By Tony Bonnici
A violent homophobe from a Muslim background – who was on FBI watch and yet licensed to carry assault weapons – kills 50 innocent people at a gay night club in Orlando using the same kind of gun used at the Sandy Hook school.
They call the Orlando slayings as an act of terrorism, yet the Sandy Hook slayings as a mass shooting.
Last night a Christian fundamentalist governor from Texas tweets a quote from the Bible … “Not condemning the Orlando shooter but saying the gay victims reaped what they sowed.”
And now people are congratulating Donald Trump for his anti-Muslim stance while he was silent the night before when a 22-year-old singer from The Voice was shot dead by a non-Muslim only a few miles down the road from the night club.
NO ONE has the right to stand the moral or religious high ground here … NO ONE.
RIP to the victims and sympathies to their families and all affected.
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He was not on a watch list, why do people peddle the same dimwitted lies to try and claim others don’t have any high moral ground.
How do you know what he was or what he wasn’t Marilyn? Are you in the FBI? But Trumps grandstanding is abhorrent.
Steve
Trump’s middle name is “Gauche”.
No, nothing to do with Islam, just another Breivik or Bryant working off his rage at a world he can’t cope with. Xtian fundies have been involved in these sorts of events also, as occurred last year with that redneck that shot up a church in South Carolina full of black people.
Trump’s dog whistling is a factor, in the back ground.
hmm well I have noticed over time the same sort of incident – a person using a gun killing and shooting at lots of people they may not know – has sometimes been called a `mass shooting’ and has sometimes been called `an act of terrorism’ – I do believe it all depends on who does the shooting that distinguishes one incident from another. Just my humble opinion on the matter raised in the article
Oh yeah, preventing Muslims from travelling to the US will stop these killings by US citizens. I’ve also read comments from pro-gun folks saying it wouldn’t have happened if others in the nightclub were carrying the same types of weapons. Because several people with automatic weapons, panicking in a crowded place as they unleash their ammo is sure to save lives. D’Oh!
There are a lot people in power with poor judgment and no empathy and compassion.
Unfortunately we have this kind of people among our politicians.
According to all the media reports he WAS known to the FBI. What do you know that we don’t?
Little kids were killed in Sandy Hook, no one called it a terrorist attack, another American killed fifty, maybe more, gays, and our PM and Trump call it a terrorist attack.
Maybe the killer was trying to proof to himself: I hate gays. Maybe he was one. but had not been brave enough to come out, who knows…
We take the easy option, he was some a kind of reluctant Muslim, he MUST be a terrorist.
Gotta love the NRA. You can be on a “no fly” list yet still able to buy weapons. No words.
There’s a difference between poor judgement and deliberate intent – one can be corrected and the other can’t.
There is deliberate intent in the ideology of neo-conservative governments, and their corporate associates, who’s members can fairly be classified as having many, or all, of the characteristcs of sociopaths in their thinking and behaviours.
Their goals, and the means of achieving them, have nothing to do with empathy, compassion, or ethics.
Those who can be made to believe absurdities can be made to commit atrocities.
Fwiw, catch the Drum panel on the issue tonight, and the intelligent influence of Prof. Ian Hickey keeping the conversation relevant.
“The security firm G4S (who also manage some of our private jails here) confirmed in a statement on Sunday that it had employed Mateen since September 2007.
A former colleague told the New York Times on Sunday he had complained to the company several times about Mateen, who he said “talked about killing people all the time”.
“I complained multiple times that he was dangerous, that he didn’t like blacks, women, lesbians and Jews,” Daniel Gilroy, a former Fort Pierce police officer, said.
“You meet bigots but he was above and beyond. He was always angry, sweating, just angry at the world.”
The gunman’s former wife, Sitora Yusifiy, also recalled his temper on Sunday, revealing Mateen had beaten her regularly after they were married in 2009.
“A few months after we were married I saw his instability, I saw his bipolar, and he would get mad out of nowhere, and that’s when I started worrying about my safety,” Yusifiy said.
She said Mateen, who she divorced in 2011, had aspired to be a police officer was “mentally unstable and mentally ill [and] obviously disturbed, deeply, and traumatised”.
The FBI agent Ron Hopper said on Sunday afternoon that Mateen had a history with the agency. Agents first became aware of Mateen in 2013, after he made inflammatory statements to co-workers about affiliations with a terror group. The FBI interviewed him twice, Hopper said, but could not substantiate any connection to terrorists.
In 2014, Hopper said, the FBI interviewed Mateen again because of a connection to a suicide bomber. But, he said, “contact was minimal” and Mateen was released.
Despite those interactions, according to state records, Mateen held licenses to work as a security guard and carry a firearm in Florida. A spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said Mateen had purchased the weapons he used in the Orlando shooting within the past week.”
This man sent every warning signal possible – they were all ignored.
My question is how a person like this who was investigated by the FBI can have a guns licence.
If I am not wrong all the people that have committed act of terror in EU, USA and Australia were at one stage under investigation.
Something have to be done.
So the white, homosexual males who were killed were just innocent bystanders. Mere collateral damage. In the wrong place at the wrong time.
Yes Paul Walter!! Saw a bit in between the kids chatter. Ian Hickey was saying exactly what I had said to the kids earlier! (Kids are 22&25) excellent article in today’s NY Times but I cannot copy the link!!! Frustrating!!
