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Open Thread for discussion of San Bernardino mass shooting

The scene outside the Inland Regional Center
The scene outside the Inland Regional Center

At least 14 people have been killed in a mass shooting at a center for people with developmental disabilities in San Bernardino, involving multiple shooters in combat gear and using assault weapons. Police say that two suspects have been killed, one man, one woman; a third suspect has been detained. As I write this it’s not clear who the attackers were, what motivated them.

Please post any relevant information you find in the comments below.

See here for ongoing coverage.

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Alan Robertshaw
Alan Robertshaw
8 years ago

@ Scalyllama

Sorry to hear about that. One phrase that’s always stuck with me is “Treat people as ends not means”. I can’t even recall who that’s from.

It’s when people reverse that that trouble begins but it explains everything from the callous indifference of some corporations to the ‘friendzone’.

Dreamer
Dreamer
8 years ago

It’s from Kant the philosopher, Alan.

Alan Robertshaw
Alan Robertshaw
8 years ago

Thanks for that Dreamer

DS
DS
8 years ago

So the suspects have Muslim-sounding names. Anyone want to guess which of the Republican candidates will hop on that first with anti-Islamic bigotry and hate speech? My money is on Ted Cruz.

DS
DS
8 years ago

Sorry, “Muslim-sounding” should be in quotes.

ColeYote
ColeYote
8 years ago

Ugh. Another one. The Onion posted it again. “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.”

Fuck the NRA, fuck gun culture, fuck red states, fuck gun nuts, fuck the cowards in he government unwilling to do anything to address this because it might upset the gun nuts, fuck the media who try to frame every single one of these as an isolated incident, fuck the no ideas Democrats, fuck the increasingly extremist right-wing Republicans, fuck American politics in general, and I’m sorry if this is coming across as excessively vitriolic, but I feel like *have* to stay angry about this or these atrocities start becoming just another Wednesday! You have a problem, America! You have a LOT of problems, and the people you choose to represent you either won’t or can’t do anything about it! FUCKING DO SOMETHING!

DS
DS
8 years ago

Cole: It’s not so much that they’re cowards unwilling to do anything as it is that whenever they DO try to do something it gets voted down because gun lobbyists trot out the good ol’ “the Socialists want to take our guns away and institute martial law!” rhetoric.

The same tired, awful nonsense happens any time we try to change anything. For example, we’re one of the only developed nations that allows advertising to claim that sugar-loaded cereal and pastries are “part of a balanced breakfast”. My friends from the UK say that the PopTarts that get exported to their “international foods” grocery aisles are required by law to have a little blue sticker that covers up that “part of a balanced breakfast” nonsense because it is demonstrably NOT TRUE. But whenever we try to implement laws that would require a recommended daily intake of sugar to be printed on the side of products, the food lobby goes ballistic and starts saying Socialists want to control what you can and can’t put in your mouth, blah blah blah.

The thing that’s stupid about all of it is we’ve had welfare programs in this country for almost a century now, so we’re clearly and demonstrably Socialist at some level, so we shouldn’t be freaked out by the suggestion of a social program.

Probably that seems a little off-topic, but my point is that gun control laws face the same hurdles as any other laws in this country: there are people making a LOT of money off of the sale of guns. I used to own two guns (I’ve dramatically changed my views on gun ownership over the last 5 years or so and have de-conservativized if that is a word…I’m more of a moderate with slight left-leanings now). When I bought them, I paid close to $800 for a rifle and around $300 for a shotgun. And those were USED. If you want to buy those brand new, you’ll pay even more for a quality gun like a Mossberg or an Israeli Arms or something of that nature. Ain’t cheap. Lots of money in it, so lots of money for lobbying.

What would have a better chance of getting through Congress would be a law mandating that lobbying is truly illegal and that no campaigning or advertising agency may spend more on pushing their agenda or their product than let’s say 5 times the average per capita income. That would directly tie the ability of corporations to move their product with the average prosperity of the country and would make it impossible for companies to pursue higher and higher profits with lower and lower wages for their employees.

If you got a law of that nature to be passed (it never would, but hypothetically), that would eliminate the ability of super-wealthy individuals to influence politics more than their poor neighbors. Seems fair to me. Money should not dictate politics; the good of the people should dictate politics, or are we in an era where we reject the founding principle of our nation that government is created FOR the people and BY the people and that governments derive their right to rule from the consent of the people to be governed?

I believe that if we could limit the amount of money that lobbying and advertising could spend, we’d have more honest elections, and with those more honest elections we’d see more practical laws being passed such as gun control laws.

Buttercup Q. Skullpants
Buttercup Q. Skullpants
8 years ago

I really wish people would stop with guessing who the offenders are. You just look like an ass when they turn out not to be who you think they are. (This goes for people proclaiming they are probably manospherians, anti-government gun fetishists, white supremacists, Christians, folks of middle-eastern origin, or Muslim. Just stop.)

Just another well-regulated militia, doing its job. Nothing to see here.

I think it is appropriate to talk about mass shootings on this blog, because even if an individual incident has nothing to do with the manosphere, the rhetoric and the methods of violence for resolving uncomfortable feelings are constantly being advocated (or at least not condemned, which amounts to the same thing) by the manosphere. How many comment threads have we seen cheerleading Eliot Roger and Anders Breivik as heroes, and fantasizing about murder and violence and the total destruction of feminism? How many times do we see wounded male pride escalating immediately into threats? How many feminists have found themselves on the receiving end of hate mail, doxxing, and internet mobs for the crime of being insufficiently flattering to the status quo?

