He earned an associate degree in criminal justice technology in 2006. A year later, he was hired by one of the world’s premier private security companies, G4S. And then, in 2009, he got married and bought a home.As if these things might not be chosen by someone with evil plans.
Soon, though, signs of troubles emerged. His wife, an immigrant from Uzbekistan, divorced him in 2011, after he abused her.The desire to sympathize with this man is — for some insane reason — so strong that an abused woman is made the active party. She divorced him. He experienced "troubles."
Two years after that, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was called in after reports from Mr. Mateen’s co-workers that he, the American-born son of Afghan immigrants, had suggested he may have had terrorist ties. The F.B.I. interviewed him twice, but after surveillance, records checks and witness interviews, agents were unable to verify any terrorist links and closed their investigation.That's all very blandly put, but I want more! Why did the FBI fail? What were the reports and what other reports of other terrorist sleepers are processed bureaucratically and left to continue undisturbed until the day they decide to wake up and open fire in a crowded nightclub?
Then, in 2014, the F.B.I. discovered a possible tie between Mr. Mateen and Moner Mohammad Abusalha, who had grown up in nearby Vero Beach and then became the first American suicide bomber in Syria, where he fought with the Nusra Front, a Qaeda-aligned militant group. Again, the F.B.I. closed its inquiry after finding “minimal” contact between the two men. After the terrorist investigations cleared Mr. Mateen, he maintained both his Florida security-officer license and his job....A second investigation! And still nothing! Again, it is amazing — maddening — to think of all the Omar Mateens out there and known to the FBI and nothing is being done to stop them.
ADDED: "LINGO ... 'known wolf': a lone wolf who has been on the radar of law enforcement (apparently including Omar Mateen)."
Posts
155 comments:
Let's all pretend, so no fair using critical thinking!
"That's all very blandly put, but I want more!"
Get used to disappointment.
Again, it is amazing — maddening — to think of all the Omar Mateens out there and known to the FBI and nothing is being done to stop them.
Sigh, you just don't understand the kind of thinking that identity politics requires. He was a registered Democrat, so he couldn't be a homophobe.
Its similar to some of the press Boston Marathon Bombers got isn't it? Wasn't there some article published soon after the bombing wondering what the "US" had done to make them hate us so? That we weren't accepting enough, that if it wasn't for the Islamphobia and racism they would never have been driven to such a thing.
It's so appropriate that those who are screaming the loudest that this person should not have been allowed to own guns are the same ones who would scream the loudest had he been denied permits because of his muslim background. Because that's all the FBI had on him at the time.
It's Major Hassan all over again. His coworkers complained and finally quit because of his behavior but he was Muslim and you know how pervasive "Islamophobia" is in this country. There could not be enough to even fire him from the security guard job. Meanwhile he was transporting illegals from Tucson to Phoenix where they could be released into the community and disappear.
I wonder how many jihadis he assisted ?
Can you imagine if the other guy had been texting and calling him 50 times a day ?
We do need to know more about the FBI efforts and lack of efforts in this matter. But one thing that must be done immediately is quarantine the United States from immigrates from Muslim countries. There are too many radical Islamic terrorists and they only need to be right once. Islam is the problem.
But don't worry, immigrants and refugees will be thoroughly vetted.
As long as you understand what they mean by "thoroughly" the statement is true. They will review all the information readily at hand, which in most cases is none, and as long as interviewees complain about being scapegoated by mean right wingers we'll let them in. After all this establishes the most important factor in immigration: political support.
In the end, we want really concrete evidence to do anything. And we should. Even this continues my belief, tragic as it is, that thousands of guilty should go free to avoid imprisoning one innocent.
Given that, I think, he was a US citizen, without some seriously concrete stuff, they can do nothing. Now if he wasn't a citizen, then yes, should've been expelled post haste.
The real responsibility for this atrocity lies with Barack Obama. We had won in Iraq and he pulled our troops out. The really STUPID mistake by Obama was not crushing ISIS when it was forming and then moving from Syria to Iraq. This was when Obama viewed ISIS as the JV.
Obama should forever excoriated for his "ISIS is the JV" comment. Hillary also on the hook for being so STUPID about ISIS.
You honestly have to ask why? It's because of the political-correctness agenda set by the Democrats, and doubled-down on by Obama. This is what you voted for in 2008.
"Known wolf." I'm sure that this has never happened before, though.
It's small stuff with a very high false-alarm rate. It's better to spend resources detecting larger groups with larger projects that could inflict actual serious damage.
You can't stop small stuff. There's too much of it.
The news biz happens to like it because of audience ratings, but that's the dysfunction of the American tastes in entertainment.
If you don't let Muslims in, of course, the need for domestic security falls a lot. Only Trump is proposing that.
We have to stand in airport security lines for 2 hours, even though DHS gets about 3% of the test bombs they send through the system. But it's ok to inconvenience us for the theatre.
In the meantime, the FBI or State Department has known about all of these shooters, or in the case of San Bernadino, allowed a radical woman to move here.
If the government is going to be so bad at what they do, why not let the rest of us just be free?
I mean, is there anything more ironic than the fact this guy worked a metal detector at a government building?
I hope this causes DHS to take a deep look at all the people in the security apparatus. What a great place to hide and do damage!
(as if the last two airplane bombs hadn't been warning enough. The people in security jobs need to be very highly vetted)
End "birthright citizenship". In no way does the 14th Amendment demand it. Those born in the US to alien parents are not "subject to the jurisdiction of the US" as described in the Amendment. "Subject to the jurisdiction of the US within the meaning of the 14th Amendment" is clearly defined on page 693 of Wong Kim Ark (169 US 649, 693 (1898)) as on born to LEGAL RESIDENT PARENTS. "Jurisdiction" is used THREE times in the Amendment--- "subject to", "within", and "under". They mean different things. Mateen was born "within the jurisdiction" (within the territory of the US), NOT "subject to the jurisdiction" (the child of legal US resident parents, as defined by Wong Kim Ark).
"Birthright citizenship" is the cause and the magnet for all the immigration ills that are befalling America, as Congress long ago decided to allow birth within the US to aliens to be considered as "subject to the jurisdiction." What it is is kidnapping, and creates all sorts of ills, starting with the fact that children may be considered US citizens while their parents are not. We are now experiencing "birth tourism", a whole industry built around bringing pregnant alien mothers to the US for the sole purpose of birthing the child on US soil for the attainment of US citizenship.
In NO WAY are those born to alien parents within the US "subject to the jurisdiction" and Mateen proves it. He is beholden to ISLAM, NOT the US, just like many of his ilk.
Of course, since this is a "law blog", run by a Constitutional "law prof" one might think that this discussion may take place, but alas, she is merely another of the Intelligista inhabiting the Ivory Tower of Academia, educating no one, and reaping the rewards of supporting the agenda of the corrupt political class.
The FIRST thing Trump must do after defeating the criminal Hillary Clinton in a landslide is to END "birthright citizenship".
The FIRST thing Trump must do after defeating the criminal Hillary Clinton in a landslide is to END "birthright citizenship".
It'd be great, but he cannot do so, sadly. Unless he appoints several justices willing to do so.
Mick.
And did you know that for decades after the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted that all of the Native Americans born on US soil were not US citizens? They were members of their tribes. It took a statute to change it. A statute could end birthright citizenship. It would, of course, be challenged and end up in the Supreme Court.
We have to stand in airport security lines for 2 hours, even though DHS gets about 3% of the test bombs they send through the system. But it's ok to inconvenience us for the theatre.
An aside- This weekend I was on a Jetblue flight that was departure delayed while gate agents argued with a man and woman that had boarded the plane but the woman did not have a boarding pass and was not on the flight manifest.
The woman had passed the security checkpoint and boarded the plane without a boarding pass.
The JetBlue agent took a credit card, walked up the gate ramp and printed her a ticket. She was allowed to continue on the flight.
