

Calling the exercise of a Constitutional right equivalent to multiple felony counts against a child is facially offensive to any reasonable person. It's also an example of one of Aristotle's logical fallacies. Using them at all invalidates the argument without needing to actually address it.

I'm not a gun owner and wouldn't own one even for fun. I don't trust myself enough to not have an accident.

I *still* find your argument violently offensive.

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hecate's picture

is violently offensive is that firearms fondlers hurt and kill more people every year, in the US and around the globe, than do the fondlers of children.

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KyleGNally's picture

that they will always enjoy the right to own those firearms.

If you truly want to end up with a voluntary, universal disarming, you will need to abandon your current tone. Calling them "fondlers" and likening them to pedophiles will only ensure that you mever reach that goal.

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is a totally different discussion. How many firearms in this country are used exclusively for survival hunting? How many firearms in this country are used just 'cause someone wants to kill things, and as long as you have 99 cents for a McBurger, it no longer is survival hunting.

The lives ruined and lost through pedophilia or rape is felt no less than the murder of a loved one by a but bag with too easy access to a firearm. A distinction with no real difference.

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There is no such thing as TMI. It can always be held in reserve for extortion.

WTF, man. Seriously not cool, I don't care how passionate you are about the issue.

The firearm fondler should be regarded with the same loathing as the fondler of a child.

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hecate's picture

talking about transforming the attitude in the public mind towards firearms. As I thought the comparison to cigarettes made clear. In that mind, cigarettes are now regarded as disgusting. Firearms should be considered disgusting too.

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and I understood the first time, but there are better metaphors than equating millions of Americans with pedophiles.

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PriceRip's picture

This may be true in some places

. . . cigarettes are now regarded as disgusting. . . .

but not at all true in other places.

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Alphalop's picture

without passing a single new prohibition law, but by changing public perception via outreach and education.

It's the only way that really works, but it is something that takes a lot of time.

In the meantime we still need to deal with the root causes of the violence because anyone that is determined and crazy enough to kill large groups of people will always be able to find a method to do so.

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"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me

PriceRip's picture

          The truth is: We need to do this through publicly funded and agency monitored programs involving people (on site) with real bona fides in hand. And this will not happen as long as this all is perceived as tax and spend liberalism.

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KyleGNally's picture

was proven (in the court of public opinion, if not actual courtrooms) to have brazenly lied, repeatedly, about the health risks of their products, including addiction probabilities. Acknowledgement of the dangers of secondhand snoke were also a factor in that.

Reducing rates of gun ownership cannot be achieved by tuose methods. Hell, plenty of people go up in flames at the suggestion that some gun owners patently do not deserve to enjoy the right to do so.

Never mind that that's obviously true. They have the right, so there, no matter how careless, untrained, or accident prone they are.

Nothing at all can or will be done until we find a way to have a reasonable discussion about how to approach the issue of gun ownership being a constitutional right which some (not the majority, but still greater than zero) people should not exercise, ever.

As is so often the case, we have to learn to talk to each other with civility, and do so like adults, first.

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Alphalop wrote:

I guess what I am saying is that we are nipping at the edges of the problem and not the root causes, such as the war on drugs, lack of mental healthcare, etc. and the edge we are nipping is one that has been holding us back from fixing those other problems.

Agreed. My family has extensive (mostly bad) experiences with the lack of mental health care for the uninsured in the Denver area. Basically, it comes down to jail incarceration, usually in solitary confinement, being the poor person's emergency mental health care and rehab program. There just aren't many resources out there, and the existing ones have 3-4 month waiting lists.

It's also almost impossible to get someone put on a mental health hold - for some pretty good reasons, such as due process rights.

Colorado has a firearms background check law, which has certainly saved some lives; also domestic violence perpetrators and those named in active restraining orders can't buy guns. Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, which is affiliated with the National Association for Gun Rights, fought these reforms to their last lobbyist.

It's going to take reform at ever level; mental health reform, Medicare for All, fundng of community health centers, gun limits, background checks, community training in non-violence, community policing programs - most of which are not well-funded these days.

This particular incident appears to be a combination of hate crime and possible domestic terrorism. The right wing is just going to have to get their minds around the idea that fundamentalist Christians hate gay people just as much as fundamentalist Muslims.

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riverlover's picture

beyond getting mental treatment for that person, until they are diagnosed through the system with long wait times and many barriers there is no legal recourse to take away weapons. Innocent until not so.

And concerned friends have no legal standing in any of this, which makes things much worse. Fine for the crazy-sane person, not so fine for those lost in despair.

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Alphalop's picture

Basically, it comes down to jail incarceration, usually in solitary confinement, being the poor person's emergency mental health care and rehab program. There just aren't many resources out there, and the existing ones have 3-4 month waiting lists.

Having spent 13 years as a Senior Officer in the correctional system I have witnessed the effects of what you described.

Back when there were all those famous atrocities being reveled about the abuse in our nations mental health institutions in the '70's, most of public institutions were shut down and were slated to be replaced by a whole new mental health system.

One that was then blocked by the fiscal conservatives.