Breaks down mass shootings into categories that define their purpose!
A mass shooting in a Gay Nightclub during a Gay celebration is a hate crime no matter what the shooter claims!
Like Monis in Sydney, any shooter can claim they support ISIS and they will get coverage, political reply, legitimacy and the attention they clearly desire.
This was a homophobic crime. Plain and simple.
The right wing pollies all jump to claim it as something they can use to frighten us into voting for them.
In the same way that not voting for these fear mongerers will prove the shallowness of their purpose, not calling a homophobic crime an act if terrorism will rob the radicals of their legitimacy! Call it what it is!
And yes Kaye Lee much like Man Haron Monis did!
Anyone consider it could be a government ‘false flag’ attack to keep the public terrorised and willing to surrender more of their rights and freedoms in order to become more subservient to the ruling elite? One of the victims texted “THEY are shooting…” Just as at Port Arthur, 20 headshots in 26 seconds from a left handed idiot with an IQ of a 12 year – old. And shooting from the hip.
wow kerri a man who wanted to tell his story to the rabbott compared to the worst killer in america’s long list of murderers?
If any good can be attributed to these tragic deaths it is in what I thought a muslim leader said about his god NOT welcoming murderers into heaven. I have not been able to find any reference but such a statement would undermine ISIS and religious fanatics. Indeed it would refute the ISIS claim that any muslim who kills a christian goes straight to heaven
Great article.
Thank you, Tony.
deanzy1, it is possible, nothing would surprise me when it comes to the ruling elite. But whichever it is, this is a very dark and sad day for those of us in the LGBT community. We are traumatised, we are grieving. Try to respect this.
No, it’s not false flag.. no conspiracies, just a crank with a hangup about gays performing yet another gun massacre in the spiritual home of gun massacres and the NRA.
Little to do with Islam and mainstream
Islam is repulsed at it, the same as mainstream Xtianity would have rejected the Charlotte massacre of black people in church by á rightist fanatic.
To do with mindsets and pathologies, not religion and ideology unless it is the rightist ideology that if you don’t like someone’s face, you shoot them.
I tend to agree, Paul. Occam’s Razor.
everyone has an agenda – mine is – was he on medication? Most mass killings are done by dudes on prescribed pharmaceuticals.
Mark, there does seem to have been talk of him as a depressive so maybe the wrong medication was also involved.
Most of these gun-people seem to be grievously flawed and locked into some sort of seige mentality state from which they can no longer discern reality…bad place to be.
His ex-wife claimed he was bipolar, but not officially diagnosed. So it’s likely that he wasn’t on meds and was quite unstable.
Deanna Jones, I do respect the grief of everyone concerned. My heart is leadened by this tragic event even though I am far removed from most aspects. But for a human to do this to other humans saddens me immensely. As it does to us all.
mark demelge ” mass killings are done by dudes”
Fixed that for ya.
Thanks deanzy1
Deanna
Well said.
Steve Laing:
Trump doesn’t really have a problem with LGBT equality, but his overall bigotry -and that of his party, will smear him anyway.
As to Republicans and their so called “Christian” fundamentalist base, it’s become readily apparent that they’re no different whatsoever in kind from the Muslim fundamentalists that they so fear and hate. And whatever differences in degree there may still be grow narrower by the day.
This case has brought that point home like few others, and put Republicans and their snivelling, far right sycophants who infest the entirety of the US corporate media in a quandary. On the one hand, they viscerally loath and fear gays -which makes it difficult for them to condemn the attacks -much less do so sincerely, because the majority of Republicans believe they deserve to be shot, jailed and discriminated against in every imaginable way.
Yet on the other hand: the shooter is nominally a Muslim, and so they (and especially the media sycophants) will want to gin up terra!™ and angry, vengeful hysteria.
Whats that deanzy1 and diannaart? Another petty argument?
on another level via f/b
Yasir Qadhi
1 hr ·
It has now been confirmed, by multiple sources, that Omar Mateen, the shooter in the Orlando massacre, was himself gay. He frequently visited the same club that he committed the massacre in, and he attempted to initiate dates on a famous gay-dating app.
Additionally, he was born and raised in America.
His wife, father and community have all claimed that he was not religious in the slightest.
Multiple eyewitness reports indicate that he would get drunk at the very club he committed the massacre in, and would have to be kicked out because of his unruly behavior.
Colleagues and acquaintances have mentioned that he was a loner, a social introvert, and prone to make violent statements and threats against other people.
His wife left him because he beat her and was physically abusive.
Yet, the media continues to ask questions about ‘radical Islam’ and about Islam’s stance on homosexuality. What blatant hypocrisy!
He wasn’t a ‘radical Muslim’.
He was a mentally deranged psychopathic American closet homosexual who was battling with his sexual identity.
Instead of concentrating on his mental issues, and on the easy gun laws that our country is notorious for, politicians and media pundits wish to cast all of that aside, and choose the easier target of questioning his faith, and of Islam’s stance on sexual issues.
The guy was mental, plain and simple. Islam’s stance on homosexuality is IRRELEVANT to this massacre, period.
Mark Delmege
I agree, why would you think otherwise?
PS
I have been on medication for chronic depression, most of my life, have no intention of shooting anyone.