These comments were all taken from posts to the Orlando shooting megathread on https://www.reddit.com/r/news/:
– Dear Moderators:
You are not journalists. You are not editors. You are not arbiters of good taste or what constitutes “newsworthiness”. Stay in your lane.
Your actions today have failed the Reddit community.
– You know whats crazy? I live in Orlando and I had no idea this was going on. I depend on reddit for my news 100% since it can rapidly deliver news from many sources that I can validate or discard. I have literally been up all night on Reddit and due to the apparent thread lockings and deletions, this story took 9 hours to make it to me — I probably live within thirty minutes of this place.
Unbelievable.
– To me the funny thing about the censorship here is that the people who do it think somehow that they are helping the situation by deleting anything they don’t like or anything they think might offend somebody.
What they are really doing is creating more repressed anger and outrage. If you think that deleting comments about Islam will decrease animosity towards Islam then you’re sadly mistaken my friends. You’re simply creating more hatred by many who feel that any criticism of one particular group with one particular ideology is forbidden while it is open season on the rest of us. Let us remember a simple fact. Islam is an ideology like belief in Donald Trump or believe in magic pixie is forbidden while it is open season on the rest of us. Let us remember a simple fact. Islam is an ideology like belief in Donald Trump or believe in ghosts. It is not a race, or people, or color,. If you attack Islam you were simply attacking an ideology. Nothing more nothing less.
Please stop deleting comments– you are increasing anger not decreasing it
– Wtf? 50 people are killed and I have to look around for 5 minutes? Wtf reddit, don’t make me go back to getting my news from the fucking TV, alright? Just get your shit together.
– Its not even on the front page. This is going to be a monumental shooting event and its NOT EVEN ON THE FRONT PAGE.
– As soon as my boyfriend told me, the first place I came for information was Reddit. Not CNN, not CBS, not NBC. Reddit. Not a goddamn thing about it on the front page. Unacceptable.
– reddit is normally my first port of call for this sort of thing
It needs to stop being your first source. Reddit is about information control. You’re not getting the full picture
– I’ve been on reddit for 7 years (this is not my first acct) and I’ve seen its gradual shift from the pure, raw immediate news that put CNN to shame, to a useless, slow-moving organization that is more concerned with affiliate clicks, admin control and promoting ideology.
reddit used to be a serious option for people seeking help in the wake of some catastrophe. now it suppresses useful information
– You know it’s sad when r/the_donald is covering this more than the fucking main news subreddit. The amount of blatant censorship on here is ridiculous.
– I’m sorry, but this whole thing has been ridiculous. This situation has been unfolding for hours, it’s the deadliest mass shooting in US history, and the only evidence of it on the front page is stuff from /r/the_donald?
Mods you really dropped the ball here. In a (poorly executed) attempt to be unbiased, you ended up letting a completely biased source take over the flow of information. What the hell were you thinking?
– More than anything else, the actions of the mods this morning have fostered anger and resentment and suspicion. They have made the discussion about this site’s cowardice and emboldened those who accuse it of pandering to the PC left. The mods here have failed and permanently damaged the site’s credibility.
Shooter was Muslim. Stop hiding posts you fucking idiot mods. Who cares what nationality the shooter is, this is a tragic event you fucking cunts.
– There was a time I relied on r/news for up to date /recent news. I had to learn about this shooting through a fucking iheart radio notification. …seriously mods, get your shit together.
– Is it true that you’re banning users for mentioning that the shooter was a radical islamist?
People are right to be upset at those defending islam. It’s the only unreformed abrahamic religion–forever stuck in the 10th century. Fuck islamists and anyone who defends them.
This is absolutely abhorrent censorship. 50 dead and you’ve prevented discussion because something about it goes against your identitarian political agenda. I guess more people will finally realize what a shithole this place truly is. You fucked up.
– How is this not front page? I found out about this from facebook… so much for getting my news from reddit!
– They deleted EVERY other thread about the shooting. I woke up this morning and got the information from Drudge, not one r/news post made it to my front page. Unfuckingbeleivelable.
– Why isnt this on the front page? I cant find anything to do with the shooting in Florida besides from /r/the_donald
Most of the above Reddit posts had disappeared in the quarter of an hour it took me to write this Samizdata post. This was the leading new post:
– The actions of the moderators today have failed reddit. They have failed the LGBT community and humanity as well! Clearly, their need to protect their narrative is greater than their need to protect REAL human lives. A REAL tragedy just took place, and people can’t get off their high horse for two seconds to discuss something far greater than their stupid pride. We need to let it be understood that we as human beings will not tolerate such action, and will stand up against terrorism.
Related post: Politically correct evasiveness fails on its own terms. I have added the tag “deleted by the Guardian” to this post because it deals with a similar phenomenon to the PC deletions of reader comments for which that newspaper is well known, but wish to state that in this case the Guardian‘s coverage included the lead hypothesis that this mass murder was an Islamist terror attack from early on.
