The General Terrorist Rampage Thread

[And1]

There was no machine gun

There was no machine gun

There was no machine gun

This! Looooong way from a machine gun

 

[AZ_]

Not familiar with Florida gun laws. What could the police have done with these warnings if he were not in the act of committing a crime?

I see many people lamenting inaction, but what actions were they allowed to take?

 

[Sebastian]

Not familiar with Florida gun laws. What could the police have done with these warnings if he were not in the act of committing a crime?

I see many people lamenting inaction, but what actions were they allowed to take?

They would have to have charged him with a felony or a certain class of violent misdemeanors. Or have him committed.

Frankly, any DA worth his stuff should have charged him with terroristic threats.

 

[And1]

How is it not Ad Hominem to quote a post line by line?


My response to you was not ad Hominem, but I am sorry you took it that way. I saw it as calling you out for making twisting my message to suit your argument. Thats how I saw it. It is entirely possible you meant it differently.

So I will refrain from further personal indictment.

No one can argue access control is too expensive until there is a proposed spec. Its a false trade off to say we will spend phantom money on more classroooms and therefore more teachers, as opposed to secure access. If we were going to spend more money on teachers, we would have already done that (since it has been proposed for decades). People are motivated to make sure their kids are safe in school, more so than to improve their education, which is what the current fuss is all about. In my opinion, we will have fewer teachers and larger class rooms in the future, or no classroom at all.

So the proposed actions are what:

Ban Assault Weapons (could happen/perhaps should happen, but will it prevent more of the same? What exactly constitutes an assault weapon? Isn't any gun an Assault weapon, i mean what else do you do with it? )

Ban All Weapons (Not gonna happen, Would probably prevent violence from legally obtained guns, So Gour, I know you are going to highlight this one, but if the congress cannot even pass assault weapons ban, there is no chance in hell they pass a general weapons ban.)

Register all weapons, with serious background checks. (Dont we already do this at least in some states? )

Ban weapons from the mentally ill (Who decides what menatally ill is, and how is this information shared to whoever approves a gun sale)

Ban modifications of weapons to make them WMA (The argument for banning a bumpstock, which is probably the absolutely easiest thing to print on a 3D printer or make is a wood shop. I think automatic mod kits for AK47 are widely available over the internet. But I think these things should be banned if they are not already).

Expel mentally ill people from mainstream schools? (what is the criteria, and is there a path to recovery? )

Better availability of mental health workers for people with mental illness? (Will the Mental health professional be held liable if someone loses their shit? )

Arm Teachers? (I am unaware of anyone that has suggested mandatory arming of teachers, however are their teachers who would want a gun in class? Would anyone trust a teacher with a gun in class? )

Armed security in the schools? (This is an order of magnitude more expensive than many access control solutions and a line item in the operating budget. What good does it do if they are not visible? What good does it do if they are visible but exposed? Who wants this job? )


I have no position on gun control, other than I don't believe any realistic scenario will make any difference. I am comfortable with any amount of gun control anyone wants to implement. It will have no direct impact on me. So I am not talking past gun control, I am talking about actions we can take to fix the problem, which would likely make it to a real implementation.

Where I take offense is that some of you want to paint access control as if it is turning a school into a prison. It is not. Literally millions of people work in secure access facilities every day, and there is no resemblance to a prison at all. I cannot name one corporate headquarters that does not have access control. Not one. Prisons are designed to keep people in. Access control is designed to keep its occupants safe. This is all about risk management. You can leave whenever you want. There is nothing keeping you inside. You literally just walk out the door. If they make you sign out it is because they don't want to waste time looking for you in a disaster ( like a fire or explosion on premise), so they are just asking you to help out. The idea is to keep people out who want to do harm.

There are plenty of instances where violence occurred even in an access controlled situation. Generally this is a worker gone postal situation. but i would argue that many of these are the results of bad security management, more than a failure of the facility. If you are going to let someone go, you get the access card first thing. You have a plan to see them off the premises.

There are plenty of security professionals and there is a very organized way to go about evaluating risk, and implementing measures to address risk. Its not complicated.

Great post

 

[Sebastian]

Given it is a terrorism thread, I think it should be mentioned that Assad is killing the shit out of civilians right now in Ghouta.