So the son of Muslim refugees. Hmm...
I wonder if there is a time limit on such investigations of Muslims to avoid criticism of law enforcement that effectively keeps them from proceeding properly or reaching appropriate conclusions
The press is doing everything possible to obfuscate the fact that he was Muslim and this was an act of TERRORISM...They want it to be about the gun and how all evil AR15's should be banned. Under different leadership, the fault would lie with the perpetrator of the act and not the instrument.
Yes, it is maddening and frightening.
I am also worried that this attack may inspire others against like targets. Apparently police are too, since they are guarding some high-profile targets.
WTF. Hard to imagine this is America. Reading about the "surge" in refugees isn't helping my digestion either. They are not being properly vetted, nor can they be.
I suspected this would happen, but not so soon. We have to call it what it is and become very serious about combatting it. I don't think gun control is going to suffice. A determined attacker may use bombs and arson to produce a similar or worse effect. Plus gun control is not working at all in Europe.
It is the second generation Muslim scenario that Derb and Sailer have both written about. Oftentimes the first generation comes here legitimately for freedom and to work hard and earn their way. It is the second generation that radicalizes. Solution: Don't let the first generation in.
===================================
The reaction to this that I saw on my facebook account was depressing to say the least. Apparently Christians, Jews and the NRA actually shot all those people. Also, I learned that the underlying problem has nothing to do with Islam; it is Tank; he is a "racist" and a "hater" and that is why 50+ people are dead. Actually, I did not need to go to facebook; several Althouse commenters said the same.
Freedom
Multiculturalism
Public Safety
Pick two.
rhhardin - 50 dead is not "small stuff".
THat's crazy, rehajm.
IT's funny because that's the way it used to be. Didn't People's Airline (was that the name?) have you buy tickets once on board?
But how does that happen now? And what does it say about all the stress we are forced to go through?
I don't think gun control is going to suffice.
How effective is gun control without border control?
What is maddening is that no one will be held accountable for the failures of the FBI.
I wonder who the government agencies gave a harder time to: Mateen, or Tea Party groups applying to the IRS for tax exempt status.
President Obama, after being warned repeatedly by his advisers about the threat of another terror attack on U.S. soil, said in an interview two months ago [Summer of 2010] that the United States could "absorb" another strike.
We can, the Brits withstood the Blitz, but who wants to live like that?
@rehajm - Dang. The airline has a lot of people by the ying-yang, but I think I might have pitched a royal fit. I'd have gotten off that fight and demanded JetBlue get me on a different flight asap - no charge. And I'd make darn sure what they did made the rounds of social media.
But we all know it is just for show - the illusion of safety we have. Best place for a bomb is right there at the the security line where everybody is queued up. I laugh when I hear "if you see an unattended bag please notify...". Suicide bombers stay with the bag.
I don't think it's a failure of the FBI so much as a policy.
The Tsarnaev brothers, the Underwear bombers, The San Bernardino wife, Maj Hasaan-- these can't all be failures so much as policy decisions. Even Benghazi happened because appearances were more important than actual safety.
Good thing he wasn't a Wackenhut guard at Port St. Lucie Nuclear Power plant. If he had been, he would have had a fully automatic M-16 to wipe out the Control room staff and melt the place down.
Then President Obama could lament the Right Wing hate of nuclear power and how we are all responsible or something.
Orlando, was said by his ex-wife to have suffered from mental illness.
Free-ranging insane.
It's a program even the FBI will not confront, as no one wants to bring back the insane asylums, as the victim body count is low - statistically speaking.
How did it work out for the Romans when they got tired of defending their Mediterranean shipping? What hare was paying ransoms? Or their breadbasket wheat fields? Liberals read only history that has been carefully sliced, diced, and collated to produce the correct conclusion by people who should know better. Just read the Odyssey, for example, to see what the world has been like throughout history, then imagine that we can just ignore threats.
The news used to be full of an accounting of atrocities happening all over the world. I remember lots of news stories about what was happening during apartheid, about the USSR v Afghan war, about the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, about the IRA, and about Basque separatists.
But it seems like the news doesn't really cover what ISIS is doing, or how often Boko Haram kidnaps children and uses them as sex slaves and suicide bombers. I maintain this is pressure coming from the White House, to make Americans not turn against Muslims, which is not what I think our biggest problem is, but its's something the WH has always worried about.
And because Americans don't know that much about ISIS except when they behead American Journalists, we don't hear about what they do to gay people. And so the attack yesterday is confusing to people wondering if this is a "hate" crime (like we had to wonder about San Bernadino being due to work place harassment)
BTW, why is the left not "up in arms" about Obama repeatedly mentioning God and prayer yesterday?
Mullah Obama craftily ordered the FBI to lose all investigations and surveillance into Jihadists on a short time limit or be fired.Islam is at war and has its agent ordering that we lose the war.
PC run amok at the White House and Dim party
Of course they're trying hard to deflect blame. He killed gays! This is a major problem for the apologists.
rhhardin - 50 dead is not "small stuff".
On an average day, 10,000 Americans die. Every one is important to somebody. Not to everybody.
50 is way down in the noise, except for the entertainment factor.
According to his high school classmates, this guy cheered the 9-11 attacks as they were happening. He made public statements of support for ISIS. His father has broadcast his support for the Taliban. Absent a clear declaration that the US is at war with Wahabist Islam, these public declarations are merely the exercise of free speech. The FBI can do nothing but wait for a crime to happen. His employer, a federal security contractor, would never risk firing a Muslim, for fear of the financial consequences.
Identity politics has paralyzed the establishments of both parties to the point where we cannot name the enemy. The first concern expressed publicly by PC types in both parties and the media after 9-11 and every other terror attack is that there be no "backlash" against Muslims. Religion of Peace, Not all Muslims...blah, blah, blah. Everyone of these terrorists-- Mohammed Atta, Major Hassan, the San Bernadino shooters, this scumbag-- operated in a PC safe zone created by Bush and Obama.
Everyone, especially in government, knows the score: if you say something, you place yourself at risk of being labelled Islamophobic.
The answer isn't easy. He was an American citizen, due the same rights as the rest of us. That means that the FBI couldn't legally arrest him unless they had probable cause to believe that he had committed a crime. And administratively, since he was Muslm, and Obama seems to be an Islamophile, they probably needed more than that. Why not put him on a no-gun list? Imagine what activist bureaucrats could do with that. And that's easy - just think what IRS employees did with Tea Party organizations, with, of course, tacit support of the White House. Am I paranoid about the federal govt these days? You betcha. It is easy with Obama as President and progressively oriented govt bureaucrats running amok. If the IRS gets the power to legally detain citizens indefinitely, or even deny them guns legally, without probable cause, in order to prevent this sort of thing, it will ultimately be turned against enemies of the state, which ultimately means against enemies of the govt bureaucrats running it. And that means against you and me.
Mick said...End "birthright citizenship".
Well, I've been known to blather-on about this. Basically this was an important immigration reward, and designed to populate the country. Very important after the Louisiana Purchase, and the extermination of the savage natives.
Congress can turn this off in a day.
Sorry, I meant FBI, not IRS, getting the power to put people on a no-gun list.
Apparently in the 21st Century there is a new and singular subspecies of humans circulating among us. Known as "haters", they can be identified by their distinctive appearance.
It is these haters who are responsible for hate crimes, no one else, for no other reason, which is why we're comfortable creating this circular category of inhabitants.
Would someone hand me a towel? My hands are still damp from washing them.
"So if the FBI had caught this Muslim fanatic before he shot you at the Gay Club we'd still be going on as if there was nothing wrong, right?"
"Yeah. But our marriage would be a lie."
"A lie? I think I could've lived with that."
"But don't you see, honey? I'm Free now. YOU'RE Free."
"I'm not Free, I just found out my husband likes to get his cock sucked by men, that's all."
"Honey..."