*
Added later: I note that the name of the “deleted” tag has now been broadened to cover the PC media generally. It is indeed done by the PC media generally and it has been going on a long time. Ten years less a month ago I wrote this post for Biased BBC: But… you talk like war crimes are a bad thing:
yet when bombers murdered your own countrymen in London a year ago you were so anxious to avoid being judgemental that you had someone go through what your reporters had written in the heat and pity of the moment, carefully replacing the word “terrorist” with the word “bomber.”
*
Further update: The Daily Caller reports, Reddit Bans Users, Deletes Comments That Say Orlando Terrorist Was Muslim. The article contains several screenshots, including one of the front page of Reddit with /r/The_Donald filtered out. It showed “not a single mention of the worst US terror attack since 9/11, worst shooting ever”.
No matter how many times Muslims follow the written word of Allah as told to Muhammad and transcribed in the Quran to bring death and violence to the unbelievers, there will always be those within the political establishment who will turn a blind eye to murder and destruction in the name of political correctness. These people are traitors, sacrificing their own electorate for the false gods of cultural Marxism – I’m looking at you Obama and Clinton.
Great post.
Using my godlike powers, I have changed the category from “Deleted by the Guardian” to “Deleted by the PC Media” 😉
What??? You mean people are still using reddit rather than voat?
Sorry; anybody who claims to get all of his news from Reddit is an idiot who deserves to be uninformed. Reddit is DETERMINEDLY left-wing, and proud of it. Anything that doesn’t comply with lefty filters isn’t going to get through. Stick with Drudge; he’s more Libertarian than right-wing, and has a more thorough take on current affairs.
It seems that I correctly inferred that by the lack of speculation in the media as to blame lying with Donald Trump and/or the NRA that this was an Islamist mass murder.
Give the media 24 hours and such a ‘link’ may well be floated by the usual suspects, it was a ‘Latin-themed’ event after all.
And for those who might talk of the 2nd Amendment right as if it might have been a potential help, I’m sorry but I very much doubt that any of the victims would ever imagine going out armed for self-defence, particularly to a nightclub.
“I’m sorry but I very much doubt that any of the victims would ever imagine going out armed for self-defence, particularly to a nightclub.”
Well they should. They would likely be alive now if they had.
Supposedly in Florida, it’s illegal to carry a gun into a nightclub, if the place serves alcohol. From Section 790.06(12)(a), Florida Statutes:
The BBC puts an interesting spin on it.
At the time of writing, the front page carries the title:
Fifty dead in Orlando gay club shooting.
If you click on the link, you find a story with the title:
Orlando gay nightclub shooting: 50 killed, suspect is Omar Mateen.
If you keep reading, you’ll find the following information:
Officials said the killings were likely to be ideologically motivated, though there was no information that the gunman was associated with a particular group.
“It may be [sic] we’ve seen the commission of an awful hate crime,” [US Congressman Alan Grayson said].
Mateen’s father Mir Seddique told NBC News that the incident had nothing to do with religion.
No mention of any particular religion up to here, but the following paragraph is a bit more informative:
But NBC News reported that Mateen called the emergency services before the attack and swore allegiance to the so-called Islamic State militant group.
PS: at first i thought that Perry had changed the category of this post, but he has actually changed the name of the entire category! That is truly godlike.
All I saw at first was that it was murder committed by “An American citizen.”
I suspect however he was an American citizen merely on the outside, but on the inside he was a citizen of a quite distant land.
Oh, I wouldn’t be too hard on Reddit, they are probably just being consistent and toeing the leftist (and Obabma’s) line as usual, so at least give them the benefit of the doubt. Any sensible Americans would have taken note following Barack Obama’s notorious post-Benghazi declaration that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam” – which was essentially a call for the U.S. to censor itself and voluntarily restrict freedom of speech so as not to say anything that offends Muslims.
Regarding the alleged Islamic jihad massacre on the blasphemous infidel members of the apparently gay bar in Orlando, shouldn’t we be relying on more objective reports – e.g., coming from (say) Al-Jazeera TV?
(Just askin’.)
.
Who knows but that, as far as A-J is concerned, the massacre might not make a blip on their Richter scale and thus not make headlines there either, since an Islamist homophobe killing fifty-plus people at a gay nightclub might just be regarded as BAU for any Allah-fearing Muslim jihadist with hate on his mind.
And don’t be too hard on the killer either. In his defense, it’s a dirty job, but Allah dictates that someone has to do it, and in this case Allah bid this guy do it. He was “just obeying orders”. He’d be acquitted in no time flat in a Shariah court.
.
One probably has to look hard at the highly rational American political perspectives here. I mean, does anyone actually care about a bunch of homosexuals being killed in Orlando, as long as the motive was non-Christian religious and/or the perpetrator wasn’t centre-right?
(Sounds of crickets chirping)
You see? I thought not.
.
However, a massacre like this needs a swift and unequivocal response from the government, to put people’s minds at rest that public safety is of paramount importance.
The response could reasonably be expected to be in the form of shutting down the troublesome NRA and the 2nd Amendment, or, if that’s too hard, then maybe re-defining the massacre as a “workplace accident” in a Gay bar, à la Fort Hood.
Still, and in any event, I’d suggest that some people might say that there was a clear indication that it is in fact the NRA who could be largely blameworthy in this case.
.
