Tag: Omar Mateen

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Who to Hate?

Well, now we know the culprit behind the mass murders in Orlando, Sunday morning. It was the Obama administration’s “political correctness.” At least that was what was responsible, according to an NRA spokesperson, Donald Trump, and Ted Cruz, to name just three GOP leaders who propagated this hogwash.

None of these folks explained exactly how political correctness accounted for the shooting, but we can presume they think the FBI interviewed the killer and decided not to detain him under orders from the president, because Obama is afraid to offend Muslims and refuses to say the magic words “radical islamic terrorism.” Something like that. It couldn’t have been that the FBI made a mistake or was incompetent or that our gun laws are ineffective. Nope, political correctness is now a mass murderer.

Trump went on a Twitter rampage within hours of the shooting, congratulating himself for being “right” about Muslims. He then said we need to prevent immigration from any country with a “history of terrorism,” and doubled down by intimating that Obama himself had “something going on” when it came to Muslims.

The president initially responded to the tragedy by saying the murders appeared to be an act of domestic terrorism but that he would wait to make a judgment until all the facts were in. What a politically correct wuss.

Then, oops, we discovered that Omar Mateen, like Trump, was born in Queens. A day later, we found out that the killer, a Muslim, was quite likely gay and had frequented the Orlando club for years. Then we learned from former co-workers that he was a racist and was considered “unstable and unhinged.”

The GOP has shown itself to be anti-gay rights, anti-Hispanic, and anti-Muslim. So when a Muslim kills gays on “Latin Night,” it’s a real quandary. And when the Muslim murderer of all those Hispanic gay folks is apparently a self-loathing gay man himself, it gets even more complicated.

But look, political correctness didn’t kill 50 people in Orlando. Political “incorrectness” did, namely, the in-bred culture of demonizing and dehumanizing LGBT Americans that is propagated every year in legislation passed by the Tennessee General Assembly and other GOP-controlled legislatures around the country — laws that institutionalize discrimination and fear of gay people.

And it’s also the politically incorrect culture of ignorance and hatred spread in the name of Jesus and Allah by so many backward-thinking churches and “men of God.” It’s a culture that shames people into suppressing their true sexuality and gender identity, a shame that separates gays from their families and friends, causing feelings of guilt and hopelessness that can lead to suicide — or, in Mateen’s case, to rage and murder.

Governor Bill Haslam, Speaker Beth Harwell, and other GOP state and national leaders offered “hopes and prayers” and held “moments of silence” to honor the victims — the same victims they helped create with their backward and hateful laws. In Tennessee, for example, a gay person who sought grief counseling in the wake of the Orlando shooting could be turned down by anyone whose “sincerely held beliefs” compelled them to refuse to help.

It’s sad and twisted, and it can’t be fixed with a wall or tougher immigration laws or tighter gun laws. It can only be fixed by more of us working to accept and understand our differences, instead of politicizing and institutionalizing them.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Lessons From the Orlando Tragedy

Readers of this week’s issue will note a couple of pieces, including this one, devoted to the unspeakable weekend tragedy in Orlando, in which at least 50 people died during an armed assassin’

s murderous spree at a gay-oriented night club and another 50-odd were injured, some critically.

There is good reason for such close attention here and on the part of other media, world-wide, and it is similar to that which followed in the wake of the June 2015 slaughter of nine African-American worshippers during a Bible study session at an historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina. That previous attack, carried out by a youthful racist obsessed with loyalties to his state’s Confederate past, instantly transformed a racial landscape that had been changing all too slowly and greatly accelerated what Martin Luther King once described as the bending of the arc of history toward justice.

Before the Charleston atrocity, the Stars and Bars of the old Confederacy flew unimpeded in dozens of places where they hang no longer — including the state Capitol at Columbia, South Carolina, the very birthplace of secession and the cradle of the Confederacy, that would-be nation of breakaway Southern states devoted to the creed of official racism and the institution of human slavery. 

In a true sense, the young assassin’s senseless act, intended by him to ignite a race war on behalf of Confederate ideals, accomplished the exact opposite — the final putting to rest of the Confederacy and its flag as anything but tawdry reminders of a brutal racist past.