"What were you doing when the shooting broke out? Were you trying to get with some guy? Some gay guy?"
"Honey..."
"Were you?"
"If you must know, I was sucking a guy's cock in the bathroom stall."
"You were sucking a guy's cock?"
"Well, yeah. It's one of the things we gay guys do."
"How many cocks HAVE you sucked? How many times have you come home and kissed me on the fucking lips, right after sucking some guy's cock?"
"I always at least had a breath-mint..."
"How many?!"
"Dozens, I guess. Maybe a hundred."
"Great. A Wacko shoots up a club and I get a husband who has sucked a hundred cocks."
"It's silly, now, but I thought in some weird way that you'd be happy for me now that I was truly Happy. Funny, huh?"
"Funny? Funny to me now would be cutting your gay balls off in this hospital bed. What are we going to tell the kids?"
"It won't be easy, but we'll tell them the Truth: their Father is a homosexual."
"'It won't be easy'? I think it would've been a whole lot easier if you had been shot dead. THAT would've been be easy. THAT I could explain."
"Honey..."
"Have you sucked any male nurse's cock since you've been here? It seems you have a need to always be sucking the cock."
"Now you're just being angry."
"And who sent the flowers, anyway?"
"Just a friend..."
"A friend? You mean some guy who you sucked his cock?"
"Uh, yeah. But Pedro is a nice guy, I'd bet you'd even like him."
"Pedro? I'd LIKE Pedro?"
"Honey, I think I need to get some rest..."
"Hi Pedro! I'm the Wife of the Guy who sucks your cock. I am so Happy to finally meet you..."
"Please..."
"Breath-mints. Fucking breath-mints..."
I am Laslo.
Bruce Hayden said...
The answer isn't easy....
Part of the answer is easy. Don't invite/allow Muslims into your first world Western nation. Just don't let them in. They add nothing to our country/culture of benefit. Try basing immigration policy on what is good for present Americans.
I'm a veteran and so are many of my coworkers. Some of them still serve in the reserves. Last Friday, I had a long conversation with one of them, a high-ranking intel officer in the reserves. His primary duty is tracking foreign fighters in Europe. There are thousands of them. He noted that some 73% of the "refugees" pouring into Europe are unaccompanied military-aged men. His work is fed to international intelligence and police forces who're trying to keep track of these people.
When I asked him about the US, he said there are at a minimum hundreds of foreign fighters here as well. The FBI is trying to keep track of them but between the sheer numbers (more coming every week, too. Thanks, Obama!) and being hindered by political correctness, the job is extremely difficult.
These attacks, whether coordinated with groups like ISIS or self-motivated, are a form of asymmetric warfare. There's very little we can do to stop an attack by a lone-wolf (or "known-wolf" as in Orlando) or small group who're willing to die in the process. There are so many ways they can hit us (we discussed several) that it isn't even funny. Political correctness means that anyone who sees something and says something will likely be branded as a racist Islamophobe, so they keep quiet and people die needlessly.
Tucker Carlson made a simple recommendation recently Tank. He said we should only bring in immigrants who will benefit America in some way.
I'm old school. I still think the FBI coming to my place of employment to investigate someone is a BAD thing.
A second investigation! And still nothing! Again, it is amazing — maddening — to think of all the Omar Mateens out there and known to the FBI and nothing is being done to stop them.
Sheesh. If he didn't have any terrorist ties and was simply a loan wolf (who legally purchased firearms), what the hell could the FBI do.
Look at some of your commenters. A good number of them continually post racist comments, are ready to start a race war and are armed to the teeth. Yet I bet they aren't being investigated by the FBI. It is pretty hard to separate cranks from actually dangerous people.
But don't worry, immigrants and refugees will be thoroughly vetted.
This guy was a natural born U.S. citizen.
Last Friday, I had a long conversation with one of them, a high-ranking intel officer in the reserves.
I guarantee you your friend is full of shit. He is not an intelligence officer, he is just talking out his ass.
If he were an actual intelligence officer, he wouldn't be discussing sensitive and possibly classified information with you.
I was getting ready to write a diatribe about all the special interest groups and delusional people who voted for Obama. Especially our otherwise intelligent hostess. Then I read Laslo Spatulas post.
CNN is interviewing a woman from GLAAD, and apparently the action that must now be taken is to pass anti-discrimination laws where LBGT people can still be fired "just for being gay!". So we have our confederate flag issue.
Every shooting seems to follow the same script: on the Left, the fault is clearly guns, and if the victims are part of an oppressed class, we can also blame racism/homophobia/sexism. On the Right, the problem is totally unavoidable, in which case the only solution is more guns so people can shoot back, unless of course the killer is Muslim in which case the killing was totally avoidable and only our PC overlords prevented us from doing what needed to be done.
But the fact is we cannot realistically prevent these shootings, because (1) we have a LOT of guns in this country, and you can't unring that bell--even under strict gun control we cannot do much to prevent guns from getting in the hands of those who want to use them; (2) we are just simply a violent society--some other countries with high per-capita gun ownership rates (Switzerland, Canada, Israel) do not have nearly the same rate of shootings as we do--and no one has adequately suggested why we're so violent or what could ever reduce that; and (3) we are a massive and free society, that will never be able to take adequate precautions to keep a vile killer from doing this if they have the will.
And while it's understandable that everyone thinks their own preferred solution (matching up with their politics) will fix things, it just won't. We can beef up the FBI, let more citizens defend themselves, and track certain "red flag" people (and I favor all of those things) but let's not kid ourselves--these things are simply going to keep happening.
How many people were in that club? Why didn't a few of them man up and jump the shooter? The odds were at least 100 to 1. Sure, some of them would have been killed or wounded. But some--many--of them were killed and wounded anyway.
On that French train all it took was two resolute Americans to stop the would-be shooter. Were there not two resolute Americans in a gay night club?
Asking a question that needs to be asked.
Still, we have a big problem here, and a big part of it is political correctness, at least partially driven by Dem power politics. Unremarked until lately, Muslims have become a major Dem consistuancy, voting for Dem at levels seen only in the Black communities, and capable of shoveling far more money into Dem coffers. Maybe even more money than the Dems' traditional moneybags - the Jews. Some of the illegal campaign contributions flowing to Obama eight years ago appear to have come from the Gulf states. And the Clintons haven't been the least bit shy in taking in millions from the same sources. With so much power in top Dem circles, it should be no surprise that it has become harder and harder to voice reasonable suspicions about potential terrorism, when Muslims are involved. So, we had Ft Hood, the Somalis in the Twin Cities, San Bernadino, and now Orlando this weekend, where people were worse than ignored when voicing reasonable suspicions about Muslims here becoming terrorists. They weren't just ignored - those voicing these suspicions were often driven off, and even fired. Political correctness, driven by Dem party power politics, run amok.
Look at some of your commenters. A good number of them continually post racist comments, are ready to start a race war and are armed to the teeth.
I'm going to need some links for that.
I just read that the slaughter was only "alleged" to be committed by the Muslim.
It's funny how the press is scared of calling a spade a spade, but then I guess they don't want to end up like Gawker...
@Larry J and Michael K/
Yes, it really is the nationally collective suicidally naive PC attitude that gives us a Major Hasan and this guy while our intelligence, police and military agencies tip-toe thru endless career-ending PC minefields. The answer is very simple. No Muslims to keep track of; no acts of terrorism. We must stop ALL muslim immigration now! Islam as a social construct en toto is TOTALLY incompatible with Western Civilization.
Brando,
"some other countries with high per-capita gun ownership rates (Switzerland, Canada, Israel) do not have nearly the same rate of shootings as we do"
I guess you mean aside from the Islamic terror attacks in Israel.
"Freder Frederson said...
Look at some of your commenters. A good number of them continually post racist comments, are ready to start a race war and are armed to the teeth. Yet I bet they aren't being investigated by the FBI. It is pretty hard to separate cranks from actually dangerous people."
