Orlando is the home of the Mouse, Universal Studios, Sea World and other tourist destinations. This is not a good time for ‘Fantasyland’.
First it was Christina Grimmie gunned down by an apparent stalker after a concert in Orlando, and now it’s 50 known dead and 53 injured at a nightclub in Orlando. This just doesn’t fit in with ‘The Wizarding World of Harry Potter’, the dolphin shows, or princesses.
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Established: 21 November 2004
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Our ABC has this: Orlando shooting: Worst US shooting sees at least 50 dead, 53 injured at Pulse nightclub
Omar Mateen was an armed guard at a gated retirement community, and had worked for the global security firm G4S for nine years. He had cleared two company background screenings, the latest in 2013, according to G4S.
Authorities said Mateen had been twice questioned by FBI agents in 2013 and 2014 after making comments to co-workers about supporting militant groups, but neither interview led to evidence of criminal activity
Ronald Hopper, the FBI’s assistant special agent in charge on the case, said Mateen was questioned in 2014 about his contacts with Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, a U.S. citizen who also had lived in Florida and became a suicide bomber in Syria that year.
His ex-wife says he was emotionally and mentally disturbed with a violent temper, she also states that she filed Police reports prior to their divorce in 2011.
“The ex-wife of the Orlando massacre gunman says he was violent and mentally unstable during their relationship but never expressed Islamist militant leanings.
Sitora Yusufiy spoke briefly to reporters late on Sunday outside her Colorado home insisting that Sunday’s massacre was not caused by political or religious fanaticism but rather mental illness.”
Mateen later had a son with another woman who also appears to have left him and declined to comment when reached at her current home.
The Pulse Nightclub was a gay club.
WaPo has this: Ex-wife of suspected Orlando shooter: ‘He beat me’
For the record, I don’t believe much the murderer’s father says about his son.
Shooter’s father says he’s saddened by massacre, calls gunman ‘a good son’
This is a tragic event that should never have happened! It should be unbelievable… But in the USA, it isn’t. I very much doubt this will be the last tragedy.
The horrific murderpalooza has been described, repeatedly until people might believe it, as the “worst mass shooting in American history”. It most certainly is NOT. Wounded Knee and Sand Creek spring to mind, just to name two.
It’s just that modern weapons make it possible for one person to do what used to take a troop of cavalry. It’d be hard to do a mass casualty event armed with a revolver or a bolt action rifle, you’d be swiftly overwhelmed and the guns taken from you. An AR-15 with a couple of large magazines taped together… not so much.
The Donald’s right, we shouldn’t have to worry about the children of immigrants like … Donald Trumpf [his mother immigrated from Scotland] or Marco Rubio. 😈
This was a hate crime by a homophobic misogynist with anger control issues. He was not known to be particularly religious, nor is there any actual evidence of an association with a radical groups after two investigations by his employer and two by the FBI. There is no evidence of any criminal activity before he fired the first shot in the night club.
I know it won’t happen, but if this had been carried out by a white evangelical you would have heard ‘I don’t condone what he did, but I can understand why’, the same line used after the murder of people associated with womens’ health clinics.
And now it turns out that he was actually a patron of the club and used a gay hookup app. WTF? This is sounding a lot less like a terror attack, and more your classic spree shooting where a guy with mental health issues takes them out on a hundred other people with .223 bullets. The Muslim stuff apparently was a McGuffin, a distraction. This is nuts.
His father is apparently a very strict Muslim and is featured on a cable access show in California that is anti-Pakistan and pro Afghan Taliban.
Reports are now surfacing from various people within the investigation that the shooter has claimed to support groups that are blowing each other up. It looks like he was hiding his sexual orientation from his family by getting married and hiding his drinking by going out to bars. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they discover that he had been diagnosed with a major problem at some time. The children of religious whackoes do tend to have problems.
His name set off the Drumpfs of the world before anyone did any serious investigation.
