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World Reacts To The Worst Mass Shooting In U.S. History (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: Fifty people were killed inside Pulse, a gay nightclub, Orlando Police Chief John Mina and other officials said Sunday morning, just hours after a shooter opened fire in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. At least 53 more people were injured, Mina said. Police have shot and killed the gunman, he told reporters.
The shooter is not from the Orlando area, Mina said. He has been identified as Omar Saddiqui Mateen, 29, of Fort Pierce, about 120 miles southeast of Orlando, two law enforcement officials tell CNN.
Orlando authorities said they consider the violence an act of domestic terror. The FBI is involved. While investigators are exploring all angles, they "have suggestions the individual has leanings towards (Islamic terrorism), but right now we can't say definitely..."
In the discussion on this submission, Slashdot readers reported that Reddit is among the sites that have removed some discussions about the shooter's identity, with one reader even reporting "Posts directing people where and how to give blood have been removed."
The shooter is not from the Orlando area, Mina said. He has been identified as Omar Saddiqui Mateen, 29, of Fort Pierce, about 120 miles southeast of Orlando, two law enforcement officials tell CNN.
Orlando authorities said they consider the violence an act of domestic terror. The FBI is involved. While investigators are exploring all angles, they "have suggestions the individual has leanings towards (Islamic terrorism), but right now we can't say definitely..."
In the discussion on this submission, Slashdot readers reported that Reddit is among the sites that have removed some discussions about the shooter's identity, with one reader even reporting "Posts directing people where and how to give blood have been removed."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Can't vouch for this, but various sites are reporting...
TFA mentions that Mateen was interviewed by the FBI in 2013 and 2014, but not deemed dangerous. This reinforces my doubts that background checks will ever be very effective in general, whether for terrorism or any other type of bad behavior.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
According to the timeline posted by the media, the gunman initially exchanged fire with three cops at 2am. They did not pursue him. 100 cops arrive. They do not attempt to enter. At 5am, the SWAT team finally breaches and kills the terrorist.
That left the attacker with 3 whole hours to kill his hostages. Shades of Columbine, where the police were similarly afraid to respond until they had ridiculously overwhelming force.
Mateen's ex-wife told the Washington Post that he was abusive and mentally unstable. "He was not a stable person," she said, speaking to the paper on the condition of anonymity.
Great job preserving that anonymity, WP, well done.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
About Reddit: One specific subreddit, /r/news, was censoring the story, apparently once news came out the shooter was Muslim with possible connections to ISIS. Other subreddits responding by /r/askreddit responded by allowing a post about it even though it's not within the subreddit's topics. /r/the_donald is also talking about it and making the front page with MANY posts, and /r/uncensorednews was established by the community and they have their own thread about it.
According to an ex co-worker of his he had gone completely nuts.
According to my family, *I* am completely nuts to own firearms and like hunting...
Hmm.
https://www.frontiersmedia.com...
You are welcome on my lawn.
I know, I know. You're just trolling with ignorance. But here's how it works.
Atheism is just a lack of beliefs in gods. It's not a religion. Now you have have an atheist who is dogmatic about other things, usually ending in -ism. Capitalism, communism... But if you question what their theology is (theism being key) you don't get capitalism as an answer.
It's exactly the same as someone being Christian and being a right wing capitalist. Even if the two may statistically go hand in hand, when you ask that person what their theology is, you get Christian as an answer.
Words and concepts matter. You don't get to throw them out for 10 seconds so you can say something, but then expect YOUR OWN words to carry weight.
Belief != religion.
Next.
Guns don't kill people... gun OWNERS do..
If they have guns
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Seems like the "well regulated militia" part of that right would go a long way to preventing lone mentally ill people obtaining guns and murdering large numbers of people. Time to lobby for full implementation of the 2nd Amendment.
At the time it was authored, well regulated did not mean what you think it means today, and the militia consisted of all free males of military age.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
You're wrong. No editors modded your comment up or down.
Yes there is. Praise be unto his noodly appendage
Alot closer then 600 years ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
and something like 70 years ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Just saying it like it are.