Names please. And provide your work. We'll wait.
Look for Trump to demand that we declare war on ISIS. That really is a serious solution in that anyone expressing support for ISIS could then be charged with treason. It is traditional for the President to ask Congress to declare war. Of course Obama will never do that, he being the one who got us into this mess. Hmmmm...wait a minute. Nah, he's not that clever.
Roughcoat said...Why didn't a few of them man up and jump the shooter?
There probably was zero men with military or police training. This is not something civilians do. They are concerned about other matters in life.
In the military, they spend weeks taking a civilian, and demonstrating over and over again, that teamwork, and willpower, is more survivable then running or digging a hole.
My men don't dig foxholes. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep moving. We'll win this war, but we'll win it only by fighting and showing [them] that we've got more guts than they have or ever will have.
We're not just going to shoot the bastards, we're going to rip out their living goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy [removed] cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking-basket.
Nope, it would be nice if it could be bred, but it has to be a trained instinct.
"I guess you mean aside from the Islamic terror attacks in Israel."
Yeah, I wasn't counting those because I'm referring to where the citizens (Israeli citizens, including Israeli arabs) have high gun ownership rates, and among those citizens there are very few shootings (compared to U.S. on a per-capita basis).
It's not just that we have so many guns, it's that we apparently really like to use them on one another.
Keep in mnd that "oppressed minority" and the like are just camouflage for what is really going on - they are mostly just Dem party power groups. Most everything else is just a smoke screen. I was wondering the other day why antisemitism was being allowe to surge around the world, and even in this country. And, I think that the answer is that there are maybe 50 or so Muslims in the world, with many willing to kill for his religion, for every Jew. And the Muslims have many billions of oil wealth behind them. All it probably took in this country was the point where Muslims provided more Dem votes and more Dem money than the Jews did. Of course, much of the Muslim money is illegal, since it comes ultimately from foreign sources, but, hey, that's no problem if you control the Dept of Justice.
The company he worked for, G4S, had to have known about his FBI investigation. If the FBI had come to my work and told them they were investigating me for anything, that would be my last day at that job. How could anyone get a security clearance with an FBI investigation in your background? It seems like a huge red flag.
The world is full of self-hating losers who go off the rails and look for a cause to go out in a blaze of glory rather than admit to their own inadequacies.
Tell me, Freder, what race was Omar Mateen?
Coupe may be right that the big reason that there weren't a bunch of the guys there work together and rush the shooter. Heck, they could have started by throwing their drink glasses at him. He is probably right that the number of guys trained to act that way was likely very low. So, my question is whether that may be partly a result of the military's traditional anti-gay orientation, only recently officially reversed, and therefore the percentage of vets was significantly below that of the general populace as a result? Or, does male homosexuals trend statistically to be less classically "male" in this regard, and more passive?
Every family that wants to host a foreign exchange student goes through an FBI background check. A single DUI no matter how long ago disqualifies the entire family.
That this guy presumably passed a background check is perhaps not entirely strange. There are plenty of jobs for which I assume he could pass. But security officer? Now that is strange indeed.
AllenS:
Lefties like Freder have created a whole list of new races. Our science loving lefties have now made Mexicans a race! In fact all Hispanics! So why not Afghans, Poles, Norwegians?
We must be sensitive to radical Islam and Islamic men. They are delicate and nobody wants to be called a racist by some leftist mofo. Besides, we should be watching those evil Christians. They are the real problem.
Suppose you had a nest of rattle snakes in the woods behind your house, and every now and then one of them wandered into your yard and bit one of your children. Would you protect your children by (1) trying to devise a method of identifying which snakes are the wandering kind, vs the stay-in-the-woods kind, and dealing with the wanderers one-on-one;(2) trying to develop a barrier that would prevent the wanderers from ever getting into your yard; and (3) accepting that despite your best efforts you can't stop every snake so every now and then you're going to lose a child. Why, no, you're probably going to go into the woods and destroy every snake nest that you can find because the only way to truly protect your children is to eliminate the threat at its source.
The ISIS problem is no different. The West cannot identify which Muslims are threats and which are not, and even if it could it can't erect a barrier that would keep every last one of the threats out. So, the choices boil down to accepting an atrocity on Western soil every now and then or cleaning out the ISIS snake nests. Destroying the nests would have the added benefit of solving the refugee issue the only way it can truly be solved - eliminating the need for people to seek refuge. Soon, the Europeans are going to be fed up to point where they will help, too, as will some of the moderate Arab nations. Of course, it would take leadership from the US in order to put it together, and we don't have any of that at the moment. But, maybe next year.
This is not something civilians do.
You're wrong about that. Totally wrong. As for "it has to be a trained instinct": First: "trained instinct" is a contradiction in terms. If it's an instinct, it doesn't have to trained in order to manifest; because it's innate. Training will refine and sharpen the instinct. But with respect to self defense and defending one's family, etc.: that's innate.
I think you have the equation precisely reversed. Self-defense is innate and it cannot be bred out of any person. But with sufficient cultural conditioning--"training," if you will--the imperative for self-defense can be overridden and sublimated. Granted, this process of overriding and sublimation is necessary, to a certain extent, for a civilized society to function. But only to a certain extant.
I was born and raised in a time and a place where boys were brought up to go to the defense of those who were in trouble. This was considered one of the manly virtues that boys were expected to internalize and cultivate. E.g.:
"On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; To help other people at all times; To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight."
Also: "A Scout is: Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent."
"There probably was zero men with military or police training. This is not something civilians do." But see United 93 above Shanksville PA. As for police training, look at what they do: wait 3 hours outside a bar with a single shooter before moving in behind tanks.
Yeah, I wasn't counting those because I'm referring to where the citizens (Israeli citizens, including Israeli arabs) have high gun ownership rates, and among those citizens there are very few shootings (compared to U.S. on a per-capita basis).
Most other well-armed societies are also REALLY homogenous.
If only whites had guns in the US, are shooting numbers would also be really, really low.
Peggy Coffey said... If the FBI had come to my work and told them they were investigating me for anything, that would be my last day at that job.
And after they fired you and you filed a huge lawsuit for discrimination and wrongful termination and put G4S out of business, how would other security companies treat the same situation? The FBI never charged him with anything. Imagine what a great case CAIR would have made to to public (and a jury) had he been fired.
Now, let's all pretend PC doesn't hurt anyone--that it's just a matter of being kind & polite.
Althouse,
Regarding your "Added" - You know the "lone wolf" excuse has outlived its usefulness when even someone at Politico subjects it to ridicule.
I love Mark Steyn's dismemberment of the lone wolf canard describing such people as something like members in good standing of the International Brotherhood of Lone Wolves.
"Dad?"
"Yes, Lance?"
"People say you were shot in a Gay Nightclub."
"That's true, Lance."
"And Mom says you've sucked a LOT of cock."
"Well, your Mother may exaggerate from time to time..."
"Does this mean you're Gay, Dad?"
"Yes, Son. Yes it does. Your Father is a homosexual."
"But you married Mom."
"Yes, I did. When I was younger I was unsure of myself, and who I really was."
"But now you like to suck cock."
"I'd rather say that I like to have intimate relationships with other men."
"But Mom says you've sucked HUNDREDS of cocks. Is that intimate?"
"Lance, it might be hard for you to understand right now..."
"Does this mean I'm going to be gay when I get older? Because I don't want to suck cocks right now."
"No it doesn't mean that..."
"I like looking at naked girls and jacking off. That's normal, right?"
"Son, there really isn't anything such as 'normal': people are just the way they are."
"Dad, I have a secret."
"You can tell me, Lance: I am still your Father."
"Well... I watched some Gay Porn yesterday. Just to better try to understand all this."
"And what did you think?"
"All of those guys had BIG cocks."
"They come in all sizes, Lance."
"But you do what those men in the video did?"