So we eliminated our existing mental health infrastructure and didn't replace it with anything.

We then adopted a warehouse and release approach rather than a treatment based approach for dealing with those that were not stable enough to exist in society unassisted and that didn't have family that could, or would, support them. (I should write an essay on this subject, but it would be a looong one, lol!)

Many of those with mental health issues respond extremely favorable to a structured environment, particularly when provided access to medications and treatment as well.

But that treatment should not take place inside a prison alongside some of the truly worse our society has to offer simply because they are ill.

We wouldn't throw someone in prison for having cancer (Well, unless they use medical cannabis, in that case, "off to a cage with you!") so why would we do this to the mentally ill?

We really have to get past the stigmata associated with mental illness in order to start properly addressing it. Something I think we are slowly starting to do from a societal standpoint, for example having it discovered that you suffer from depression or some other mental condition no longer results in the outright ostracizing of a person that we would have seen 30 or 40 years ago.

But it's not happening fast enough and as people become more and more desperate in life, which things are sure to become if we continue on this path, so do their conditions and symptoms if they are predisposed towards having a mental illness or already suffer from one.

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"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me

Mental health care of people who endanger others in society is such a complex issue, intersecting with:

  • homelessness
  • poverty
  • access to deadly weapons
  • substance addiction
  • human rights politics, in this case LGBT rights
  • international politics, in this case terrorism and ISIS affiliation
  • **

  • domestic violence, his ex-wife said he was a violent abuser
  • **that last is breaking news on MSNBC - the shooter apparently called in to 911 right before he went on his rampage, and swore allegiance to Al-Bagdhadi of ISIS

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    Beware the bullshit factories.

    Winglioness's picture

    You could be right...We are so far behind in mental health care and just health care in general.

    I grieve for those lost and their families. This insanity has to stop, when will it be one too much?

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    riverlover's picture

    but those numbers are suppressed. Always killed #2. Now a decade of killing #2??

    We now have the equivalent of drone strikes on US soil. AK-47 is just as deadly, is this the "most mass" of the shootings in the US? I could reference it otherwise, but I am not into contests.

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    PriceRip's picture

              I have some thoughts but will keep them to myself, as I just keep thinking, "Why bother talking about the situation and getting into yet another argument filled with sound, and fury signifying nothing."

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    Alex Ocana's picture

    This is another sickening, sad, sorry dystopian, needless massacre. I am not trying to be an asshat but reading through the news reports I have a question for which I have no answer: Were the victims in the hostage situation inside the clubs victims of “collateral damage” and cross-fire from the SWAT raid which included a bomb, a heavy vehicle mashing in a wall, and an “invasion” of heavily armed SWAT team (s) in a super-crowded venue.

    (Was he shooting inside the club when the SWAT team raided? Or was it a hostage situation? I just want to clarify.).

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    From the Light House.

    they stopped a hostage situation. This will all be hashed out as time goes on.

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    Lady Libertine's picture

    the shooting event was around 2am, then hostages, then not til 5am did SWAT go in and kill the shooter and thereby release the hostages. We'll see.

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    The neverending coverage of the carnage has brought back the nausea, the shaking and the feeling that no one and nothing is safe anymore... Add to that the sound of an ambulance with its sirens blaring going passed my house... A sound that never stopped on 9/11, and I am once again gripped by the same feelings I had on 9/11 when a friend called and said "are you watching the news". Which I wasn't and when I turned on the TV I learned my beloved city was under attack.

    If you are reading this.... There is an emergency need for blood in Orlando. Especially type O... Don't have the link to where people in the area can gontomgive blood but it's needed immediately.

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    Orwell was an optimist

    Alphalop's picture

    on the night shift but should be up in an hour or so. I will have her call and ask if they are taking any here for shipment north or if they need additional donors to replace supplies already sent.

    It may be too close to my last donation? I will have to ask.

    Thanks again for lettings us know that!

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    "I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me

    go outside and dig in the garden, or go for a walk or something. We still have that luxury. It's not like we live in Palestine or a refugee camp where walking outside could also get us killed.

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    Some Muslims can be quite homophobic -- then again, so can some Christians. (Glad I belong to a denomination that's more or less moved beyond that.) Combine that with the current laws against LGBTs either enacted or proposed in many states, and it's a wonder this hasn't happened before now.

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    snoopydawg's picture

    The gunman saw 2 men kissing in front of his wife and children and then in the bathroom and according to his father, that upset him.
    I got this from the FP on kos.

    Sunday, Jun 12, 2016 · 11:54:21 AM MDT · Joan McCarter

    NBC reports the shooter, Omar Mateen, called 911 before the shooting “and swore allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.” Additionally, on the other side of the nation, law enforcement arrested a man in Santa Monica, CA with weapons and possible explosives in his car. The man said he was in town for the L.A. Pride festival in West Hollywood.

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    Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

    Pluto's Republic's picture

    …and her Neocon cartel.

    More war on the way. We must cut entitlements to make the homeland safe.

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    ____________________

    The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

    President Obama's statement on the Orlando massacre

    and for contrast, Trump’s appalling tweet:

    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

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