Mohammed smiley: (((:~>
_______________________________________________
“Be there or be dhimmi” – Annual Everybody Draw Mohammed Day – since 20 May, 2010.
_______________________________________________
There is a “screenshot” (not sure if that is the correct term) of some of the deleted comments from the thread on a site called snew here.
It seems like they’ve hung up their banhammer as of a few hours ago, and now posts are getting through okay. Not sure if someone got their mod powers revoked for abuse, decided to stop due to hate, or just went to sleep, but you can actually find a decent amount of news on /r/news now.
@Ted Schuerzinger:
Yes, and, though I could be wrong, I seem to recall that, further down, in an earlier draft that may not have been passed, Section 790.06(12)(e) stated that left-handed people and gays were explicitly not allowed to carry guns at all, since they apparently could not be relied upon to point the things the right way around and were thus at risk of harming themselves or innocent bystanders, or something.
We know what to a Leftist is worse.
A) 50 people die, 50+ injured in a mass shooting at a gay bar by an Islamist terrorist.
B) The truth about A be discussed.
And you might add that for a Leftist far worse than B or A would be that a Christian business decline to bake a cake for someone who might be a patron of the bar in A.
Quote 1:
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Quote 2:
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Re:Quote 1:
If you made a pukka market research study of the political bias of the LBGTs versus the rest, then you might well find that a majority of LBGTs would tend to lean to the left, simply because that was where they would have typically seen some support coming from, against the otherwise systemic prejudice and relatively cruel and intolerant society in which they unluckily found themselves.
So there could probably be a high correlation between (say) the proportion of LBGTs reading Reddit and other left-wing propaganda/news outlets versus the proportion reading news outlets with a centre-right bias.
.
Re:Quote 2:
I could be wrong, of course, but I would have thought that, given the systemic prejudice that many/most societies tend to hold against LBGTs, the legal carrying of firearms by LBGTs in the U.S. might even tend to be more common/necessary than for most other U.S. citizens.
But to the determined Leftist, they are disposable and crucially, forgettable victims, unless they are useful. These dead pose a ‘problem’ to the determined Leftist, as their deaths may require the revealing of preferences, and of a hierarchy. Deflection and diversion will ensue.
Mr Ed:
_______________________________
Yup. Pretty much along the lines of what I had been thinking also.
There’s quite a prescient and (I find) depressingly accurate comment on it here, taken from a frontpagemag post in 2011:
Quote:_______________________________________
Non-Muslim Muslims and the Jihad Against the West
December 2, 2011 By Bosch Fawstin 139 Comments
…The future of Islam and the well-being of Muslims is said to be of importance to us. Post – 9/11, the defense of our culture, our values, our very lives has been optional, but our defense of Islam has been absolute. It began with Bush’s “Islam is peace” and it continues with Obama, who said in his Submission Speech in Egypt in 2009, in front of members of The Muslim Brotherhood, “I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.” If only he felt the same about America.
We can’t be both for Islam and for ourselves. This enemy is fully on their own side and fully against us and they’ve made themselves believe that they’re the good guys and that we’re the bad guys, and our actions have done nothing but turn their hatred of us into an ever-deepening contempt. Before we see the enemy for what it is, we need to see ourselves for what we are. Only then can we, with full moral conviction, make them pay for what they’ve done and move us towards victory.
Our problem is not “Islamophobia”, but Islamophilia. It is this uncritical, uninformed, absolute defense of Islam by Western elites after 9/11 that I refer to as Islamgate. It’s a scandal for the ages that few involved would ever admit to being part of.
I care about the truth. I care about Western Civilization. I care about myself, my loved ones and my friends. I care about Iife. And that’s why I don’t care about Islam.
Our altruistic concern for the future and well being of the Muslim world has come at the expense of American lives and treasure. We’ve placed the well being of “The Muslim World” above our own self-defense. We’ve placed today’s Big Lie, “Islam means peace”, above the truth we need to act on. We’ve placed the lives of Muslim civilians above the lives of our soldiers, placing them in absolutely unnecessary danger in order to protect innocent (or even guilty) civilians. Our Rules of Engagement might as well be renamed the Golden Rules of Engagement, as our soldiers have been forced to treat the enemy the way we’d like to be treated. And the enemy takes full advantage of that, as they do of all of the policies our morally vain politicians have concocted. We need to shift the focus onto our own well-being at the enemy’s expense for a change.
We’ve tried everything since 9/11 except real war. War is the answer to Jihad.
End Quote_________________________________________________
The US novelist and author of the Rule of Reason blog Ed Cline, whose blog is critical of Islam, was recently visited at his former home by the FBI who warned him his site was being monitored by Islamic terrorists.
I say “former home” because when his landlady found out he was a potential target for terrorists the owners of the property gave him order to leave – pronto.
Funny old world ain’t it?
Anyone wishing to send Ed a few quid to assist in his move from Virginia to Texas should follow the links on Daniel Greenfield’s post.
I’m not surprised in the least. I’ve been working today so haven’t seen any news, but I expect the lefty (“sinister”) media is busy blaming the guns used.