Yes, really. So you can buy a rifles with a Bible verse on it. That is completely equivalent to Muslims tossing gays off buildings or Iran executing gays. Yes, completely equivalent! Why, put a Bible verse on your gun and you're as bad as burning 19 women to death because they wouldn't let you rape them.
Go up to a Christian in Rome and state you're gay. The worst that will happen is they'll tell you you're a sinner and you need to repent or go to hell. Now do the same in Mecca, and the Government will try you and sentence you to execution. Yes, I can see your point. A verse on a firearm is 100% equivalent with how you'll be treated by the rest of Islam for coming out as gay!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Perhaps you have never lived in a Communist country, which were by law atheistic. The Gulags were filled with religious and priests.
You're welcome to spend as much time as you want as an AC, writing out long-winded diatribes and bolding words if it makes you happy. We are not Reddit so we will allow you to do this as much as you want. Just know that you are wrong, and your posts are pretty stupid which is why people mod you down.
Sigh. This troll again. Let's make this a simple metaphor. To state that atheism is a religion would be like stating that "off" is a TV channel or that silence is a particular sound. Absence of a thing is not a form of the thing. It is simply the absence of it, no more, no less.
You're an idiot. Make sure and read the last part twice to realize the depth of your ignorance.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
In most states it is illegal to hunt deer with an AR-15 in it's standard .22 caliber because it is not considered powerful enough and therefor is inhumane.
Replying to my own post, it turns out that there are 10 states that don't allow hunting big game with a .223: Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Virginia, Ohio, New Jersey, Washington, and West Virginia.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
It is a belief. It is an affirmative belief. It might qualify as a religion or creed depending on how you define those words.
There are traditionally philosophical distinctions made between "strong" (or "positive") atheism vs. "weak" (or "negative") atheism. "Strong atheists" have a positive belief that no gods exist. Most atheists are merely "weak atheists," who don't actively believe in gods -- and may think they sound unlikely -- but don't have an (unprovable) belief in their non-existence. Lack of belief in something doesn't necessarily entail a positive (and equally unprovable) belief in an opposite.
It is a belief because you can't prove something doesn't exist. It's a consequence of logic. All reason is necessarily based on a foundation of beliefs.
This is a bit of a different issue, which is more related to the traditional definition of agnosticism. A traditional agnostic is someone who has a positive belief that the answers to some questions are unknowable. ("Gnostic" refers to knowledge, an agnostic believes that one can't have that knowledge.)
These days the word "agnostic" is often used for weak atheism, but it's actually a separate issue. An agnostic traditionally is someone who believes we CANNOT know whether God exists -- it's just not a question that can be verified one way or another on the basis of normal empirical evidence. (Philosophers sometimes draw a distinction between "strong" and "weak" agnosticism too.)
An agnostic is someone that neither believes in the supernatural nor does not believe in it. They are undecided or uncommitted.
Again, that's not the word traditionally meant. What you're describing is what philosophers and theologians would generally call weak atheism (i.e., lack of a "theist" belief, hence a-theism). Agnosticism is about what we ALL could possibly know on the basis of evidence, and whether we have sufficient grounds to justify belief, not about whether an individual believes or not.
People colloquially use the label atheist when they mean a person that atheist or agnostic since to them both are guilty.
Agreed, though as I noted -- there are even more distinctions that you make. Using these terms the way philosophers would, it's quite possible to be a gnostic atheist (i.e., a person who has a positive belief that God by definition doesn't exist and believes that he has certain knowledge of this fact), or an agnostic theist (i.e., a person who believes that God exists, but believes it is outside the possibility of science to prove it), or even other stranger combinations.
Most people are agnostic no matter how much say they are atheistic and will readily prey when faced with imminent death.
This is again a separate issue. If I were dying of starvation, I'd definitively prey on animals to survive... sure.
No, an AR-15 is a .22 caliber. The military cartridge is called a 5.56 NATO. The sporting version is a .223 Remington. The bore dimension is .219", the groove dimension is .224". In a .22 Long Rifle the bore dimension varies by manufacturer but is generally .217" and the groove is .222". They all are considered .22 caliber, they are just called by different names to distinguish the chamber.
