Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Da Geezer]

BTW, bookies in Britain put the chance of staying in the EU at 62% today, down from 78% last week.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Certainly the efficacy of gun control laws as has been discussed.

I think we can also see the futility in viewing the Islamic terrorist threat as a law enforcement matter. .........

.........To get in front of these attacks the US may have to go on a war footing. Maybe we can't use Marques de Queensbury rules when the opponent has a knife in one hand, and a rifle in the other.

It is a law enforcement matter to a certain extent if by that you mean the use of local police authorities and prosecutors to be active in the curtailment of terrorist acts.

What was missing in 9/11 and appears to have been missing again in the Orlando terrorism is sharing of information that allows connecting the dots. Seems there was ample opportunity for agencies down the chain to facilitate the apprehension of Mateen if they had the right information to act on. Remember that no one questioned why the 9/11 hijackers were buying a boat load of flight simulator time. Holy shit!

I'm glad to see some advocacy for viewing escalating terrorist acts as a national security threat and potentially requiring a "war footing to get out in front of them." I don't think taking concrete steps to prevent individuals who have the potential to conduct terrorist acts to arm themselves is overreacting. In fact, to continue to do nothing, throw our hands up in the air and shrug saying nothing concrete will happen with regards to prevention of these acts, is grossly negligent.

Obviously were not talking about WWII internment here. We're talking about rational steps at the national level to make it impossible, or nearly so, for crazies to arm themselves. We're also not talking about disarming America or reversing nearly 75 years of jurisprudence involving the Second Amendment's right to bear arms provisions. Clinton's recent call for laws "banning weapons of war" is just stupid at face but it sounds good. It's just way too easy for individuals who should not be allowed to get their hands on firearms to get them. How is this so ........

There are too many loopholes in most state's firearms laws where individuals can evade background checks or hide activity that has come under scrutiny from local or federal agencies. Close them.

Surprisingly, firearms used to commit crimes are not stolen; they are obtained through other means some of them "legal." Strawman sales, even though they are illegal in most states, is one example. Here a pair walks into a gun dealer, one that will pass a background check and one that won't, and a weapon is purchased by the one who can while the one who can't actually intends to use it to commit a crime. There are literally dozens of loopholes the sum total of them enough to make most gun control laws useless in their intent .... to keep guns out of the hands of individuals with intent to commit crimes. Close them.

So, recognize terrorism as a national security threat and put the nation on a war footing to develop and enact a coordinated plan to prevent terrorists and those with the intent to commit crimes with a firearm from arming themselves. Don't touch Second amendment rights. Just enact new laws and enforce old ones that close the loopholes to obtaining weapons by individuals that should not have them. I don't think most rational people would be opposed to that and every ATF agent involved in solving this problem knows what these are and probably how to fix them.

I see a good deal of this effort to involve law enforcement activity, not just the police but prosecutors much like it was with the RICO Act that targeted and greatly reduced the illegal activities of organized crime. Mobilize intelligence agencies and legislatively coordinate their activities so things that happened in 9/11, San Bernadino and now Orlando get stopped before they happen. What's keeping this from happening is the inane and usually uninformed, on both sides, arguments about gun control. Fuck that ....... allowing our enemies, along with the host of crazies who should not be armed, be armed is a real threat to our national security.

[froot loops]

When I said we need to know more facts, I was on point. This guy seems like a whack job who may have been a closeted gay guy with a delusional anti-gay father on top of some mental issues. And he did have some sort of radicalization. It is going to take awhile to unwind this strange, tragic and extremely horrible story.

As always, it is important not to get anchored to initial impressions they can lead you astray.

[Mike]

From DSL's link last night:

Mateen,
"He was eligible to buy as many guns as he liked because he was not a convicted felon, and was not facing a felony charge or a misdemeanor domestic violence charge. He was not a drug abuser, a fugitive, the subject of a domestic violence injunction, someone who was in the country illegally, someone who had been dishonorably discharged from the military or someone who had been found by a judge to be mentally incompetent."

And he was a US citizen. So where exactly are the loopholes to be closed? Are we going to start stripping people of constitutional rights because they say some crazy shit at work? I still think we need to work at preventing radicalization from occurring. It can't be that hard to block access to the jihadist websites. That would be a good start.

[The Oracle]

When I said we need to know more facts, I was on point. This guy seems like a whack job who may have been a closeted gay guy with a delusional anti-gay father on top of some mental issues. And he did have some sort of radicalization. It is going to take awhile to unwind this strange, tragic and extremely horrible story.