On a vaguely related point, Pinterest “suspended” (censorship-talk meaning permanently deleted) my account for having “sexually explicit photos” pinned. The funny thing is, I had absolutely zero photos of that sort, and even stopped pinning ANYTHING because they knee-jerked a few times before over nothing. There ARE sexually explicit photos on pinterest because apparently you can pin from tumblr with impunity. (I have no tumblr btw).
I must have pinned something or said something politically incorrect; something non-leftwing probably.
Fuck the cunts. Ban-hammering and tweeking news facts seems to be the modern version of Big Brother, and I’m not talking about a pathetic reality show.
JohnW said,
Now we know why superheroes wear masks. 😉
Slartybartfast quoted,
“Our problem is not “Islamophobia”, but Islamophilia.”
Sorry if my links seem reduntant, but the example is just too goddamned perfect to not mention.
Cheers.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine an editor censoring on a reddit thread – forever. (not) George Orwell
And people are surprised after the announcement of the EU “hate laws” just last month?
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/31/facebook-youtube-twitter-microsoft-eu-hate-speech-code
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft have all been involved in the creation of the code, which is particularly aimed at fighting racism and xenophobia across Europe. Such efforts are hampered by varying enforcement in different countries, something the code is tackling.
It also encourages the social media companies to take quick action as soon as a valid notification is received.
Now being all private companies we cant know if they responded to or passed on directives from the EU to bar this doubleplussungood hate speech but its not unlikely.
Get used to it
Reddit for a primary news source? Sheesh, CNN is better than reddit, and CNN sucks.
The Drudge Report (www.drudgereport.com) and even InstaPundit (https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/)are streets better.
Hmmph. Maybe the censorship and surveillance on the main platforms will help the internet start fragmenting again into the anarchic free-for-all that it started as. Alternatives are nearly free to create, after all. (Maybe utopian thinking on my part though. Network effect is pretty strong).
I’m not exactly a fan of the consolidation of everyone’s communication onto just one of a handful of centrally controlled servers owned by someone else.
@Mr Ed:
Indeed, it is exactly this confluence that the liberal media has such problems with, when their imported Muslim pets natural hatred of Jews (not Israel), lesbians, gays and the US Military comes to the fore with mass killings.
The lies are not the hard part, for the lies are easy. The hard part is keeping the narrative in the face of the lies. This is why their is such an effort to differentiate ‘Muslim extremists’ and ‘moderate Muslims’ when there is no difference of any substance.
Certainly the vast amount of Muslim’s believe that Sharia punishments should be enacted and the Sharia punishment for homosexuality is death.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vev-OzHQy94
Sheikh Sekaleshfar has been preaching in Orlando, although it is unknown whether the shooter attended any of these events.
I just finished reading Bloomberg’s headline article about the attack in which word “Islam” was mentioned only once: a quote from the terrorist’s father stating that this had nothing to do with Islam.
Yet I still remember listening to Bloomberg radio top of the hour news bumper after the Benghazi attack reporting that it had come to light that the attack was the result of a riot of people protesting an anti-Islam video produced by (I kid you not) “an Israeli Jew”. That disappeared by the next hour, when it occurred to someone in that “News” organization to actually do more reporting than merely looking at the youtube account author’s self-description (it wound up he was a Egyptian Copt, but he described himself on his youtube profile where the video was posted as an “Israeli Jew”).
Religion, race and nationality seem to be important enough to include in reporting when the politically correct conclusion can be inferred from such, otherwise, it is lets wait for ALL of the facts – when the story is already down the memory hole.
Reddit is an SJW cesspit but the Trump section is pretty good:
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/
I did not expect to get to the end of this much-commented thread thinking there was anything still to say.
Mr Ed (June 12, 2016 at 5:54 pm): “And for those who might talk of the 2nd Amendment right as if it might have been a potential help, I’m sorry but I very much doubt that any of the victims would ever imagine going out armed for self-defence, particularly to a nightclub.” (Later posts note legal discouragements in Florida.)
If any of the gays swallow the endless politically-correct flattery of the left, they may therefore believe the left’s assurance that carrying a gun would only endanger them. Now, being honest, I would not utterly and absolutely deny any content in that remark. Only politically-correct flattery could prevent their knowing they are members of a community with an above-average rate of violent crime. If they all took guns to the bar on every visit, the chance of the bar figuring in a CSI episode is statistically higher than for an otherwise-comparable straight bar. But with the US government happily admitting people who give their place of birth as “killgaysabad” and tweet in accord (just my bitter joke on one of the San Bernadino shooters’ fictional place of birth), it could seem like a sensible trade-off – but not if you listen to Hillary. Vote for Hillary: be flattered until you’re murdered.
The Orlando shooter was employed by Homeland Security: http://classicalvalues.com/2016/06/it-had-nothing-to-do-with-religion-the-guns-did-it/
Niall,
My point is that it would be futile to remind people who are (most likely) opposed to the Second Amendment (making a broad assumption, which may be incorrect on my part, that those in the bar were likely to tend towards the Democrats and generally be inclined to prefer to be ‘unarmed’, much like the vast majority of Britons I come across would be so inclined), so they have set themselves upon the path where their defence in the highly unlikely event of a mass shooting is (i) the State’s forces and (ii) the chance of evasion.
