Mass shooting in Orlando

[MissJM1]

How sad. Inside a gay nightclub, they say there are hostages and the shooter could have an explosive

I think it would be all too easy for pro gun people to now say ... but this was a terrorist, this man would have done this some other way because it's ISIS. It absolves responsibility for discussing gun laws.

It is reported he only bought his gun from a store two weeks ago so I think that makes a mockery of that argument. I hope the US don't move away from examining what this means - the worst mass shooting in their history and their gun control laws.

mamamea how do you know all this. I have muslim friends who are good friends with homosexuals, they certainly don't reject it, so I think you are guilty of a very big sweeping generalisation there.

Certainly many mosques where I live, preach against homosexuality.

Artandco yes I do.

Justjibberish yes it's one of these us.glock.com/products/model/g19 and about assault rifles, some of the reasons are increased capacity as well as greater accuracy. I can definitely see the advantages in owning one in certain situations but as a daily carry weapon, it's just not viable. I need something small, that I can keep concealed and good luck trying to conceal an assault rifle. Keeping it hidden also prevents anyone from noticing you have a gun and freaking out. There are times when someone phones the police because they see a guy with a gun and as long as your paperwork is in order for the officers to check it isn't a problem but it's an inconvenience. I also don't want to alarm people, and while I don't feel there is anything wrong with being armed, I am understanding that not everyone where I live feels the same. Some people might get distressed, and I don't want that.

I have been in law enforcement in the uk for 21 years. In this time I have been faced with many weapons, knives, hammers, machetes and once a very large metal soup ladle. I have disarmed them either using my verbal skills, my baton or using CS spray. Not once have I ever wished for a gun to deal with the offender, I do not wish to kill or maim anyone, at any time, for any reason. I have been injured and very very very scared but still I am glad of our gun control laws because it means the likely good of me dealing with someone with a gun is lessened.
I cannot, under any circumstance, understand chilled' reasoning for carrying a gun for protection, are you actually willing to shoot and kill another human being? What if you make a mistake? What if you shoot a child? What if it's a child attacking you, do you still shoot? What exactly are you protecting yourself against?
I'm glad I live in the UK, I would hate to live some place where carrying a murder weapon was essential for me to live my day to day life, and it scares me that children are living in a society like that, any old nobber can get a gun and shoot them.

"There is no doubt that in Islam homosexuality is considered 'sinful'. Homosexuality as far as Islam is concerned is a profound mistake ( as are all sins if they are not intending to do wrong). Humans are not homosexuals by nature. People become homosexuals because of their environments. Particularly critical is the environment during puberty. Suggestions, ideas & strange dreams are symptoms of confused attempts to understand new and blunt sexual desires and are rashly interpreted as defining someone as being one sexuality or another. If these conclusions are accompanied by actual homosexual acts they are even more strongly reinforced."

www.missionislam.com/knowledge/homosexuality.htm

Individual Muslims may be accepting of lesbian and gay people, but that is not the accepted Islamic view amongst all sects of Islam.

It has just been released on US news that the terrorist called 911 during his attack and pledged allegiance to ISIS, he also made reference to to the Boston Marathon Bombings. This is an act of hate and terrorism, according to President Obama.

I can't claim to be any kind of expert but what baffles me is if the FBI have said that he was "on their radar" how was he able to access a gun?(unless illegally). That alone surely makes a mockery of any kind of background checks etc.

Take a look at LGBT in Islam wiki page. It provides a good overview, with polls, on the intolerance of Muslims with homosexuality. In 2007 0% of the 500 asked, said homosexuality was morally acceptable.

Hey Dolores, you said you can't understand my reason for carrying a gun but then go on to give the reason: protection. We live in a world where bad people sometimes attack good people. You've seen this yourself, you've been attacked multiple times, that's the sort of thing I'm protecting myself against. It's nice that you were able to disarm people using communication skills, batons or spray, but sometimes that's not possible. Am I willing to shoot and kill another human being? Yes I am, but I don't really want to, and I'd do my best not to.

Roussette: I'm living in a (largely) Muslim country (Indonesia). The population, formerly tolerant having developed a syncretic form of religion over centuries, are subject to increasingly bigoted propaganda originating from the Middle East, but promulgated centrally and locally by religious leaders (very frequently hypocrites who ignore their own religious precepts) who follow the money - embedding yourself in religion brings power, influence and money.

There is a new anti-LGBT movement in Indonesia (previously tolerant) . www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35657114 and it is but one strand of creeping Islamic bigotry which intensifies with each passing year.