As always, it is important not to get anchored to initial impressions they can lead you astray.

It's an odd case. He's being described as not religious and then all the other issues you mentioned.

[hack]

I don't think it's odd. Right/wrong, it is easier and more comfortable to view the threat as produced by foreign ideologies rather than domestic conditions.

[hack]

From DSL's link last night:

Mateen,
"He was eligible to buy as many guns as he liked because he was not a convicted felon, and was not facing a felony charge or a misdemeanor domestic violence charge. He was not a drug abuser, a fugitive, the subject of a domestic violence injunction, someone who was in the country illegally, someone who had been dishonorably discharged from the military or someone who had been found by a judge to be mentally incompetent."

And he was a US citizen. So where exactly are the loopholes to be closed? Are we going to start stripping people of constitutional rights because they say some crazy shit at work? I still think we need to work at preventing radicalization from occurring. It can't be that hard to block access to the jihadist websites. That would be a good start.

I myself am not an absolutist when it comes to free speech, but that's a break from the constitution, isn't it?

[The Oracle]

Just odd in that it's not just radical Islam, it's not just a hate crime and mental illness. I guess all of them are a mix then.

[Jeff Buchanan]

...... So where exactly are the loopholes to be closed? Are we going to start stripping people of constitutional rights because they say some crazy shit at work? I still think we need to work at preventing radicalization from occurring. It can't be that hard to block access to the jihadist websites. That would be a good start.

On your first question I looked around and found this link. The last line in the article is interesting. .....

?We don?t know all of what has been averted, but in this case (the Orlando shooting) the list clearly failed,? Roggio told The Daily Signal. ?These lists can only do so much without trampling on constitutional rights. But at some point, as this happens more, people are going to ask what good are these lists if we are not protected??

http://dailysignal.com/2016/06/14/fbi-terror-watch-list-can-have-little-impact-experts-say/

I probably didn't put enough emphasis on this and too much on closing loopholes - and they are out there and exploitable by criminals and crazies with intent to commit a crime with a weapon - but to me, there has been enough out there on every mass shooting we've had in the last 8 years, 20 of them in the US I've read, where there were red flags involving the shooter prior to the act of shooting. In Mateen's case, while I'm making assumptions, the information the FBI had was strong enough to prompt an investigation. Fine, he's cleared. Nothing wrong with keeping him on a list that when a real background check is done on him, questions should be raised about selling him the weapon ...... IOW, put all the data together. This can be done.

Maybe information A and B (the info that prompted an FBI investigation) when it is matched with the intent to buy a firearm along with, what, 200 rounds of ammunition, tells the guy at the counter, hey, don't sell the guy a weapon until someone with access to information A and B (Oh, like the FBI or ATF) clears the sale. I think the data is out there to improve protection from these acts. What is lacking is coordination among the various agencies who have a connection to the mission of civil protection. And we don't need witch hunts to do this kind of thing; we don't need to strip constitutional rights although I can see a shift to the right in these matters under the circumstances.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Just odd in that it's not just radical Islam, it's not just a hate crime and mental illness. I guess all of them are a mix then.

My position is that we don't need to focus on the why or the wherefore. What we need to focus on is the act and the increasing number of them. That the San Bernadino and Orlando mass shootings were perpetrated by individuals with a connection to radical Islam, no matter how tenuous that connection is, it should add to the concern that civilians are at risk from people like this.

Elevate awareness; insist on taking concrete steps to make sure that, through the coordination of intelligence data, potential perpetrators of these acts are identified and apprehended before the act is carried out and most importantly insure they can't secure weapons.

[The Oracle]

Agree with all of that. It's a lot of shit that needs to be done to fully address it. Problem is, politics on both sides get in the way of it. Much like everything else.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Let's give Saudi Arabia more money to funnel to extremist groups and bomb the hell out of Yemen. Seems to be working.

[THE_WIZARD_]

More gun control won't stop a loon from killing. Disarming law abiding citizens will put more people in harms way that "banning" more guns.

[Ghengis Jon]

Here's an eye opener: 9 out of 10 people on the terrorist watch list passed their gun buying background check.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/14/politics/terrorist-watch-list-91-percent-approved-guns/index.html

[Dr. Strangelove]

Gingrich wants a return of the House of Un-American Activities Committee

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/14/politics/newt-gingrich-house-un-american-activities-committee/index.html