"Probably, son: probably."
"So you've had two men fucking you in the ass at the same time while you sucked another man's cock?"
"No, Lance: I haven't done anything like that."
"But would you? Like, if the three guys were there, and that's what they wanted to do."
"I'm not sure I can answer that, Lance..."
"Dad?"
"Yes, Son?"
"Do you mind if I stick to Straight Porn? It makes a lot more sense to me."
"That's fine, Lance. I want you to be who you are."
"Because I really like it when the guy ties up the woman and puts a ball-gag in her mouth and paper-clips on her nipples..."
"That might be too... 'advanced' for you."
"Dad?"
"Yes?"
"I'm glad we had this talk."
"Me too, Son: me too..."
I am Laslo.
Freder Frederson said...
But don't worry, immigrants and refugees will be thoroughly vetted.
"This guy was a natural born U.S. citizen."
No he wasn't. He was born of alien parents within the US, and is the perfect example of why those like him are not POTUS eligible natural born Citizens.
THE left chose islam over gays.
David Begley said...
Mick.
"And did you know that for decades after the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted that all of the Native Americans born on US soil were not US citizens? They were members of their tribes. It took a statute to change it. A statute could end birthright citizenship. It would, of course, be challenged and end up in the Supreme Court".
Which statute gave Native Americans born on US soil US citizenship?
Freder Frederson said...
[But don't worry, immigrants and refugees will be thoroughly vetted.]
This guy was a natural born U.S. citizen.
Yes, and citizens are easier to investigate because their lives are within our jurisdiction. Yet even while we can't investigate the easy cases left wing politicians claim we can satisfactorily investigate foreigners from countries not cooperative with us and in a civil war to boot.
It amazes me how little those on the left understand, but this is the idiot who claims Althouse commenters desire a race war.
from what I'm reading he worked in some capacity as a security guard for DHS.
Also, he had a gun permit beause he was in security. So gun control would not prevent him from getting guns, unless the fact that he was questioned by the CIA or FBI three times were somehow noted.
Being questioned three times does seem like a lot of times, considering most people I know have never been questioned once. And as Goldfinger said "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence. The third time is enemy action" It is baffling that he was questioned so many times and yet nothing happened.
The Tsarnaev brother who carried out the attack in boston was also questioned. And again, nothing happened. What are they doing over there? How is it that they drop the ball so consistently?
Mick said...
No he wasn't. He was born of alien parents within the US, and is the perfect example of why those like him are not POTUS eligible natural born Citizens.
You have to admit Freder was right about the cranks.
"A second investigation! And still nothing! Again, it is amazing — maddening — to think of all the Omar Mateens out there and known to the FBI and nothing is being done to stop them."
Althouse, maybe you should set aside your liberal faith in the boundless efficacy of government and ask yourself what exactly could have been "done to stop them". If you know any lawyers, one of them might be able to explain it to you. It is not illegal to be a Hell's Angel, or a Crip, or a Muslim.
The company he worked for, G4S, had to have known about his FBI investigation.
Congress needs to look into what directive the FBI has about such investigations. Are they too lenient? Do they not do follow up? Is there no way to find out if people you've questioned about terrorism have bought a gun or got a job in security?
This all starts with the most of you unwilling to trust your government, for good reason it turns out, because it's so much larger than it need be to do the minimum essential job, Jobs that only it can do. Say their only job was protecting you and raising the funds necessary to do this. In Jefferson's era, it was all paid for by customs duty only. Government was a tiny tiny burden on your citizens. Everyone had free will, they studied your bible back then and understood Paul’s second epistle demanded the smallest government possible because anything coerced, good or bad behavior means nothing towards a soul’s salvation. Interesting that this is exactly what pTb and the evangelical preacher agreed was the most important concept in the New Testament, you could toss the rest as entertainment. A small government can be trusted more because it can't do very much and is easier to watch by fewer. So George Washington could and did spy on his own citizens so he and you could keep your country in the face of terrible odds against. This is the same stupidity we saw in 9-11, when Ms. Reno said the spies and police should not talk to each other, and they would and careers ended when they used their own intellect and judgement, and the spies had better never look inside the country, or any U.S. person anywhere, with U.S. loosely defined as lawyers tend to do for any organization. Draw the lines of the rules increasingly more conservatively. You get what you sow. Another challenge if you can't trust your government (if you can't trust them replace them with someone you can, but after a certain size you can't contain the trust envelope. So you must reduce your government to no larger than your largest company, even smaller, a tiny fraction of the number of people your governments at all levels employ. Which you just might be able to supervise.
And some time ago you started to prefer suicide by car taking many innocents with them, rather than allowing your people have guns, even offering some incentive to wear them to clubs and on plains so they can both kill themselves easily harming no one else nor can they defend themselves whenever civil society drops below some norm, for instance when you can't leave your homes or cars unlocked or children walk or ride their bike and play in a park unprotected. Not a problem in homogenous places Sweden, most of Minnesota or Japan where barmen still make change from stacks of cash on the bar top and don’t need a cash register.. Or a vault under the counter with a slit to slide twenty dollar bills through.
You might be more like us where we can read everyone's thoughts. You're very close to it already given every one of you including those most rabid in the fear of your government are already living in an open curtains world when you sell yourself and your soul to obtain a better price if not free, from all your big data reliant companies. If the government could be trusted to swim in all this same data which by definition profiles there'd be many less Arab children afraid to go to school this morning knowing because of their appearance and family history that their classmates will be looking at them in fear, if not in anger asking “mommy what happened? Why do why won’t they play with me, why do they hate me?”. I've a lot more, Gramma is snorting about me being verbose when I'm angry to tears. You idiots.
Blogger David Begley said...
Mick.
And did you know that for decades after the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted that all of the Native Americans born on US soil were not US citizens? They were members of their tribes.
No David, we have been over this before.
Indians born on reservations were not born in the United States as the reservations were considered sovereign nations. (Although bounded by the US) They were not subject to US law and thus excluded under 14A.
Indians born off the reservation, within the US, who were subject to US law were natural born citizens regardless of tribal membership.
Birthright citizenship is not the problem or even a problem. At least not enough to change the very structure of the United States over.
John Henry
Roughcoat
Yes, there was a time when men ran to the sound of guns, when 320 people would have among them enough willing to risk themselves to take down the one. Now we teach our boys to run, to hide, to "shelter in place" to pretend to be dead.
This guy reloaded. Again and again. And those pauses were used to run away.
A question I would like to see addressed is how the father came to be in the US. Was he admitted legally? Details?
Was it via CIA connection like the Tsarnovs? Normal immigration process?
The father seems like something of a nutjob himself, claiming to be president of Afghanistan. Had the father not been admitted, the kid would not have been a problem.
So one important question is should the father have been admitted? If here illegally, why is he still here? If legally, why is he allowed to publicly support the Taliban on radio and to raise money for them (Apperently)?
John Henry
John Henry
Roughcoat said......"trained instinct" is a contradiction in terms.
Yes, I agree, poor choice of words. I meant "trained response".
(rest of 4k characters, continuing) You Fools. You write these rules saying "you will not spy on yourself," but all these companies can, and you're surprised when your government does obey all these rules, no use of intellect or judgement permitted. We took the easy way out. We declared thoughts speech, protected by the courts, inadmissible in front of a jury, like nearly all of your states have read their constitution or written law decades ago as part of the guarantee to prohibit self-incrimination. You could do the same declare your bits speech, make your federal government obey the same constraints on speech and bits, (the Feds never accepted limits on even speech) and after your people trust you that you won't abuse this power, maybe a decade, then your government might be able to use the same data you use commercially to protect you. Until then these children will go to bed crying. Granted this means you have to give up on prosecuting most white collar crime, save where there is human victim with standing, or overwhelming circumstantial evidence. So prosecution of many crimes and laws need to be rethought. Insider trading and many things you call conspiracy where rather than the an you punish speech or speech in email or un registered and recorded documents today.