Which is the situation in pretty much all of Europe. What many here might find hard to understand is that many people would far rather risk death from shooters in an unarmed society that risk it in an armed society.
Here, madrocketsci.
Ed and Niall, this is hardly a 2nd Amendment issue, no matter how much the gun-control lobby would like us to think otherwise. The simple truth is that free gun ownership is not a magic-bullet solution to all violence problems, and no serious supporter of free gun ownership would suggest otherwise.
John Galt, I don’t think we have a way of knowing what the majority of Muslims really believe, and I don’t think that it really matters. I also think that when a Muslim man does what that man did, it is more than reasonable to take his religion into account when trying to understand his motives.
That a certain group of US voters vote for the Democrats, does not mean that all, or even most, of these voters agree with the Democrats on gun ownership: it is possible that American gays are simply voting for what to them looks like the lesser evil.
Actually, i’d think that the main reason for a gay not to vote Democrat, should be the stifling of discussion about Islam. I understand that Dutch gays tend to vote for Wilders’ party, or for the VVD, which is pretty close but more acceptable in “polite” society.
Not sure how people carrying guns would have helped here – there was an armed policeman on the scene, who exchanged fire with the murderer after all… There has still been no case I have heard of a mass shooting being stopped by an armed civilian in the US, including those in public spaces. And the fact that US law allows someone like this murdering bastard to purchase guns is clearly a factor in the murders, alongside his Islamic identity (and if his ex-wife’s testimony is accurate, the fact he personally seems to have been a violent man).
Of course, as Natalie points out, what really doesn’t help is trying to conceal any of these facts. A violent man, prompted by something (we don’t know what from what I have read) acts on what he presumably (bit difficult to say for certain with him being dead, unless he left a message) believes is a religious imperative and kills people with a dangerous weapon that was easily available to him. Oh, and the government for whatever reason (and we have to admit that suspicion not being proven is probably one of these) failed to do its job in protecting people. People might argue about which of these factors is most important, but anyone who is concealing any of them (or something I have missed) is putting their own views above facts.
I agree with Alisa (June 13, 2016 at 9:36 am) about a gun being no magic bullet – though occasionally a very present help in time of trouble – and note that Mr Ed (June 13, 2016 at 9:02 am) clearly did have in mind the point I made more explicitly. The murder of Pym Fortuyn may caused some spread of sense in Holland (Snorri Godhi, June 13, 2016 at 10:12 am) but it may be that every country’s community needs its own wake-up call – and in the case of some people, the snooze button is easy to find even then.
(My actual argument was, of course, somewhat spoof: taking a discussion of the external threat into the left’s view that communities must be protected always from themselves and never from the state, and seeing how the stats of it worked out. If this had been a thread on the 2nd amendment, much other and else could have been said. But as Alisa remarks, it isn’t.)
Watchman, it is hard to tell. I think personal weapons can be very effective in one-on-one situations – such as burglaries, muggings, rapes and similar. Not so sure about mass shootings. I would also note, on the other hand, the types of settings where mass shootings tend to occur, and the types of individuals who tend to be the perpetrators – by which I mean disgruntled employees/”inmates” of certain governmental or semi-governmental institutions, such as post offices, schools and universities. That, setting aside the ideologically motivated incidents, such as the one with the Mulsim couple in CA (the name of the place eludes my old brain right now…), and quite possibly the one in Orlando – which, as I noted earlier, is much less of a gun-ownership issue that the “regular” mass shootings. But in any case, I do think that the mere notion of a gun-free zone has the real potential to incentivize violence.
I doubt very much that a private establishment set up for the purposes of drinking and dancing would allow its patrons to carry weapons on the premises, as it can hardly be sensible to do so. But maybe such places will take notice and ensure they have an effective number of armed bouncers both inside and outside. In Europe of course, not even this is currently an option.
Snorri, I think that gun-ownership and support of 2nd Amendment is nearly as wide-spread at least among certain groups of Democrat voters, if not among all of them in general. I don’t have stats on hand to show, but I do recall seeing some in the past, and I personally know enough such individuals to think of this as beyond anecdotal.
Alisa
June 13, 2016 at 9:36 am
I saw a study that said that in mass shooting incidents where the potential victims were armed the death count averaged 2.5. If they were unarmed it averaged 14. This may have been a US study.
http://www.politifact.com/new-hampshire/statements/2014/jun/06/jim-rubens/jim-rubens-says-when-armed-civilians-stop-mass-sho/
MSimon, I tend not to trust studies on such issues. But, from a personal perspective and as someone who very much dislikes crowded situations (especially where alcohol is significantly involved): if I were to find myself in a crowd, I’d rather be armed and have others around me armed as well. Whether it is reasonable to expect club-goers to be armed, or club owners to allow weapons on their premises, is a different question. Like I said, I don’t like clubs as it is, so I can’t really have an opinion on that.
Alisa,
The Clackamas Town Center shooting spree wasn’t stopped by a legal carrier actually shooting the perp, I think that it’s fair to say that the legal carrier (who might have been flouting Mall ‘rules and regs’) may have helped reduce the body count.