Seems like the "well regulated militia" part of that right would go a long way to preventing lone mentally ill people obtaining guns and murdering large numbers of people.
Time to lobby for full implementation of the 2nd Amendment.
You are (deliberately, it must be - because there's so much information out there, including abundant correspondence and other writings by the people who wrote the 2nd amendment explaining all of this) getting the amendment exactly backwards.
... that the people running that military didn't have the power to say that they and only they would have a monopoly on the keeping and bearing of arms. Otherwise, the local militia leader (or mayor, or governor, or president, etc) might decide to disarm everybody not in the militia/army "for their own good" or whatever other reason they might trot out.
The people who formed the new country, and who wrote the charter (constitution and its amendments) governing its structure had very recently lived under a Crown that did things like station troops in their houses, deny them the ownership of weapons, etc. They didn't like that. Most of those who wrote the constitution didn't even like the idea of having a standing military of ANY kind, even the local militias that were drawn upon to fight the revolution. But after much discussion, they realized that a standing military of some sort was inevitable and likely necessary. At the very least, in the form of locally organized militias. But they wanted to be very clear, just in case someone like you came along and pretended not to understand things like an individual's right to defend themselves, that just because there was likely to be a standing, well-organized military at some scale
So the amendment - though many thought this was so obvious that it didn't even need saying - is there to protect your right to keep and bear arms even though there will be a standing military to fight battles as needed. Because the founders completely understood the importance of individuals being able to exercise that right if they so choose. The 2nd Amendment says, to put its language in slightly more modern form: "The government cannot use the need for a well-organized military as an excuse to infringe on the right of individual citizens to keep and bear arms."
Of course you know all of that, and you're just trying to pretend you can't understand the amendment's plain language, because by pretending to deliberately get it backwards, you can push for the agenda you prefer (government control over more liberties). The problem is that the amendment's language is plain, and the ample supporting writings surrounding it all completely reinforce that understanding.
So if you want "full implementation" of the 2nd amendment, you're actually asking to strike down the many laws that run counter to its plainly stated protections. Regardless, you're also totally pretending to misunderstand how the constitution works. Just like the 1st Amendment, the 2nd doesn't say what you're allowed to do, it says that the government may not interfere with it.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Twaddle.
Atheist - believes god(s) don't exist.
Agnostic - not sure either way, or believes it's not possible to know.
Apostate - an ex believer.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
In that case, I'm a dictionary.
http://www.merriam-webster.com...
"one who believes that there is no deity
[...]
How agnostic Differs from atheist
Many people are interested in distinguishing between the words agnostic and atheist. The difference is quite simple: atheist refers to someone who believes that there is no god (or gods), and agnostic refers to someone who doesn't know whether there is a god, or even if such a thing is knowable. ".
P.S. It's a bit arrogant lecturing someone else about *their* native language. Especially when you're completely wrong.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You're still confusing yourself between atheism and agnosticism.
If you have no view either way then you're agnostic because you've determined the answer to be unknowable with current available evidence, if you have a belief there is no god, or a specific disbelief in god, then you're an atheist.
"Actually having a belief that there is no higher power, in a way validates the belief in a higher power, which is completely contrary to what atheism/non-belief is."
No, it really does no such thing. If what you mean is that theist zealots can say "But your system is just a belief too!" then you're right, the difference is that atheists have the pragmatism of being able to argue that if you're going to believe in one unproveable thing like a god, that you might as well believe in the Easter Bunny, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, hence, it makes more sense to simply not believe in such nonsense, or alternatively, to go the agnostic route and at least argue that it's all unknowable so not worth having an opinion on.
There are ultimately just three answers to the question, is there a god? Yes, no, and maybe/I don't know. Theism, Atheism, and Agnosticism are the words we use to describe these things, and once again, the dictionary makes this clear. If you don't like that, then don't argue with me, I don't define language, I just consume it as defined. Argue with the authors of every dictionary every written if you have a problem with it, that is unfortunately how the English language is defined, and if you want to create your own definitions you must start your own language.