A small price to avoid these children going to bed crying. So the ability to prosecute hate crimes and most regulation offenses disappears. Too bad.. Prosecutors and U.S. attorneys have to work on the 5 hard cases out of 20, the rest being easy because they can scare the defendant into a plea bargain because of the pounds of paper and wiretaps the FBI brings to the table. This is what happens when your career is measured by arrests and convictions rather than convictions in front of a jury. No jury, no justice. When this was argued out in your states a quarter century ago everyone cried crocodile tears that investigation and conviction would be so hard crime would skyrocket, Instead it went down because prosecutors had to work on the hard cases and not the normal human desire to work on the easier ,the simple first letting the rest fall off the table. Same as you’re silly view of not letting people defend themselves and not treating all violent crime as the same as murder, which it is, murder and death you can deal with as a species, death is always with you, violent crime kills the soul and makes the best of you slaves to their fears, no different than your worst slave holders of a past era.
You're not very far from requiring airline passengers to check in the day before their flight and sleep overnight in barracks just to deal with the next generation of in-body implanted bombs because your government can't be trusted to the degree you trust the alphabet company. Then at the next event just outlaw travel together which will have the overwhelming support of your religion that worships dirt. Sad that your British CEO contributed to these death and suffering of so many by being party to amplifying your fears of government doing the only job it should do and should be limited to, if only for a better marketing logo that means nothing in every other country, since most are dictatorships. He could have had both if he'd only listened to those from the Queen that came calling on him to try to explain the facts of life to him. You idiots. No more popcorn please. Will be fun to watch your pTb give your elites and establishment a clyster, one after the other and prove that peace through strength still means something. To say nothing of a backbone of steel rather than spaghetti.
Michael:
Yes. My point exactly.
The men in that nightclub were trained--brought up--to be cowards, and they acted accordingly.
"We hold position in this plain of the close-armoured Trojans,
bent back against the sea, and far from the land of our fathers.
Salvation's light is in our hands' work, not the mercy of battle."
-- (Iliad, 15.733-741, Lattimore trans)
robother said...But see United 93
They were going-up against box-cutters, not bullets.
My wife can handle box-cutter terrorists...
They were going-up against box-cutters, not bullets.
They would have gone up against nothing if they had rushed him while he paused to reload.
The two Americans on the French train: they were going up against bullets. That didn't stop them.
Mick,
If Omar's mother were a US citizen at the time of his birth, would you consider Omar a citizen? (Like Ted Cruz)And if so would you shut up?
I don't know if she was or is a citizen or not. I can't find any info on her in a quick search.
John Henry
Which statute gave Native Americans born on US soil US citizenship?
The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.
Mick,
Re Wong, you might also want to look at the Nishakawa case. Nishakawa was born to non-US citizen Japanese parents in California in 1914 or so. He was in Japan studying during WWII and got conscripted into the Japanese army. US ruled that he had renounced his citizenship.
He appealed and the Supremes restored it. There was never any question in the case about whether he had been born a citizen.
John Henry
Blogger Gahrie said...
Which statute gave Native Americans born on US soil US citizenship?
The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.
Nope.
It gave citizenship to Indians not born on US soil (reservations) and not subject to US jurisdiction under 14A, citizenship.
Well, I’m surprised. 36 minutes in and Morning Joe quoted Trump. I guess they had to. Perhaps they’re still under the impression that they need to bolster their credibility from time to time.
Once a Muslim is allowed in that Muslim and offspring have all the rights afforded any other inhabitant of this nation: freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, freedom of religion, etc., and that’s as it should be.
But a certain admittedly small percentage of them are going to “get religion,” get angry and be willing to kill and die in the process. We are looking at multiple unidentifiable time bombs with unpredictable, almost random detonations.
That is why the only sensible thing to do is stop Muslim immigration “until we can figure things out,” as per Trump’s suggestion from the start.
What the MSM/Democrats rightly fear is that we will never really be able to “figure things out,” that the problem in reality is nearly intractable with only one way to limit it in the future and that is to halt Muslim immigration of any type altogether as well as we can and there goes a future Democrat voting bloc right down the drain.
As we have been told countless times by the press and pundits, this period of time after the nominees have been chosen and leading up to the conventions is the crucial time most voters make up their minds. Just a couple of days ago they were crowing this narrative from the rooftops because they believed that Trump had had a bad couple of weeks.
If that meme reflects any reality at all, which I don’t believe it does, then this mass shooting should hand the election to Trump. But it’s not that simple, although I wish it were.
However, all this of course interferes with the recent unanimous MSM/Democrat/GOP “leaders’ ” enthusiastic branding of Trump as a Nazi racist. There’s priorities. The false narratives of hate crime and gun control must be flogged until this jihadist mass shooting narrative is under control. Then they can get back to the Trump as racist meme with a vengeance.
Darn these “home-grown jihadists!” And just when they had a good meme going, too. This may also ruin Hillary’s anticipated bump in the polls. Double trouble.
Roughcoat said......The two Americans on the French train: they were going up against bullets. That didn't stop them.
They had military indoctrination.
Lattimore, yeah.
I read the Iliad to the kids. Odd thing to do but they enjoyed it.
This should be required in high schools, but is probably unfeasible due to the IQ deficiencies.
Freder Frederson said...
Last Friday, I had a long conversation with one of them, a high-ranking intel officer in the reserves.
I guarantee you your friend is full of shit. He is not an intelligence officer, he is just talking out his ass.
If he were an actual intelligence officer, he wouldn't be discussing sensitive and possibly classified information with you.
As usual, you're full of shit. He is a high ranking intel officer. We both have security clearances and were talking in a secure area. Just because someone says something that goes against the PC bullshit narrative, it doesn't mean the narrative is right and they are wrong. It's idiots like you who are getting people killed.
I agree re aggression being trained out.
Where I come from this is also done, but is inherent in the culture, being as it is a shameful thing to initiate activities, to stand out of the group. This is the root of the leadership problem over there. I see the same general idea being pushed in US schools now, discouraging initiative and conflict. "Creative thinking", hah.
This trait is typical of human group dynamic but the odds of someone taking initiative and bucking the group consensus varies by culture. The US is generally very high in this, or was.
buwaya:
Lattimore's trans is still the best, even after all these years, even after the publication of other highly competent translations (e.g., Fagles, Green).
I'm a military affairs writer, and I keep four books on my desk at all times when writing: Lattimore's Iliad, the King James Bible, Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, and Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms.
I have other books and authors I admire greatly, but those four are my principle go-to's for inspiration and instruction.
Btw, the first two pages of a Farewell to Arms are IMO the best first two pages in literature.
They had military indoctrination.
In response, I stand by what I said at 8:47 AM.
But your comment is actually an argument for universal military training. With some facsimile thereof starting at an early age. E.g., Boy Scouts.
Even better, let's go back to raising boys to be brave, to be heroic. Let's re-instill the manly virtues. Let's remember what made the "brave old days of Rome" so brave. Teach Mcaulay, among others. Let's change the culture of growing up.
Let's do it without irony.
Is it because they were gay that nobody fought the killer? Are gay people less aggressive? I wonder if it is biological or social.
"It's not just that we have so many guns, it's that we apparently really like to use them on one another."
Take away the suicide numbers so we can focus on the "use them on each other".
Now subtract the gang related/ drug related shootings.
Wow, did that number ever shrink!
In fact, take away the shootings in, say, the ten most populous urban areas in America.
Holy cow, where did everyone go?
Sure there would still be a large number of shooting deaths. But the percentages would shrink away dramatically. But that type of information, while necessary for real improvement, is forbidden to discuss. Hey, just like the phrase radical Islam.
Is it because they were gay that nobody fought the killer? Are gay people less aggressive? I wonder if it is biological or social.