Link
Of course, that’s just one example in an increasingly large statistical sample, and yes, our latest sample is depressing, since the guy we’re talking about was not only a legal carrier, but as I understand it, also held a security guard permit which creates more concern and questions than many of us like to think about.
The issue of firearms at clubs and locations where a significant number of patrons may also be *ahem* ‘chemically impaired’ in one or more ways is problematical.
Bod:
I’d say. But that is also true regardless of firearms, on premises or off (as in the hands of possible attackers such as the one in Orlando). Bottom line is, crowded situations carry certain types or risks, and people enjoying such settings should be aware of this – just like with any other sorts of risky activities.
If nutters repeatedly scream out that they are committing their atrocities and tortures [the latest is skinning people alive…] in the name of the same imaginary characters, is it not a trifle disingenuous for the entire media and political class to willfully claim otherwise?
“There has still been no case I have heard of a mass shooting being stopped by an armed civilian in the US, including those in public spaces.”
First, when someone who is armed stops a killer, the “mass” part of the killing tends not to happen.
Second, even a brief perusal of the various “armed defense” web sites gives many examples of such situations occurring. I’d start listing links, but the existence of situations when a killer has been thwarted are so numerous and known that I cannot believe you typed that statement in good faith. I suspect that, were I to list five or ten such situations, you would read them (or maybe not), and simply continue to type that same incorrect statement over and over in the future. So, not worth the effort. If anyone questions this in good faith, start googling.
Third, note that most incidents that do turn into mass killings happen in places that have proudly proclaimed themselves “gun free.” Personally, if I were worried about such things, I would stay out of “gun free” venues.
Finally, check out pinkpistols.org . Nationwide organization here in the US for gay gun enthusiasts.
Watchman, I know there are other cases but here is a start:
Do Civilians Armed With Guns Ever Capture, Kill, or Otherwise Stop Mass Shooters? by Eugene Volokh.
That article deliberately excludes shootings stopped by off duty law enforcement personnel. But I don’t see why they shouldn’t count; it is a mass killing stopped by someone who is going about their normal activities who is allowed to carry a gun. There have been several cases, but the one that came to my mind is the Appalachian School of Law shooting.
@bobby b:
Thankyou, with your first 3 true and verifiable points above, for the polite, rational and straightforward rebuttal of the absurd arguments that had been put forward.
I had just come back to read this thread, and was gobsmacked by the absurdity, and was about make a comment to that effect when I saw your comment – yours was the penultimate comment in the thread at that time.
Thankyou also for the reference you gave to pinkpistols.org. Ordinarily, I would have laughed outright at the notion that such an org could serve any useful purpose in the first place – I mean, I had not perceived that guns might appeal in some special way to people in a particular minority depending on their peculiar needs or sexual orientation. To me, a gun is a gun. So, now I know different, and this Orlando massacre would seem to support the above notion and even augment it to the extent that (as I commented above), maybe LBGTs have – statistically – more reason than most to be packing a gun for self defence. Why? Because they are a minority in a bend-over-backwards-tolerant touchy-feely multi-culti society – a minority whose members are under special threat of being targeted by religious nutters, homophobes and especially Muslims (who are mandated by Allah to kill homosexuals) alike.
Good example of what it’s like to live in a multi-culturally diverse society where one of the member cultures has a “cuckoo-like” religio-political ideology that categorically forbids them to acculturate and insists that their religio-political ideology become dominant in any host society where they find themselves.
Allah is wise and all-knowing.
Islam – “The Religion of Peace”™
Thanks, Slarti. People should remember that gun control (at least in the US) really got its nose in the tent as a way to keep the black community unarmed. Gun regs began popping up in the 1800’s specifically written to ban blacks from carrying or owning weapons. As late as 1942, we have this Florida Court of Appeals decision overturning the conviction of a white guy carrying a gun in his car:
“I know something of the history of this legislation. The original Act of 1893 was passed when there was a great influx of negro laborers in this State drawn here for the purpose of working in turpentine and lumber camps. The same condition existed when the Act was amended in 1901 and the Act was passed for the purpose of disarming the negro laborers and to thereby reduce the unlawful homicides that were prevalent in turpentine and saw-mill camps and to give the white citizens in sparsely settled areas a better feeling of security. The statute was never intended to be applied to the white population and in practice has never been so applied.” Watson v. Stone, 4 So.2d 700, 703 (Fla. 1941).
Later, as we became more crowded and “civilized”, permissions to buy or carry guns had to be procured from local sheriffs, who were tasked to allow “moral, law-abiding” people such rights. Think the local sheriff ever gave his blessing when the applicant was black or gay ?
We’ve always denied the right to arms for the very populations that needed that right the most. There are now several large black-oriented organizations playing the same role for black communities that Pinkpistols plays for the LGBT communities. About time. An armed society IS a polite society.
Bobby B, since you referenced pinkpistols.org, I thought I’d give a shout-out another “specialty” gun-friendly site, The Zelman Partisans. It’s a descendant of the old “Jews for the Preservation of Firearms” website, and as that name suggests is targeted specifically (but by no means exclusively) to Jews. Given the recent rise in anti-Semitism (and their long history of persecution) Jews are another minority group which should be taking gun ownership seriously, but which nonetheless (in the US, anyway) in the main seems largely opposed to it (as well as being, inexplicably, wedded to the Democratic Party).