Terrible.

 

[AZ_]

Given it is a terrorism thread, I think it should be mentioned that Assad is killing the shit out of civilians right now in Ghouta.

Terrible.

There is nobody who will stand up to him, or the Russians.

So they’re pretty much fucked, huh?

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

I mean those kids organized themselves, and have a very specific goal, so they aren't including every voice at their school, they are sharing the ones that want to be involved. Why doesn't the NRA represent all gun owners? They only represent the ones that want 0 regulation on guns. Same thing.

As usual it is the loudest voices that get the mic.

They chose to make the agenda this time as opposed to the politicians that usually get up there, and they got out in front of the message that the NRA and politicians used to silence the parents of the Sandy Hook victims.

The networks show what they want to show. That's inarguable.

The reason certain people appear on TV is because they serve to advance the POV supported by that particular media outlet. It is as simple as that.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

Sorry...

Powerful shooting machine that can shoot very rapidly but not automatically.

No faster than (also) semiautomatic pistol with which the guard was armed.

 

[Hurl Bruce]

No faster than (also) semiautomatic pistol with which the guard was armed.

Can I at least assume that it is way more powerful than a typical firearm?

Also, I grew up going to Space Invaders behind the old Peaches, so my trigger finger was pretty, pretty fast. My bump stock was using my comb on Track and Field.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

Can I at least assume that it is way more powerful than a typical firearm?

Also, I grew up going to Space Invaders behind the old Peaches, so my trigger finger was pretty, pretty fast. My bump stock was using my comb on Track and Field.

Your were talking about the officer being afraid to go into the building because he heard "machine gun fire." He didn't.

He had no valid excuse.

 

[Cavatt]

The networks show what they want to show. That's inarguable.

The reason certain people appear on TV is because they serve to advance the POV supported by that particular media outlet. It is as simple as that.

Sure this particular viewpoint had been absent for 40 years. We've been told we can't discuss this for years. These kids changed the narrative and people are loving it.

 

[And1]

No faster than (also) semiautomatic pistol with which the guard was armed.

Your were talking about the officer being afraid to go into the building because he heard "machine gun fire." He didn't.

He had no valid excuse.

The officer absolutely should have entered and engaged Kruz.. was he at a SERIOUS DISADVANTAGE? ABSOLUTELY he was... a semi automatic pistol up against an AR 15 .. is like going against a new NYC fire engine with a kids super soaker.. ya their both semi auto weapons and that's where it ends

 

[Huber.]

Why Does The Media Care More About The Parkland Shooting Than It Ever Did About Las Vegas?

It has now been 12 days since the shooting in Parkland, Florida. The story is still headline news across every major news outlet. Public interest in the tragedy is still quite high. Media interest has not waned very much.

Meanwhile, every major question about the crime has already been answered. Indeed, most of them were answered within a couple of days of the shooting. We know about the shooter's "troubled" past, the death of his mother, his expulsion from school, and his history of violence. We know that he was reported to the local police dozens of times. We know that someone called the FBI about him. We know how he carried out the attack. We know that he was able to shoot so many people because at least one sheriff's deputy was cowering outside the whole time. We know pretty much everything there is to know about the hows and whats and whys of this case. But still it is a lead story. Still the media has not left Parkland and moved to other things.

How does this compare to another recent mass shooting?

If you recall, dozens upon dozens of people were gunned down in Las Vegas on October 1. There were 58 fatalities in total. Another 422 injuries. That's 480 casualties — 480 casualties — and I'm not even counting the hundreds more injured by trampling or shrapnel. It was the worst mass shooting in modern American history by a mile. It had more casualties than Orlando, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, and Parkland combined — times two. And it was carried out in the middle of a major American city.

Yet that terrible massacre seemed to fade from the headlines rapidly and inexplicably. The country had almost entirely moved on by the beginning of the following week. It seemed to me that we had forgotten about it within three or four days, but I'll say a week just to be safe. The media is so obsessed with Parkland that several of its survivors are now practically household names. Does anyone remember the names of a single one of the Las Vegas survivors? Did any of them do media tours? Did CNN hold a "town hall" about Las Vegas? Was there an extensive conversation about potential law enforcement failures in Las Vegas, as there has been about their failures in Florida? We've all had quite a bit to say about the police officer who waited outside while kids were gunned down, but what about the police officers and armed security who made it to the shooter's hotel room while he was still raining shots down on the crowd, but stood outside the door for an hour before entering?