We don't know that nobody fought the killer. Some people might have tried and failed to stop him.
"Sheesh. If he didn't have any terrorist ties and was simply a loan wolf (who legally purchased firearms), what the hell could the FBI do."
1. A loan wolf? Kind of like a loan shark, but more land-oriented.
2. I expect the FBI to get creative and figure out what to do in ways that I cannot come up with. But there is a massive, deadly conspiracy, and we do not have to wait until we are dead to see what should have been done to a person who is also already dead. We want to live. And we (the People) formed a government to take on the effort of protecting us.
"It's Major Hassan all over again."
Yes, it is. A lone, emotionally disturbed mass killer, a too-common figure in American society.
RoughCoat
I would recommend "All Day Permanent Red" to you. A "transalation" of the Illiad by Christopher Logue, a British poet, who could read not one word of ancient Greek. Using the classical translations and adding his own imaginative twists. Great reading.
I too read the Illiad to my son when he was young, before he went off to kindergarden in fact. We read Lattimore.
Robert Cook said...
"It's Major Hassan all over again."
Yes, it is. A lone, emotionally disturbed mass killer, a too-common figure in American society.
Who just happens to be Muslim. All too common a figure in American society.
Yes, it is. A lone, emotionally disturbed mass killer, a too-common figure in American society.
Just what is about Islam, I wonder, that produces such a statistically high number of emothionally disturbed mass killers?
However tragic the fifty killed the bigger question is why hasn't the FBI stopped the criminal and treasonous Hillary Clinton and her enabler Barack Obama?
As for Muslim immigration perhaps we should split the baby, Muslim woman OK, males Muslims must be gay.
"Just what is about Islam, I wonder, that produces such a statistically high number of emothionally disturbed mass killers?"
Does Islam produce a "statistically high number of emotionally disturbed mass killers"?
Historically, and even in recent times, most lone mass killers in America are not Muslim. What is it about American society that produces so many emotionally-disturbed and violent people?
"Who just happens to be Muslim. All too common a figure in American society."
How common is the loan Muslim killer in America?
"Historically, and even in recent times, most lone mass killers in America are not Muslim."
He's talking about the world in general, Bob. We'll get to your emotional problems later.
I don't know if it was a Muslim who killed my loan or not.
Robert Cook said...
Historically, and even in recent times, most lone mass killers in America are not Muslim. What is it about American society that produces so many emotionally-disturbed and violent people?
"According to Pew Forum estimate in 2016 there are 3.3 million Muslims living in the United States and comprise about 1% of the total U.S. population."
Many of these are converts of people with long American ancestry, the portion exposed to Islamic radicalism is even smaller.
Once again Cook reveals himself by requiring a "most" standard rather than a proportional standard. Any responsible person would have asked why they are so over-represented rather then trying to hide the truth. Also revealing: Left wingers constantly ask why America produces these kinds of people, only when killers are Muslim are they uninterested in such questions.
The obvious answer is that they grow up in cultures where they learn America (and Jews) are their enemy. It's nothing racial, but a culture of hate is hard to resist.
I have an idea: why not replicate that culture of hate here in America? What's not to love?
"He's talking about the world in general, Bob."
Most Muslim killers in the world at large are not lone mass killers but are members of armed forces acting with strategic and political goals. You refer to Major Hassan and Omar Mateen as being two of a kind. My response has to do with what they have in common: they are both Muslim, yes, but, more pertinently, they're emotionally disturbed individuals who acted alone and without strategic purpose. They were simply acting out, as do so many other similar (but non-Muslim) lone mass killers.
But "common sense gun control" will stop everything. I know this because I keep being assured of it on Facebook.
Sure, he could pass a NICS background check, but we need more background checks!
Sure, his problem wasn't lack of knowing how a gun works, but we need mandatory training!
Sure, none of our suggestions are ever anything that would have stopped any of these mass killers, but they're vitally important!
(Because they're "something", and "something must be done", and because we feel like it's important to have a Plan, even if it has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual problem*.
* And because nobody dares suggest that "the problem" can't be solved, because none of the solutions that actually "work" are politically tenable or compatible with civil liberties.)
But don't worry, immigrants and refugees will be thoroughly vetted.
Freder Frederson said...
This guy was a natural born U.S. citizen.
Then perhaps we should have kept his crazy-ass father out?
And we (the People) formed a government to take on the effort of protecting us.
And you a law professor. (I keed, I keed.)
That is one of the functions of government, maintaining order, enforcement of laws, stopping criminals from preying on others, preventing foreign invasions.
However, another function of government, one that used to be quite important in the U.S., is protecting citizens civil liberties.
Now it is possible that the FBI could get very "creative" in its attempt to prevent Jihadi Johns from acting out their impulses on the "Great Satan."
However, I seem to recall a lot of decrying of attempts by the FBI to get creative when trying to stop terrorists back in the 60s and 70s from the same people who now control our government.
The FBI isn't getting "creative" because the people who control it don't want it to get creative. They value some people's civil liberties over protecting American lives. Thus Obama's statements that ISIS is not an existential threat and the U.S. can "absorb" terrorists attacks.
In the balancing act between civil liberties and security Obama has decided on some people's civil liberties.
Of course, if we actually declared war on ISIS (which, having a standing army, controlling territory, collecting taxes, etc seems to qualify as a state) then some of the civil liberty concerns are alleviated, since being at war means you are in a state of emergency. But that ain't going to happen because Nobel Peace Prize.
From Bloomberg.com
"Law enforcement is following hundreds of people and there are thousands of people that have come on their radar," Shawn Henry, a former FBI executive assistant director, said in an interview. "The complexity of trying to navigate our laws and Constitution while trying to maintain optimal security is a really difficult challenge. You just cannot protect against everything."
Robert Cook said...
"He's talking about the world in general, Bob."
Most Muslim killers in the world at large are not lone mass killers but are members of armed forces acting with strategic and political goals.
Shhh.
When you fundamentally misunderstand the premise you should probably not contribute.
What premise do I "fundamentally misunderstand?"
"and we do not have to wait until we are dead to see what should have been done to a person who is also already dead."
The Democrats are refusing to do what should be done. Apparently not taking responsibility. And Republican politicians, for the most part, are not willing to hold their feet to the fire about it.
1) Be more aggressive against the terrorists oversees
2) Secure the borders
3) significantly limit all immigration until the vetting processes can be improved, and then focus on keeping out people whose profiles suggest they will not want to assimilate
4) Repeatedly, loudly acknowledge the role Islam is playing in this
I think, first, that the FBI is really a fairly dysfunctional and ineffective law enforcement agency generally, good only at certain types of cases. The individual agents have very little real-world experience, even in a standard career. Most local urban cops do far more, more often, more hands on more frequently than any Federal agent. And the FBI management is universally despised, especially those in DC, by the field agents.
Next, I think it evident that the current DOJ groupthink is to avoid anything even hinting of profiling, so, no one is allowed to make conclusions which are founded on any religious basis, like Islamic concepts of apostasy. Only concepts of criminal law and criminal courts are permitted, so for an agent to evaluate some one like Mateen and find a risk, one would have to sustain some level of conduct violative of statute and to a degree to permit indictment. Just seeing an obvious religious fanatic bent on some Islamic mission is not enough, and probably sufficient to guarantee a bad agent evaluation or something. Welcome to the Obama racial healing empire.
Further, no FBI agent is going to risk a career to push against the restrictions. Agents just are not built that way, by temperament. Such people don't get hired by the FBI.
And almost certainly, there is some magic number with the terrorism watch list or whatever secret name it's called these days. Too many Muslims, and there will be push-back too drop Muslims or add Christians, to balance the list by religion or ethnicity. So, people on the fringe like Mateen are under pressure to get verified by hard information or dropped, to make those percentages work better.
Political correctness will kill more Americans quite surely., just as they did this week.
By the way, this attack demonstrates, as if it needed such, the complete futility of "gun free zones."