@Laird:
I find American politics incomprehensible at the best of times, so forgive my asking, but, where you say:
– does that mean that members/supporters of the Democratic Party should support all positions of said party?
I gather (I think) that the DP advocates wider gun ownership, which (you suggest) the Jews supporting the DP seem generally opposed to (at least for the Jewish contingent).
However, I don’t see that there is necessarily any political conflict there – the DP presumably being similar to the parson’s egg in that regard – i.e., good in parts (at least for their Jewish supporters).
Have I got that wrong?
There was a long tradition of socialist orientation in the Ashkenazi population of Eastern Europe, e.g. the Bund, or Algemeyner Yiddisher Arbeter Bund in Rusland un Poyln, of which the Yiddish name is perfectly comprehensible to me with my schoolboy German.
So for those American Jews descended from Eastern European emigrants, presumably there are strong family and perhaps community traditions of socialist politics, so the Democrats seem to be the natural party. The question is how long do people keep doing the same (wrong) thing over and over again down the generations? Is Irish politics still a matter of great-grandparents’ sides on the Treaty in the 1920s? In many English Northern industrial towns, there seems to be an ingrained pro-Labour attitude.
What does it take to make people change political affiliation (unless they are an opportunist politician)?
What Ed said. The same legacy is still at play in Israel.
The principles taught at school and university matter – they are NOT forgotten when people enter the “real world” of business.
That is what this story shows. The people at “Redditt” are following the pro censorship doctrines they have been taught.
It is the same generally.
As for Jews…..
“How can Mr X be a socialist – he is a successful businessman” is as logical as “How can Mr X be a socialist – he has blue eyes”.
Mr Ed and Alisa are correct.
Beliefs and principles form a culture – and culture is carried along.
How to change a culture?
This can only be done two ways.
By deceit – the way of the left (Saul Alinsky and co).
Or by open appeal to reason.
Reason may not be perfect, but it is the only way to get change for the better.
Deceit (whether of the Frankfurt School of Marxism form or the Rules for Radicals) can only produce change for the worse.
It takes time and effort for new principles to change a culture.
But it can be done – for the better as well as for the worse.
And it should be obvious that covering up the truth about Islam is a form of deceit.
Such deceit can only produce change for the worse.
^^ No matter whether it is “legacy” or something, that (above) simply seems to imply a point that voters are not necessarily rational/consistent in their political affiliations/support. However, from experience, I had understood that that was exactly the case anyway – at least, in US politics and UK politics.
Bit of a digression:———————-
Politicians seem to have learned that they can indeed fool most of the people some of the time, which is how they hope to get in on a weak ticket of bogus and BS electioneering policy (e.g., “Yes, you can”) for a short term, and then they hope/expect that the voters’ notoriously short-term memories will enable their misdeeds to be forgotten over the longer haul, especially if they can be bought off with tax cuts. This generally (but not always) seems to work for them, in practice – at least when voters have been obliged to engage in a classic two-party system.
So it’s “situation normal”.
The only time I have personally seen this overturned was when the NZ voters chose to go for a proportional system of voting. It spectacularly transformed NZ politics for the better – into something much more rational, where you could vote for your preferred local MP candidate for this or that party, but also give a “party vote” to a quite different party. It kept MPs on their toes and needing to more honestly deliver to their manifesto, because they had to work in a collaborative manner to govern with what were effectively coalition partners.
From Wikipedia:
Thus, one could kinda vote for the good bits of the parson’s egg.
“I gather (I think) that the DP advocates wider gun ownership . . . “
No. The opposite. The Democrat Party would prefer that no one but the police have guns.
Slarti, Mr Ed and Alisa have answered the question you posed to me about US Jews and the Democratic Party, and bobby b corrected your misunderstanding about the DP’s position on guns. I would merely add that my whole “inexplicably” parenthetical was intended as a throwaway line, not to derail the thread.
It is hardly off topic, i should think, to say that today i understood why Trump won the Republican nomination — and started to think that, just possibly, he even deserves it:
Gays rally around Trump after Orlando attacks
Trump’s provocative Orlando response worries some in GOP
The 1st article ties in with Niall’s comment about wake-up calls, of course.
I note, although no doubt Niall knows it already, that Pim Fortuyn was murdered because of what he said about Islam, but not by a Muslim.
WRT Laird’s “inexplicably” parenthetical: i have learned relatively recently that most Jews in France and the UK now vote for the “right”; and these are the 2 European countries with the largest Jewish populations.
Meanwhile in Amarillo, Texas, a shooter at a Walmart appears to have been swiftly despatched by the local Sheriff’s SWAT team, with no other casualties and no 3-hour wait.
I suppose this is an appropriate place to note that Milo Gianopolous has some (predictably) cogent things to say on this subject.
@Slartibartfarst June 14, 2016 at 2:06 am:
The Democratic Party is overwhelmingly anti-gun, especially at the national level; has been for decades.