And that's just one unanswered question that still remains in Las Vegas. There are many more. We still don't know why the shooter did what he did. We still don't know much about his background or his finances or his psychological profile. We still haven't seen any photos or videos of him, despite the hundreds of hours of footage that must exist. We still don't know why the timeline of the shooting changed three times in the first few weeks after the shooting. The lack of answers should increase media attention because they keep the story open and active, but the opposite seems to have occurred. Attention to the story waned as the questions piled up. There are no questions in Parkland, yet there is still plenty of attention.

Why?

I can't answer that question. You might speculate that the media has found Parkland to be more politically useful due to the anti-gun activism from some of the survivors. You might speculate that the media simply had less sympathy for the Vegas victims because they were white country music fans. You might speculate that there are some very powerful forces — Vegas hotels and casinos, namely — interested in burying the Vegas shooting. You might speculate that the unanswered questions just made the story too difficult for our lazy and apathetic society to track. You might come up with a more conspiratorial explanation than any of these I've listed.

I think there could be some truth to all of these theories. There may even be some truth to the conspiracy theories. I don't know. It all just adds up to yet another open question. And, at this point, I'm not sure if we'll ever get answers to any of them.

 

[Sebastian]

Why Does The Media Care More About The Parkland Shooting Than It Ever Did About Las Vegas?

It has now been 12 days since the shooting in Parkland, Florida. The story is still headline news across every major news outlet. Public interest in the tragedy is still quite high. Media interest has not waned very much.

Meanwhile, every major question about the crime has already been answered. Indeed, most of them were answered within a couple of days of the shooting. We know about the shooter's "troubled" past, the death of his mother, his expulsion from school, and his history of violence. We know that he was reported to the local police dozens of times. We know that someone called the FBI about him. We know how he carried out the attack. We know that he was able to shoot so many people because at least one sheriff's deputy was cowering outside the whole time. We know pretty much everything there is to know about the hows and whats and whys of this case. But still it is a lead story. Still the media has not left Parkland and moved to other things.

How does this compare to another recent mass shooting?

If you recall, dozens upon dozens of people were gunned down in Las Vegas on October 1. There were 58 fatalities in total. Another 422 injuries. That's 480 casualties — 480 casualties — and I'm not even counting the hundreds more injured by trampling or shrapnel. It was the worst mass shooting in modern American history by a mile. It had more casualties than Orlando, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, and Parkland combined — times two. And it was carried out in the middle of a major American city.

Yet that terrible massacre seemed to fade from the headlines rapidly and inexplicably. The country had almost entirely moved on by the beginning of the following week. It seemed to me that we had forgotten about it within three or four days, but I'll say a week just to be safe. The media is so obsessed with Parkland that several of its survivors are now practically household names. Does anyone remember the names of a single one of the Las Vegas survivors? Did any of them do media tours? Did CNN hold a "town hall" about Las Vegas? Was there an extensive conversation about potential law enforcement failures in Las Vegas, as there has been about their failures in Florida? We've all had quite a bit to say about the police officer who waited outside while kids were gunned down, but what about the police officers and armed security who made it to the shooter's hotel room while he was still raining shots down on the crowd, but stood outside the door for an hour before entering?

And that's just one unanswered question that still remains in Las Vegas. There are many more. We still don't know why the shooter did what he did. We still don't know much about his background or his finances or his psychological profile. We still haven't seen any photos or videos of him, despite the hundreds of hours of footage that must exist. We still don't know why the timeline of the shooting changed three times in the first few weeks after the shooting. The lack of answers should increase media attention because they keep the story open and active, but the opposite seems to have occurred. Attention to the story waned as the questions piled up. There are no questions in Parkland, yet there is still plenty of attention.

Why?