Yet he was a legal licensed concealed weapon carrier in Florida, and had passed a background check by G4S (Wackenhut) to be a security guard. Of course, that “background check” was just a cursory computer database query. Not a background check in any *real* sense, where someone goes out and talks to your family and friends and ex-spouses and checks your financials etc. to make sure you’re a good security risk and a psychiatrist gives you a battery of tests, the kind of background check you had done on you when getting cleared to do secret squirrel stuff. That likely would have caught something that said “this guy is a bad security risk”. But that would cost money and interfere with one’s god-given right to possess a metal penis. SIGH.
You described the Extended Background Investigation that I went though every five years in the Air Force. Now it’s done by an outside contractor. The Concealed Weapons Permit in Florida is issued by the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services [I kid you not] which doesn’t really have access to all criminal records. The requirements are $160 and a safety course.
If they had taken a report when his first wife complained of abuse and filed charges the system might have worked, but that didn’t happen.
Well Bryan, we all know the entire system in the USA is FUBAR! And getting that way here sadly. *shrug*
OT: Five years Bryan? Lucky you! Was every 2 years for the extended check, & 6 months for a standard check for me. Plus the full debrief & psych eval’s after most missions (it depended where they were & what the mission was). Still, once I was finally out and in civilian land, it had it’s uses. When I worked as a consultant/contractor and needed to go to a high-security site (like DSTO), I usually got my clearance in a week. Anyone else was usually 6 weeks. I was also able to take in a laptop for demo’s etc AND could get it back within a week (after it was checked). Everyone else that took any electronic device in, had it destroyed on exit. 🙂 Gave me an advantage over competitors for the high-value mil/int biz. 😀 We *USED* to take security seriously here… I think those day’s are long gone. *shrug*
You got benefits from the intrusions. All I got was restrictions on travel and other annoying things when I got out. There seems to have been a major shift in attention from real security to a facade as things are turned over to contractors.
Oh, they kept an eye on us between the formal investigations. The ‘undercover agents’ were really obvious most of the places we frequented.
Oh, I got (and still) have annoyances from my time of *Service to the Motherland*! I’m still under the NDA & have a few restrictions on International Travel. *shrug*
There are always pro’s and con’s, right? And *they* lie (usually by omission). Still… I know I did some good. But the cost was high. Someone asked me if I would do it again, knowing what I know. I couldn’t honestly answer. Foresight & hindsight are two very different things.
As with almost all things… It seemed a good idea at the time! 😉 😀
We won’t go into what I thought was a good idea at various times in my life. Been there, did that, and still feel the pain…
Well, it seams that one State has had enough of the NRA and the useless Federal Government. 🙂
Hawaii has passed 3 laws regulating the sale of firearms and ammunition:
1. Senate Bill 2954 SD2 HD1 (Act 108) – Authorizes county police departments to enroll firearms applicants and individuals who are registering their firearms into a criminal record monitoring service used to alert police when an owner of a firearm is arrested for a criminal offense anywhere in the country. Authorizes the Hawaii Criminal Justice Data Center to access firearm registration data.
2. House Bill 625 HD1 SD1 – Specifies that harassment by stalking and sexual assault are among the offenses that disqualify a person from owning, possessing, or controlling any firearm or ammunition.
3. House Bill 2632 HD2 SD2 CD1 – Requires firearms owners who have been disqualified from owning a firearm and ammunition due to a diagnosis of significant behavioral, emotional, or mental disorder, or due to emergency or involuntary hospitalization to a psychiatric facility, to immediately surrender their firearms and ammunition to the Chief of Police. Allows the Chief of Police to seize firearms and ammunition if a disqualified individual fails to surrender the firearms and ammunition after receiving written notice of the disqualification.
Oh, and my favorite US Senator did something good for her own Birthday! 😀
Elizabeth Warren Finds PERFECT Way To Spend Her Birthday, It Involves Democracy & Freedom
I love her tweets! LOL One of the few American’s I follow on Twitter! 😉 😀
The Federal government isn’t allowed to computerize firearms records, but states can probably do it. As an island group, Hawaii can do thing and enforce laws that would be extremely difficult to pull off on the mainland. I wish them luck, and anticipate a NRA lawsuit.