aluminiumtrioxid

Well, exactly. I'm not sure how much of the "but why do you not see any Christian terrorist groups!" thing is inherent to Christianity versus just not having that many desperate and disenfranchised people around who can easily be talked into sacrificing themselves for intangible rewards.

The religious right isn't massacring infidels in the U.S. Or gays. Or people with contrary political beliefs. Muslims are. I'm counting... one Muslim, in recent memory? yes but lets not be pedantic I am not religious but it is a valid point to say " Islamic extremism " is the problem, not " Christian conservatism " If the outcome is "they foster homophobia with hateful rhetoric", I genuinely see little difference between the two.

The religious right isn't massacring infidels in the U.S. Or gays. Or people with contrary political beliefs. Muslims are. I'm counting... one Muslim, in recent memory?

Basically this. I have a hunch that the people protesting about the FBI not preventing this attack just have no idea what kind of resources it'd take to investigate every single person who exhibits the same warning signs as the shooter.

I'm down. Either that or Warhammer 40k, I just want me some space marines in power armor. Because that turned out so well last time.

Somehow I doubt the veracity of this claim.

...and there we have it. The solution is not for banning guns or more survaillence. Rather, it's about Islam accepting the gay. They are clearly not inclusive enough and we as society need to focus on the toxic masculinity which is spread in their mosques. Homosexuality is rejected by the Muslim world, they must be the most intolerant religion as far as homosexuality is concerned In the ME many countries have the death penalty for anyone found to be gay If this guy was indeed gay he would have been in this permanent state of confusion and he would have been conflicted. Sadly when certain people refuse to accept who they are as far as sexual orientation is concerned they sometimes resort to violence as a way to somehow deal with the frustration of not being able to be themselves I have seen this before, sometimes the worst bigots end up being gay themselves Keep in mind the message that ISIS puts out: First, it is the duty of the faithful to come to Syria/Iraq and join the fight to re-establish the grandeur of the Caliphate. But, if you can't do that for whatever reason, it'd be great if you could kill as many infidels as you can where you are. This offers a way for unstable folks with violent tendencies to feel justified-- even holy-- in acting out their fantasies of bloodshed. ISIS bears no cost, and gets the benefit of looking scarier to the outside world ("Lone Wolf" attacks are by nature more difficult to prevent than ones involving central coordination), as well as inspiring nativist and anti-Muslim reactions that feed the cycle of recruiting. Thus, "ISIS-inspired" attacks like Orlando (guy who might well have been a self-hating homosexual kills lots of gay folks) and San Bernardino (terrorist attack that just happened to target the perpetrator's co-workers) where religion appears to have been the final justifying factor for violence that already-unhinged perpetrators really wanted to inflict for other reasons. It's the key difference between Islam and Christianity really. In Christianity salvation is inward where no matter what you have done previously, confessing ones sins, regretting them and asking for forgiveness is the path to salvation (Just look at all those gay pastors asking for forgiveness after getting caught). In Islam it is outward, namely you can commit murder in the name of Jihad and the sins are washed away and salvation is given. This is all well and good, but actually there's no lack of Christian congregations spewing hateful rhetoric and downplaying that whole salvation and redemption angle, so I'm understandably sceptical of its inherent superiority.

Surely you meant a rocket launcher.

^Ladies and gents, Poe's law in action. You think? His answer seems reasonable and rationale ? As long as you imagine programmers to be omnicompetent and faultless, sure. But any computer system's only ever going to be as good as the guy who made it, and false positives (not to mention false negatives) are pretty much inevitable even if you imagine that it works only with the tiniest rates of error because of how unimaginably huge is the amount of information it has to chew through.

^Ladies and gents, Poe's law in action.

12 times as many incidents and a more than 35 times larger population. You can't just ignore that. His point stands. I genuinely have no idea where you've got that number from (according to the chart, Germany has a population of ~82 million people, whereas the US has ~315 million; it's not even 4 times as big). Moreover, the uncropped version of that chart features 34 countries and 61 incidents in total. The US boasts nearly two-thirds of all incidents, despite the fact that the total population of all featured countries is in the rough ballpark of 1180m - meaning that a country with fourth the population of the sum total is responsible for two-thirds of all incidents. If that doesn't seem like a statistical outlier to you, I have no idea what to say.

I'm understandably leery of any line of argument that requires the listener to equate extramarital sex with serial rape.

Except they're not. That's completely false. Mass shootings have happened and continue to happen all over the world. In fact, if you take a ratio of mass shooting deaths compared to population, the US doesn't even make the top 5 (admittedly this chart doesn't include 2014, 2015, or 2016): I'm mainly ragging on the original source, not Keyrock for posting it I am, on the other hand, because even the most cursory look at that frikkin' chart reveals that the USA had more than 12 times as many such incidents than the country with the next highest rate of incidence (and almost 40 times as many as half the countries shown). To claim that the US is not an extreme outlier strikes me as incredibly contrived in light of that.