I can't answer that question. You might speculate that the media has found Parkland to be more politically useful due to the anti-gun activism from some of the survivors. You might speculate that the media simply had less sympathy for the Vegas victims because they were white country music fans. You might speculate that there are some very powerful forces — Vegas hotels and casinos, namely — interested in burying the Vegas shooting. You might speculate that the unanswered questions just made the story too difficult for our lazy and apathetic society to track. You might come up with a more conspiratorial explanation than any of these I've listed.

I think there could be some truth to all of these theories. There may even be some truth to the conspiracy theories. I don't know. It all just adds up to yet another open question. And, at this point, I'm not sure if we'll ever get answers to any of them.

Because they are children.

 

[Sebastian]

Terror: It isn't just for Muslims!

Far-Right Terror Threat 'Growing' in UK as Four Plots Foiled

The retiring head of counter-terrorism policing in the UK has warned of the growing threat of far-right terrorism. Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, who will retire from the Met Police next month, said four extreme-right terror plots were disrupted last year.

Ten Islamist-inspired plots have been foiled since March last year, he added. In a speech made at Policy Exchange, the Met Police's Mr Rowley also warned that far-right extremists are working in similar ways to Islamist extremists. He said they create intolerance, exploit grievances, and generate distrust of state institutions.

One of the four alleged far-right plots disrupted was that of white supremacist Ethan Stables. Earlier this month, he was convicted of plotting an axe and machete attack on a gay pride event at a pub in Barrow. Mr Rowley said: "Islamist and right-wing extremism is reaching into our communities through sophisticated propaganda and subversive strategies creating and exploiting vulnerabilities that can ultimately lead to acts of violence and terrorism. "Ten conspiracies of an Islamist nature were stopped since the Westminster attack.

"And I can tell you today that over the same period police have been able to prevent a further four extreme, right-wing inspired plots in the UK." He said it was "important we make these figures public in order to illustrate the growth of right-wing extremism".

Referring to the banned group National Action, he said: "For the first time we have a home-grown proscribed white supremacist, neo-Nazi terror group, which seeks to plan attacks and build international networks."

Live investigations
Last year, the security service MI5 joined the fight against the right-wing terrorist threat.

There are currently more than 600 live investigations and more than 3,000 people of interest at any one time. While they have not been involved directly in terrorism, he singled out Tommy Robinson, who founded the English Defence League (EDL), and Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of Britain First, as voices from the far right who stir up tensions.

Mr Rowley told the BBC: "In the noise and focus on the global threat, and what we've wrestled with with Daesh [the Islamic State group], I don't think the change and growth in extreme right-wing terrorist threat has been explained or described well enough - and that's one of the things I wanted to do." Aside from the attempted gay pride attack in Barrow, the other three alleged plots that were foiled last year are yet to come to trial.

One allegedly involved a neo-Nazi buying a machete with the intention of murdering the Labour MP Rosie Cooper.

Image captionMr Rowley oversaw the response to five terror attacks in the UK last year, including at Westminster
Mr Rowley said the ability of extremists and terrorists of all kinds to "ply their trade" through the internet was of great concern. He urged social media companies to do more to combat extremism. "Many of them tried to argue for some that they simply provide pipes, they have no editorial responsibilities," he said. "That argument was always in my view nonsense. They've stopped using that argument. They've started to try and take some responsibility.

"I think to be fair to them, they can't exert editorial control over everything that is published on their sites. "But they can exert a massive amount of control both on the day-to -ay management of it, and I think more in the future about how they design their platforms and their operating systems and their products. "Their products shouldn't simply be designed for maximising profit, they should be designed with a parallel objective around public safety."

'Throw away the key'
Mr Rowley was also asked what should happen to two Londoners suspected of being members of an Islamic State cell - dubbed "the Beatles" by Western media because of their British accents.

The gang was notorious for kidnapping Western hostages and filming their murders - often by beheading. Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh were captured in Syria in January and are accused of links to a string of hostage murders in Iraq and Syria. Mr Rowley said: "The people who have done the most ghastly things overseas, the ones who don't fight to the death, we would all like to see them never able to do anyone any harm ever again.

"Locking them up and throwing away the key would be a great idea."

Mohammed Emwazi, better known as "Jihadi John", was a suspected member of the cell before his death.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43200966