In like manner, the savage massacre at Orlando’s Pulse Club has surely ended the lingering debate as to whether the quest for rights, equality, and dignity by members of  the LGBT community should be regarded as within the mainstream of the nation’s ongoing civil rights struggle. By their martyrdom, the souls sacrificed in Orlando to murderous bigotry have, we pray, propelled that recognition and ended that debate. Gay Americans should now be seen by everyone, as, increasingly, they see themselves — not as outliers seeking toleration but as proud citizens in the forefront of extending liberty.

And, though both the Charleston and Orlando horrors have provoked rethinking the nature and promise of American democracy, they both serve, too, as bleak reminders of a national gun culture run amok. After Jonesboro and Columbine and Sandy Hook and Aurora and so many others, this fresh atrocity is testament to the long overdue need to change the rules for selling and using firearms, especially semiautomatic, combat-like weapons such the AR-15, used for the purpose of mass murder in Orlando and elsewhere. There is no need to expunge the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights, which is what the NRA and other gun-industry lobbyists accuse reformers of trying to do. A good start to setting things right would be the extension of background checks and a resumption of the undeniably Constitutional Clinton-era ban on the sale of such weapons, which was allowed to expire in 2005, during the second presidential term of George W. Bush. It is no accident that the frequency of massacres, as well as their body counts, have increased since that time.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1425

Kiss, Kiss, Bang

You know, it’s getting easier to see things through the lunatic eyes of Tennessee Rep. Andy Holt (R)-Duh. Per Holt, the Second Amendment exists, in part, to ensure bad guys have access to immense firepower. Because that furnishes good guys with deserving targets. It’s pretty obvious, really — right there in the constitution between the words “well regulated” and “militia” and not all that hard to see if, like Andy, you squint.

Holt had planned to give away an AR-15 semiautomatic, the prefered weapon of mass shooters like Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people and wounded 53 in a Florida gay bar on Sunday. In the Orlando massacre’s horrific wake, Holt’s so consarn mad about the dadgum liberals with their gun control, he wishes he could give away more.

“I’m furious,” Holt writes. “I’m furious that I get phone calls from the media asking me if I’m still going to give away an AR-15 at our HogFest, rather than asking me how many extra firearms I’ll be handing out to ensure people can protect themselves. After all, it was a bullet that stopped the terrorist. Amazing how so many seem to miss that fact.”

Of course, he’s right. A bullet stopped Omar Mateen, the suspected agent who was able to buy an AR-15 like it was a quart of milk. The system works.

First Responder

If you aren’t following Scanner Memphis on Twitter (@ScannerMemphis) you’re missing out on curated “highlights and lowlights” from Memphis area police and fire scanners. Highlights from June include:

• “They called about a man carrying a real cross and a sheet. I’m waiting to engage him.”

• “There is a man who is completely nude, touching himself.”

And the all-time classic …

• “Y’all see that idiot in the silver Nissan?”

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

America’s Killing Fields

Another mass killing? Oh well. Isn’t there a game on tonight or something?

I figured that a society that can stomach the thought of a murderous lunatic, armed with a Bushmaster XM15, forcing his way into a kindergarten and slaughtering 20 children and six staff members without a massive public outcry is pretty much hopeless. Or if we’re not bothered by the delusional Batman fan who caused 82 causalities, including 12 people murdered in their seats by a Smith & Wesson M&P15 assault rifle with a 100-round drum magazine in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. (Just months before, the shooter, who was described as “severely mentally ill,” legally purchased his weapons of mass destruction in a local gun store.)

Then there were the two radicalized Muslims, described as “homegrown violent extremists” by the FBI, who murdered 14 and injured 22 in a rampage last December in San Bernardino, California. They used two AR-15-type rifles and two 9 mm semiautomatic pistols, purchased legally by a third conspirator.

And now we get a self-proclaimed ISIS devotee who was on the terrorist watch list and twice investigated by the FBI, who managed to become an accredited security guard and legally purchased the assault rifle used to kill 50 souls and wound 53 others in a gay club in Orlando. The deranged domestic terrorist shot 103 people with a semiautomatic rifle bought in the last 12 days.