However… After the Civil War, white Southerners almost all became “Yellow Dog Democrats” (would vote for a yellow dog if it was the Democrat candidate). This pattern was especially entrenched at the state and local level. Southern Democrats were predominantly rural and conservative, yet they were allied in the party with liberal urban Democrats in the North (the latter often being Catholic, which was anathema to many Southerners). And being rural, and traditional, they were often hunters and gun-owners.
This unnatural alliance started to crack in the 1920s, as Civil War sentiment started to fade, but was reinforced in the Depression era. It broke down after the national Democratic Party embraced civil rights, and white Southerners largely switched to the Republican Party. But that change took two generations; few incumbent Southern Democrat officeholders changed parties, and the older voters had to die off. In 1988, all 11 former “Confederate” states still had Democrat majorities in both legislature houses. 16 of those majorities were 2/3 or more; 10 were 80% or more. It was only in 2004 that Texas sent more Republicans than Democrats to the U.S. House.
Outside the South, the Democrats were “the party of the working man”, and especially of unions, where Republicans were “the party of business”, and of those “snobbish country-club WASPs”. Much of the working class was and is socially conservative, and unions have ebbed, but that ingrained, almost hereditary sentiment still has considerable effect.
As for Jews: classical anti-semitism was overwhelmingly a right-wing thing: The Dreyfusards, the Black Hundreds, the Cliveden set. It took a major campaign led by William F. Buckley to expel anti-semites from America’s “conservative movement”. The Republican Party of the early 1900s was dominated by middle- and upper-class WASPs who found Jews distasteful. This led to rejection and obstruction at many levels: quotas at Ivy League universities, property covenants that barred Jews (and others) from entire suburbs. Whereas, to be fair, it was 19th and early 20th century liberals who struck down anti-Jewish laws and practices. (And radicals too: it was the Bolsheviks who abolished Russia’s anti-Jewish laws.) To this day, a lot of Jews still reflexively associate conservatism with anti-semitism, and leftism with acceptance, and that’s how they vote.
Bobby, you are far too harsh. Democratic politicians also support guns for their bodyguards and the connected.
This is a blinkered (on one side) view of political history.
It is blinkered to the fact that many if not most socialists have been anti-semites from the very beginning. Only when Hitler siphoned off antisemitic support did the socialist parties begin to support the Jews, and even then inconsistently.
It would be more accurate (though no doubt still an oversimplification) to say that Napoleon and, subsequently, the classical liberals, supported emancipation of the Jews, in opposition to the old Right. But Bonapartism and classical liberalism have been relabeled “right”-wing over a century ago. To say that “the left” has traditionally supported the Jews is to attribute an attitude to a label.
As for the quotas at the Ivy League: i assumed that it was a “Progressive” idea, but, coming to think of it, i have no evidence for that.
It depends on the type of antisemitism – or at least depended back when the world wasn’t as “global” and the flow of information, whether correct or false, was far more restricted, which is the era under discussion here, more or less. At its very basic level, antisemitism was just another form of xenophobia in places where Jews were the only “foreign” element in a larger community. It did have the added religious aspect, but basically it was just the dislike of the different.
At a more sophisticated, philosophical level though, antisemitism (including anti-Zionism) has and still does have its roots in egalitarian world view, so in that respect it comes naturally to many on the economic and social Left – even when such people were and are not always politically identified by themselves or others as being on the Left (such as the National Socialists).
Broadly, I’d agree with Snorri that anti-Semitism is far more complex than the ‘overwhelmingly a right-wing thing’ quote he critiques; that is just leftist myth-history. Hitler was a national socialist. He undoubtedly led the National Socialist German Workers Party but he also led the National Socialist German Workers Party.
The mainstay of anti-semitism has always been the idea of evil Jewish Financiers using money transactions to manipulate events secretly to their good and society’s harm. It is the union of racism and socialism: the enemy are evil Jewish Financiers but they are also evil Jewish Financiers. Put another way (reprising an earlier thread) it is the union of the racism of envy with the classism of envy. (If the ideology gains power it may eventually start killing all Jews, not just financiers, just as,, in Russia, ‘kulak’ meant ‘village moneylender’ pre-revolution but Stalin murdered more peasants than Hitler murdered Jews (in numbers – fewer by %) after labelling them kulaks and subkulaks.)
This is not a capitalist attitude; for someone to whom that attitude as ‘right’, Adam Smith was wrong. Historically, anti-semitism has been found in groups calling themselves right-wing as well as others, but not any right that coexisted with Smith. The conflict is shown exactly in the late 1800s anti-Semites for whom pro-Jewish attitudes were “the system of Manchester taken to the extreme” (quoted in the first part of Hannah Arendt, “The Origins of Totalitarianism)”.
I just watched a few minutes of a yahoo news clip where the desk jockey was talking to a muslim appologist. He says that although Leviticus says to kill gays, the koran does not. He failed to mention that the Hadith explicitly says to kill homosexuals of both sexes.
I hate fucking liars, and that was a lie by omission that the reporter was simply too ignorant to catch.
Sorry folks, but the liberals/Dems hate Jews and Israel.
Thanks to those above for straightening me out.