It's reported by Reuters that ISIS have claimed responsibility for this atrocity: www.reuters.com/article/us-florida-shooting-claim-idUSKCN0YY0VU

Utterly heartbreaking

I'm defending myself against a range of possible attacks.
No that is just delusional. It has never helped. In none of the mass shootings has the killer been shot by a member of the public with a gun. In fact when people have had guns, they have deliberately not used them because the second they pull that weapon out, they become a target themselves and no-one knows who the original shooter was.
Imagine being in a club and hearing gunshots, you turn around and see a man holding a gun, you pull out your own gun, as do 3 other people. Several people shoot each other while the original gunman is at the other side of the room killing other people.

Bloody hell my thoughts go out to all involved

This story is horrifying and, as with every new story like this, makes me re-examine Islam and find it lacking.

The attitude to homosexuality is disgusting.

It makes me sick and my heart goes out to the men and their families. Makes me fucking furious.

The world is becoming less tolerant every year.

The idea that you are more 'protected' when you carry/own a gun is a fallacy.
More people the in US are killed with their own gun (where the assailant takes the gun off them and uses it against them) than by the assailant pulling a gun first.
In what world do you live to feel that you need a gun??
I never did, living in the areas that I lived in the US and mixing with the people I mixed with.

Having said that, all that was before 9/11, I was not involved with crime/drugs and worked in a profession that was highly regarded by most people I had contact with. I have been in situation in which I was scared, but not in a single one where I would have felt less threatened had I had a gun which I truly believe would only have inflamed the situation (aggressive young gang banger, high on who-knows-what, under stress and feeling pressured).

I am entirely prepared to kill another human being if my life were threatened or those of my loved ones, but I don't feel the need of constantly being prepared for that because the REAL threat is tiny. Or random . I bet some of the people in that nightclub had or at least owned guns. Fat load of good that did them .

There are too many guns in circulation in the States. It is a stupidly dangerous situation particularly in charged times like these.

Re the whole Islam or extremist/ISIS connection: the extras of religion of any coleur is an evil that preys on those susceptible to 'easy' answers to their disenfranchised lives IMO.
Islam has missed out on an Enlightenment/Renaissance period in its history and is a medieval school of thinking and ethics that has not caught up with the 19th century, never mind the 21st.

Such terrible news, to target such a fun, vibrant, harmless, happy community is tragic.

On the subject of guns, I live near Dunblane. It is an event that seared the national psyche in a way a gun owning community would struggle to comprehend. The snowdrop campaign and the lives it will have saved is the only thing that make the loss of those children bearable. When little children were shot in Scotland, we campaigned hard against guns and that makes me proud and relieved. I just wish the USA could leave behind its love of weapons to protect innocent lives.

Islam desperately needs a reformation. While the doctrine remains the literal word of God, immune to historical change, the barbaric atrocities will continue.

what, I deliberately have not mentioned Dunblane.
I live about 20mi away and still remember the earthquake of disbelief and shock when the news broke about the atrocity there.

Committed by somebody with a legal gun held with the appropriate paperwork.
It would seem even here there are too many guns in circulation.

Can anybody in their right mind believe that less lives would have been lost if, say, the teacher carried her own gun? Or there was armed security in the school?? I really don't see how some kind of gunfight akin to the O.K. Corral would have been helpful.

Protection. Don't delude yourself.

Islam wasn't fundamentalist, originally. :( Everything the prophet said was supposed to be interpreted in context of when and why he said it, that's what imams were for.

Literalism is a kind of protestant-style development, and there are many traditions within Islam of people definitely not being literal about what Qu'ran said or meant.

Well done to you Dolores. You are admirable and indicate exactly why here in the UK we don't want guns to be freely available.

You sound very proud of your gun chilled and although you say you would be willing to kill someone, it's big of you to say that you would avoid it. If you could. It is known that carrying a gun doesn't protect you. In a link I showed earlier, even people trained in shooting guns couldn't get their gun out fast enough to help themselves against an unexpected attacker. So you carrying a gun does you no favours whatsoever. I prefer Dolores's methods.

mamamea I understand what you are saying. Luckily it is far more tolerant here, my two muslim friends accept an alternative sexuality as much as others I know.

Committed by somebody with a legal gun held with the appropriate paperwork.

At that time. Thanks to brave and heroic campaigns by many, including the bereaved parents, Thomas Hamilton would not have been able to acquire a legal gun today. I can see no reason for people to routinely need to own guns. Yes, there are other weapons, but when people go mad with a knife, they don't kill 50 people.

Yes, I am glad the rules have changed.
The Snowdrop campaign has no doubt saved lives or will have saved lives in the future

Pacific - spot on!! I'm about 40 miles east of there.

Rousette- thank you. Perhaps it's best that chilled resides where she does, I don't care for her type of attitude towards the lives of others.