Common denominator

Does there seem to be a theme emerging? When does it become obvious that no one outside a theater of war should possess such firepower?

In the wake of the carnage in Orlando, it was almost overlooked that the Los Angeles police arrested a man on his way to that city’s gay pride parade with a cache of weapons, including three assault rifles with high-capacity magazines and a five-gallon bucket of explosive materials. His Indiana license plate had an NRA sticker with the words “Teaching Freedom” below. Though described as bisexual by a friend, this All-American Terrorist’s Facebook page said, “Anti-Islam, Anti-Gay, and Anti-Racism,” oddly enough. He also claimed that political correctness is stifling freedom of speech and that 9/11 was an inside job.

If a neighbor had not called police about a prowler, we could have suffered dual massacres on the same day. And the target, in both cases, was the most vulnerable minority group: the LGBT community.

It would seem that hatred and violence know no denomination. Since Obama was elected, he has addressed the nation on 15 separate occasions after an atrocity involving multiple gun deaths. He has pleaded, tried to reason, shown anger, and even wept. What’s left for him to say or do?

Since the Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) signed by Bill Clinton in 1994 was allowed to expire during the Bush era, random shootings have spiked. A joint letter to Congress from Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan in support of banning “semi-automatic assault guns” has been ignored by today’s Tea Party obstructionists. 

Quoting statistics, Clinton said, “Half of all mass killings in the U.S. occurred since 2005 — half of all in the history of the country.” The Assault Weapons Ban expired in 2005. Maybe there’s a connection here. After Newtown, the AWB was re-introduced, but failed in the GOP-controlled Senate by a vote of 40 to 60.

The human septic tank known as Donald Trump was the first to politicize the Orlando tragedy. Obama and Hillary Clinton each made statements of outrage and condolence and avoided further comment. Trump went on a Twitter frenzy, first saying, “Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism. I don’t want congrats. I want toughness and vigilance. We must be smart!”

Trump is fond of the exclamation point. But his GOP allies in Congress blocked a bill the day after the San Bernardino slaughter which would have denied people on the terrorist watch list the ability to buy a gun. Bowing to NRA pressure, the Republicans reasoned that Americans who are wrongly on the list should be afforded their constitutional rights. They can’t fly, but buying a gun is fine.

Trump then called for Obama to be removed from office for refusing to use the term “radical Islamic terrorism,” and Fox News hammered that message all night. Obama has repeatedly explained, “The term ‘radical Islam’ grants them a religious legitimacy they don’t deserve. We are not at war with Islam, we are at war with people who have perverted Islam.” George W. Bush said the same thing, only he wasn’t a secret Kenyan Muslim.

As expected, the trolls were out on social media saying the same predictable things: “Arm yourselves before they kill us all.” The hatred boiled over for Muslims the world over, even though the same people were praising Muhammad Ali just a day before. The Orlando jihadist’s ex-wife said he wanted to be a policeman. She also said he beat her and isolated her from others until she was rescued by her family. One of his co-workers said, “I complained multiple times that he didn’t like blacks, women, lesbians, and Jews.” The wannabe ISIS fighter also said he wished he could kill all black people.

“You meet bigots,” the co-worker continued, “but he was above and beyond.”

The NRA apologists continue to say, “Enforce the laws already on the books,” but obviously they’re not effective. Then there’s the tired “Don’t blame the weapon, it’s just a tool,” argument. The Assault Weapons Ban may not have done much to put a dent in gun crime, but it might have prevented this slaughter. And Aurora. And San Bernardino. And Sandy Hook.

There is a theory going around in some right-wing circles that Sandy Hook was a hoax perpetrated by the government in order to begin confiscating firearms. Maybe if the Newtown crime-scene photos of children blown to pieces were released, the country might be shocked back into reality. Or maybe not, but has anyone noticed that in eight years, Obama hasn’t confiscated a single gun? After this gruesome bloodbath, thoughts and prayers aren’t enough. Maybe we need to try stricter laws and regulations instead.

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog, where a version of this column first appeared.