Sexism is a two-way street, Bruce. The notion that men can't feel embarrassment at having their sex tapes leaked is no less stupid and harmful than the overall societal view that ties women's worth to their perceived purity.

So if Jennifer Lawrence was married and having sex with someone outside that marriage - even if all parties involved, even her spouse, had consented to it -, she'd deserve having the Internet plastered with videos of that?

Well... no. I said that American culture has a weird obsession with guns, seeing them as symbols of freedom and rugged individualism, and given that mass shootings are a uniquely American phenomena, the culture surrounding guns and the societal perception thereof is likely a contributing factor in that. Sure, I don't think you should be, but restrictions on the magazine size sound reasonably enough to me, and I believe they have been in effect for quite some time. I assume you don't need 30 bullets to defend yourself from hostile fauna.

We seem to be in agreement, then. There is something about American culture that births mass shootings. This is obviously a problem because human lives are valuable (duh). Treating the problem at the root cause (figuring out why mass shootings happen and how to prevent them) is obviously preferable to restrictions on the right to bear firearms, but unless someone can do that, gun control seems to be the next best thing. So let's focus on the outcomes: we have no gun control, people continue to die. What alternative outcomes are worse, and why? ...Don't live in the arse-end of nowhere if you want to partake in the benefits civilization has to offer? Ah, yet another freedom of choice you think someone shouldn't make. I guess the government could sieze my land and home and force me to move to a city. The SCOTUS said that was OK in Kelo v. New London. Boy you really are not big on the whole freedom thing. I think you're conflating "well that's a choice you made and you have to live with the downsides of that choice" with "that's a choice you shouldn't be allowed to make". I can't help but notice that this conflation also let you rather elegantly side-step the other part of my post as well.

That is because the Federal Government has nothing to do with elections. They are entirely run by the respective states. I swear I will never understand your way of thinking. So government is teh evulz except in the specific case of the state level which is somehow immune to everything that makes the federal government the terrible tool of oppressive tyranny it is. Bwuh? We have a lot more input and control of local and state governments. I can pick up the phone and call my State Rep and she will speak with me. Don't even bother trying that with your Congressmen. I guess that's fair.

We seem to be in agreement, then. There is something about American culture that births mass shootings. This is obviously a problem because human lives are valuable (duh). Treating the problem at the root cause (figuring out why mass shootings happen and how to prevent them) is obviously preferable to restrictions on the right to bear firearms, but unless someone can do that, gun control seems to be the next best thing. So let's focus on the outcomes: we have no gun control, people continue to die. What alternative outcomes are worse, and why? To be fair, the way American culture fetishizes guns is absolutely worth criticizing, and if I had a magic wand that could somehow either make that stupid, childish fantasy of "guns = freedom and rugged individualism" or the guns themselves disappear, I'd definitely choose the former. Spoke like a man who has never been confronted with hostile wildlife, or that lives a 45 minute drive from the nearest police station. ...Don't live in the arse-end of nowhere if you want to partake in the benefits civilization has to offer?

To be fair, the way American culture fetishizes guns is absolutely worth criticizing, and if I had a magic wand that could somehow either make that stupid, childish fantasy of "guns = freedom and rugged individualism" or the guns themselves disappear, I'd definitely choose the former.

That is because the Federal Government has nothing to do with elections. They are entirely run by the respective states. I swear I will never understand your way of thinking. So government is teh evulz except in the specific case of the state level which is somehow immune to everything that makes the federal government the terrible tool of oppressive tyranny it is. Bwuh?

Why would anybody want to punish this? Preventing similar cases, on the other hand, sounds like a reasonable goal. So you either punish everyone for something someone else did or you punish everyone for something no one did yet. Either way it amounts to the same thing. You are taking away the property of people who have done nothing wrong. That should even bother YOU. Not... particularly? I mean, you can't conceivably need an assault rifle for any civilian purpose. And if I weigh the collective freedom to keep what amounts to a glorified **** substitute at home against the lives of people who can - and will - be gunned down in an event like this, no offense, but the glorified **** substitute just ain't gonna come out of that comparison on top. Yay utilitarianism!

Why would anybody want to punish this? Preventing similar cases, on the other hand, sounds like a reasonable goal.

I think, as long as it's confined to it's own corner of the internet, they (and others) ignore it. If it gets to rampant they come down on it. I mean, Esurance had to change their mascot because there was just so many metric tons of porn created from Erin Esurance (with really really really bad puns) Which btw, I'd love to know who these people are that watched Esurance commercials and were like "yknow what? I really wanna jack off to this." If the internet has taught me anything, its that there are some people who find anything in a vaguely feminine form to be potential stroke material. Fix'd.