From talk radio to 4chan to Donald Trump, we’ve created a toxic, destructive, attention-seeking climate that corrodes discourse, dehumanizes others, and legitimizes angry foot-stomping tantrums as an acceptable response to even the most minor setbacks. It’s just a short leap from that headspace to gun ownership, especially when you’ve got the NRA and right-wing media pushing the narrative that scary are out to take your away and you NEED A GUN, by golly, to deter the bad guys. Promoting a siege mentality sells guns and keeps eyeballs glued to screens. “You’re under assault…but we can keep you safe!”

For some individuals, it becomes more than just talk. It’s very easy to find spaces where their violent views are accepted and egged on by legions of cowardly “just trolling” chickenshits without a shred of empathy or awareness. Turn on the news, and every other night there’s a new mass shooter getting their face and grievances into millions of homes. Real people are being harmed by this. Real people are being gunned down who are just trying to live normal lives. This has to stop. Fuck all these “thoughts and prayers”.

Buttercup Q. Skullpants
Buttercup Q. Skullpants
8 years ago

Whoops, some words got eaten by the wily and elusive Angle Bracket mammoth. Let’s try that again:

…especially when you’ve got the NRA and right-wing media pushing the narrative that scary (insert enemy here) are out to take your (insert precious amendment, civil right, person, or object here) away

bekabot
bekabot
8 years ago

They described a pickup with a splotchy white paint job. That’s the vehicle of choice for almost all the guys in the two affected counties.

In my neck of the woods it’s a dark-gray van with no windows. (The really hard cases are coated in primer.) Different in detail, but based on pretty much the same idea.

scalyllama
8 years ago

Alan Robertshaw on December 3, 2015 at 8:02 am
@ Scalyllama

Sorry to hear about that. One phrase that’s always stuck with me is “Treat people as ends not means”. I can’t even recall who that’s from.

Thanks for that Alan. Great quote. (Thanks to Dreamer for identifying it as Kant)

scarlettpipstrelle
8 years ago

So now, they’ve searched the house, and found an arsenal of ammo and pipe bombs. Very weird. Something was going on here under the radar for sure.

guy
guy
8 years ago

I’m currently going with either hidden workplace grudge (a man and his wife shot up a party full of the man’s coworkers) or Islamic terrorism (They are both Muslim and ISIS has been calling for terrorist attacks on American soil). Co-workers don’t think he was radical or the type to hold grudges, so presently no reason to favor one over the other. If there’s some other plausible motive I’m not seeing it.

Probably find out in a few days once they finish searching the house and checking computers. Any word on the third shooter or reason to think they were miscounted?

EJ (The Other One)
EJ (The Other One)
8 years ago

Oh hey, a new site layout. Pretty sweet.

mockingbird
mockingbird
8 years ago
Reply to  bekabot

That reminds me of when the DC Sniper thing was happening.

“Be on the lookout for a white panel van!”

*looks around*

*sees a white panel van every mine or so*

Errr…

mockingbird
mockingbird
8 years ago

comment image

mockingbird
mockingbird
8 years ago
Reply to  mockingbird

Noooo! No more auto-hotlinking (at least in mobile).

mockingbird
mockingbird
8 years ago

Dooooo Image Tags work?

msexceptiontotherule
msexceptiontotherule
8 years ago

They have been slowly giving information to the public regarding this incident….

The FBI is now looking at this as terrorism
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/says-694797-farook-malik.html

And here’s some more information about the couple…
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/farook-694761-couple-health.html

I’m in the greater Los Angeles area, so San Bernadino is only an hour or two drive away – depending on the traffic and time of day. There is a slightly heightened police presence in general and I imagine there’s a lot more at airports and Ports of La/Long Beach just as a precaution. People have been reacting to the attention-grabbing headline demanding more than #prayers from our politicians a lot – and we really do need some action from our elected representatives beyond extending their sympathy and prayers for the victims’ and their families – we have had far too many of these mass shootings which our government knows and should be doing something besides praying on if we’ve got any hope of lessening their occurrences! It’s impossible to stop every one of these incidents, but FFS could we maybe make it a teensy bit harder to actually do them?! We’ve had 5 elementary school kids arrested for planning to bomb a high school in another state in recent days…WTH?

Falconer
8 years ago

I seriously saw someone who claimed to be a lefty ask gun control advocates to answer several questions, which lead off with “what good would gun control do since criminals are by definition not law-abiding.”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a lefty buy into the whole “I will carry for the defense of those around me” before, so I kind of doubted this person’s claim to be a lefty.

Falconer
8 years ago

Oh god, it looks like the shooters’ landlord let cable news into their house before the cops had cleared it.

Jesus.

lightcastle
lightcastle
8 years ago

The police seem to be saying that the “three shooters” thing was a miscount.

There are hints the wife was radicalized, and may have radicalized the husband. (Based on some testimony from brother in law and people who said he wasn’t like this until recently.)

Lawyer from the family saying this makes no sense at all. She was too small to be lugging around assault weapons, how could they have amassed an armory no one knew about, etc.

If the story does become “he met a woman online, went to Saudi Arabia and married her and she radicalized him”, how long before the manosphere insists this is proof he was a beta so desperate for female attention he got turned into a weapon for her evil ends?