"rhhardin said...
If you don't let Muslims in, of course, the need for domestic security falls a lot. Only Trump is proposing that."
6/13/16, 6:57 AM
Isn't it nice to think so? Of course, this guy was not an entering Muslim, but one born and bred here, right? What if we substitute guns for Muslims?
Only Obama is proposing that.
Rusty said...
Robert Cook said...
Who just happens to be Muslim. All too common a figure in American society.
6/13/16, 12:24 PM
Terrorist acts by religion
http://econbrowser.com/archives/2015/12/mass-shooting-casualties-by-religion-of-perpetrator-muslim-vs-non-muslim
If they divorced in2011 how do they have a 3 year old boy?
Why must we endure "I am laslo"? He is nothing but inane porn
Maybe it's not hers?
Ann Althouse said...
"I expect the FBI to get creative and figure out what to do in ways that I cannot come up with. But there is a massive, deadly conspiracy, and we do not have to wait until we are dead to see what should have been done to a person who is also already dead. We want to live. And we (the People) formed a government to take on the effort of protecting us."
It is not the business of the FBI to "get creative" and come up with some way to circumvent the absurd legal system that three generations of liberal lawyers have foisted upon our nation. But I am glad to hear it is dawning on you that Islam is a massive, deadly conspiracy. Calling it a religion doesn't really change that fact, does it? Maybe it is time that people like you "get creative", and start thinking if there is maybe some way that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" can be interpreted that does not mean we have to tolerate and indeed welcome any ideology that contains some element of superstition. The Constitution really doesn't need to be a suicide pact.
Side note: Mark Steyn's been using the phrase "know wolf" for years (I'm not sure from where it originated). It's funny to see a mainstream publication like Politico pick up on it now.
Robert Cook said...Yes, it is. A lone, emotionally disturbed mass killer, a too-common figure in American society.
Yep, nothing else links them, nothing else similar between them, no siree. Are you trying to parody yourself/the Left, Robert Cook? You're just being silly now.
Ann Althouse said...I expect the FBI to get creative and figure out what to do in ways that I cannot come up with. But there is a massive, deadly conspiracy, and we do not have to wait until we are dead to see what should have been done to a person who is also already dead.
Respectfully, ma'am, your fellow law professors & academic Leftists would be the first to call for heads to roll if any law enforcement people were found to have gotten "creative" with their sworn duty (to follow the law, etc) and I think you know that. Even efforts at expanded surveillance were widely denounced (again, primarily by your pals on the Left) as racist, xenophobic, anti-Muslim, and...ugly. "There's no place for that in America!" Remember? Well, fair enough, but it's a little disingenuous to now ask "why wasn't more done?!" Why didn't his company fire him, and alert the authorities that he was dangerous/made threats? I mean, why do you think?
(Oh, one aside - why didn't his wife report his (alleged) domestic abuse to the police? A DV conviction (and maybe just an arrest) disqualifies you from a weapons license in most states...)
HT said...Isn't it nice to think so? Of course, this guy was not an entering Muslim, but one born and bred here, right? What if we substitute guns for Muslims?
Only Obama is proposing that.
Obama's proposing we not let any guns in the country? Most of the guns purchased in America were made in America. Or do you mean only Obama is proposing to confiscate all guns? He's repeatedly said he isn't proposing that, so it's funny you seem to think he is...although even in that case the analogous action would be expelling all Muslims currently in the US (citizen or not), right? Even wacko extremist Donald Trump isn't proposing that.
I'm not sure your attempted comparison is valid any way, HT.
I read somewhere that full time surveillance on a single person takes 5-6 federal agents. Divide the number of total federal agents (say, FBI) by 5. Do you think there are more targets that "should be" tracked than that in the U.S. right now?
Math--it'll get you every time.
[There are apparently around 15k special agents in the FBI right now. If all they did was full time surveillance, that's 3k targets, max..in a nation of 320M.]
Robert Cook said...Historically, and even in recent times, most lone mass killers in America are not Muslim. What is it about American society that produces so many emotionally-disturbed and violent people?
Raw #s, or %, RC? I have to think on a per-capita basis, and comparing body counts, Muslims don't do so well (remember, the total population of Muslims in the US is quite small, and they seem to be awfully good @these acts of terror).
The proposed solutions, increased surveillance, increased analysis, more FBI agents, more, more, more, Will Not Work. Not in a hundred years, not in a thousand years, not in the time left to the heat death of the universe. Why? Ready for some post graduate level math? I thought not.
Let's see if we can wade through a very simple example of the problems involved. It took us 10 years to find one very notorious man who's name and face were known to millions. Osama Bin Laden. The search used the most sophisticated intelligence tools known to man. It employed an unknown, but not insignificant, number of intelligence professional 10 years to do it. They relentlessly tracked down any piece of information that could possibly offer a clue. Did Bin Laden use some kind of super secret genius level tricks to pull this off? No. You can find a complete and comprehensive description of the techniques in a book in your local public library.
How did we find him? He made a mistake. Anybody know what that mistake was? You're wrong. Anything that you think you know is deliberate disinformation designed to throw the enemies off the track in their efforts to find out where they slipped up. That's just the way the game is played.
Now think about trying to find some unknown number of completely anonymous people lurking among millions. The sore thumbs sticking out here and there? Some of them are decoys. How many? Who's to know and how to tell?
What to do? If we follow the path we are being pushed into, ever increasing surveillance and a war level vigilance in our neighborhoods, we are on a direct road to Orwell's 1984. The rest of the solutions? Ugly and repugnant. Just remember that in the 20th century more than two hundred million people died trying to solve the same problem.
I suspect the FBI's problem now is much like it used to be when Hoover was running it when it came to the Mafia. For years, despite all evidence to the contrary, Hoover denied there was such a thing as organized crime, and doubtless that attitude influenced the agency culture to avoid contradicting that view.
If the higher ups today, including the President, insist we have no radical Islamic terror problem, then we don't, and those working at the FBI had better keep it in mind if they value their career. I'm sure nobody in leadership has overtly come right out and said that, but people can see who gets promoted, who gets reassigned to crappy jobs, and what happens when people suggest the facts might be otherwise.
John said...
"Mick,
If Omar's mother were a US citizen at the time of his birth, would you consider Omar a citizen? (Like Ted Cruz)And if so would you shut up?
I don't know if she was or is a citizen or not. I can't find any info on her in a quick search.
John Henry"
Yes he would be considered a CITIZEN because he would have been born "subject to the jurisdiction of the US" within the definition set forth in WKA (but not a natural born Citizen, eligible to be POTUS, as defined in the case of Minor v. Happersett @ 167).
However from everything I have seen, neither parent was a citizen or a legal resident, therefore by a correct reading of the 14A, and by SCOTUS precedent (WKA), he was not born "subject to the jurisdiction" and should not have been considered a US citizen at the time he was born.
Mick,
Have you read Nishikawa v. Dulles? Or Terrazas v. Vance?
Where did you find info on the mother and father's citizenship? I looked and could find nothing at all about the mother, not even where she was from (I infer Afghanistan but that is not clear) her citizenship or even her name. As far as the father goes, I could find nothing about his citizenship or even whether he was here legally.
If you have links, please share.
I would not be surprised if the F.B.I. were instructed to stand down on their investigation of Omar. His father is a powerful figure, after the initial investigations, Omar probably reported this to his father. His father then complained about it, this filter through the state department and the F.B.I was told to back off.
They are not allowed to profile.
The alternative explanation is that the F.B.I. is completely inept.
Omar clearly planned this for a long time, he studied and got a job in security, which would have provided him all the training he needed to execute his jihadist plan.
BTW, his wife says she "tried to talk him out of it".... when someone is planning a mass murder, you report it immediately to the police. She should face the death penalty as an accomplice. I am certain his father is a coconspirator as well, but this will get covered up.
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