Shooting of the Week

[klonk]

It is clear between the lines that the Springs shooter was crazy, and in ways our society is not very good at dealing with. We are simply not much good at getting help to people who are sort of borderline functional and not dangerous in a glaringly obvious way.

http://gazette.com/suspect-identified-i ... le/1564419

http://gazette.com/colorado-springs-gun ... le/1562379

Perhaps forty years ago a fellow like this would have been quietly shuffled into custodial care but we don't do that any more unless a person is remarkably nuts.

As to local adoption programs and other alternatives to abortion, they exist, I have been involved in the past, and I know people involved today. I note with deep frustration that business is slow: so many opt for the quick and simple solution instead. On the other hand the successes make it worthwhile.

[Steve James]

I agree that this guy was disturbed, but the shooting wasn't a result of mental illness. He had a reason, and he used a gun because of what he heard and believed. He wasn't insane unless he didn't know right from wrong. If a guy shoots a cop and then yells some thing political, there are few who say "he was mentally ill." Instead, they argue that his ideology provoked his actions. Mentally ill people rarely commit such acts. They've been kicked out of institutions and live on the street. But we don't want a nanny state any more than we want to take care of babies after they are born.

Imo, it's better to condemn the violence of the individual. This was as much a terrorist act as the guy who shot people in the Holocaust museum or the SC church. If they're crazy, set them free or institutional. If that's so, then treat cop-killers similarly.

[klonk]

In saying that the Springs shooting was not a result of mental illness there is a certain amount of artifice. These were neither the words nor the actions of someone with his head on straight, and the suspect's history suggests he was pretty much out of it for some years previous.

We apply a minimalist standard, such as the question of whether he knew what he was doing was wrong, or at least evaluable on a standard of right and wrong. That begs the question of what such words and concepts might mean in the fogged-in world of the impaired. Do we mean that he knew someone might say what he did was wrong, or do we mean that the moral nature of the question was vivid and real in his own mind?

We think, rather legalistically, that we have solved something if we can say that at least the person knew that what he did raised a morally relevant question, but even if we hear words out of him that suggest it, he may not mean what we suppose we are hearing.

[Steve James]

I did not dismiss mental illness. Acts like this give mental illness and people with mental illness a bad name. The artifice is the selection give detachment of actions and ideology, religion, race, etc. Mental illness was not the sole cause of his actions. Solving mental illness will not prevent mass shootings or hate crimes, of which I would characterize this. People who target gays or immigrants or members of a particular section are not mentally ill _ unless hate is a mental illness, but America ain't ready for that belief yet.

[Steve James]

Passenger rants about Islamic State before shooting Muslim taxi driver in back

It began as an ordinary cab ride.

But by the time it was over, the Pittsburgh taxi driver — a 38-year-old Muslim man from Morocco — had a bullet wound in his upper back and was lucky to be alive, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Pittsburgh police are investigating the Thanksgiving Day shooting, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is asking for more help: CAIR, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, has called on the Justice Department to investigate the incident as a hate crime — which, it said, was “similar to a growing number of attacks targeting the nation’s Muslim community following the recent terror attacks in Paris.”

The passenger, according to CAIR, “reportedly began asking the driver about his background, including asking whether he was a ‘Pakistani guy.'” CAIR says the passenger also asked the driver “about the terror group ISIS” and mocked the prophet Muhammad.

The driver, who moved to Pittsburgh from Morocco five years ago, told the Post-Gazette that he is three months away from becoming a U.S. citizen. His plan is to bring his wife to the United States and start a family in the country he considers home.

“This [incident] is due to the person, not the city,” he told the paper. “Pittsburgh is my style, it is like my home town [of Safi] in Morocco. My dream is to be an American.”

“This is my country,” he added. “I am proud to say I am American, but I didn’t have the chance to say that to him.”

The driver — who spoke to the newspaper on the condition of anonymity because of concerns about his safety — told police that he picked up the man outside of a casino at about 1 a.m. As the trip unfolded, the driver told the Post-Gazette, his passenger began to ask questions about his background.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act ... r-in-back/

[Michael]

Sounds like USA should keep the soon-to-be naturalized taxi driver and deport the shooter, who intimated a non-existent connection to ISIS, but who belongs with barbarians himself.

I remember a lot of law-abiding naturalized citizens of Middle Eastern descent were rounded up immediately after 9/11, and they weren't cheering on anything. Some of this hysteria was given a push in the wrong direction at that time, toward more fear.

[windwalker]

who decides whats a terrorist act or not?

While determined to bring the terrorists — and terror groups that supported this latest attack — to justice, some have raised questions on the differences between the latest attack and the tragic workplace violence incident that happened in 2009, where then-Maj. Nidal Hasan accidentally tripped over his beard and shot more than 40 people.

Read more: http://www.duffelblog.com/2014/04/presi ... z3t7A354H7

work place violence, yep gotta watch out for that.

(CBS/AP) WASHINGTON - The FBI was too concerned about political correctness and did not launch an investigation into a man who was later charged with killing 13 people in the 2009 attack in Fort Hood, Texas, despite significant warning signs that he was an Islamic extremist bent on killing civilians, according to a lawmaker briefed on the new report.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/lawmaker-re ... rrectness/

[Steve James]

Are you trying to argue that Hasan was a terrorist? Or are you arguing that someone else is not? Or are you arguing that political correctness prevents us from categorizing people as terrorists? At any rate, Hasan was tried, found guilty of premeditated murder, and sentenced to death. He killed 13 soldiers and 1 civilian worker (iinm) on a military base, and the Army doesn't have a slot for "terrorism" in the code of military justice. Otoh, the Army's argument was that he killed co-workers while he was on his job. But, ok, call him a terrorist. It doesn't change what the PP killer did. I called it a hate crime, but "who decides"?

[wiesiek]

so
what we understand under the word ; - terrorist?
isn`t it , simply speaking, anyone who is killing innocent/random people for whatever reason ?

[Steve James]

so
what we understand under the word ; - terrorist?
isn`t it , simply speaking, anyone who is killing innocent/random people for whatever reason ?

Some would just call them criminals. But, ya see, it really matters who's killing innocent people and why. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Really, the debate here is about who "not" to call a terrorist. For me, it's easier to categorize terrorists by their attempts to terrorize, not by their actual crimes because often the people they're trying to terrorize can be just as bad. Otherwise, people just say that what they're doing to others is justified.

When actions are designed to make people fearful, or to impose one's will on others, it's terrorism.

[Steve James]

Well, as we speak, 20 people have been shot in San Bernadino, California at a center for children's development. We'll have to see how it's categorized.

Ya know, I'm gonna politicize this a moment because terrorism was brought up. This morning on FOX news, Trump said about terrorists that "You've got to kill their families." I'm looking at pictures of the San Bernadino shooting scene now, and I wondered. Do people who say such things about killing people (women, children, the elderly and friends who just happen to be around) have ever really thought about what they're saying means. I wonder if they'd dare apply such reasoning to "domestic" terrorism, or would they simply reclassify it as something else and recoil in horror at the thought of killing "families." We shall see.

[windwalker]

"You've got to kill their families." I'm looking at pictures of the San Bernadino shooting scene now, and I wondered. Do people who say such things about killing people (women, children, the elderly and friends who just happen to be around) have ever really thought about what they're saying means.

you do know that the US does assessments on the value of a target as to how much collateral damage is acceptable.

what he said

“I would knock the hell out of ISIS, I would hit them so hard,” Trump said on “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday. “When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families.

They care about their lives, don’t kid yourself. When they say they don’t care about their lives, you have to take out their families.”

A little different then dropping leaflets telling the truckers that they need to leave their trucks before bombing them.

The Obama White House is giving ISIS a 45 minute warning before bombing their oil tankers by dropping leaflets advising potential jihadists to flee before air strikes in Syria.

[windwalker]

update

Syed Farook has been identified as one of the suspected gunmen in the Wednesday morning shooting at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, according to CBS News.

NBC News initially identified him as Sayeed Farouk. The name has not been confirmed by police.

http://heavy.com/news/2015/12/syed-saye ... lled-dead/

[Steve James]

Re: Trump's statements, there's a significant difference between accepting collateral damage and deliberately targeting non-combatants. If fact, if you check, or if you'd give the order to do so, that it would be a contravention of the Geneva Convention. I'm not sure it'd be Constitutional, but I'm damn sure there are those who would change it if they could.

Personally, I think anyone who'd advance or support such a position is a coward. I think that those who really give the orders to kill children at least accept that they deserve to go to hell. I think that those who have that responsibility agonize over it day and night, and wouldn't want to admit it. And, I'm sure it can't be obvious, but anyone who suggests such actions should know that he's putting the bullseye on his own children's heads.

Oh, afa the shooting in California, yeah, determining whether it's terrorism or crime or mental illness or prescription drugs will depend on who the shooters were. Everybody's thinking, "I hope it's not..." and people will let out sighs of relief if it's ... So, how about we agree on what should happen to people who do things like these now? .. including what we should do to their women and children.

[windwalker]

that it would be a contravention of the Geneva Convention.

so is bombing hospitals / Those that caused it should be held accountable

Having lived under them I am well aware of what the conventions are.

afa tump

Its the attitude that Trumps statement conveys.