lavendertook (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lavendertook) wrote2016-06-13 07:39 pm
lavendertook) wrote2016-06-13 07:39 pm
Orlando was Primarily a Hate Crime
I am so angry at the media right now, including NPR framing the attack in Orlando as a terrorist act. This slaughter was primarily a hate crime against the LGBTIQ community. As yet there has been no direct connection found between the shooter and ISIS except as inspiration--a group for the killer to claim association with to frame his killing as a political act beyond personal religious belief. Islamic fundamentalist hate for same sex love is no different than Christian fundamentalist or any fundamentalist groups' hatred of queer folk.
And the people in Orlando shot are no more dead than the children and adults shot in the non-ISIS inspired Newtown massacre. The scope of the slaughter is due to the easy obtaining of a military assault rifle, pure and simple.
And yes, a bomb would also create such widespread slaughter, as in the Boston Marathon bombing, but bombs take a lot more planning and ingenuity to assemble and thus allow more avenues for discovery--they are harder to pull off. The killer yesterday would have had to have done a lot more work and planning, that would have had a good chance of being discovered as he was already watched. But the assault rifle he obtained lawfully could not be taken away because anyone can buy one.
By calling this act a terrorist act, rather than primarily a hate crime, politicians can deflect from the weapon used and banning assault weapons, and focus on discriminatory crap against Muslims like expanding watch lists--which would have done NOTHING to prevent this already watched killer from obtaining his arms legally like any other violent hate-filled individual out there who doesn't fit an Islamic terrorist profile. It is not only the ISIS inspired who use assault rifles for mass killing and the people in Orlando would have been just as dead if their killer was a Christian fundamentalist or neo-Nazi homophobe. And targeting the mentally ill will do nothing good. No one should have an assault weapon. Rage is all too human and we do not take the hate crimes of domestic violence seriously enough, and that was clue for what this killer was capable of.
But not even the Democrats, let alone the Republicans want to take on the NRA, and we give them outs to not do so by making terrorism the issue here rather than the weapons available to the enraged.
No enraged person should have access to a trigger they can pull for mass killing, whatever ideology or lack thereof inspires them. (I'm not too crazy about access to individual targeted guns as well, and military use is another argument, but let's just start here with assault weapons to enact some laws against mass slaughter.) The second amendment was designed with flintlock rifles in mind, not automatic weapons with hundreds of rounds. By framing the act as terrorism, we deflect from the insanity of allowing these weapons for mass slaughter to be legal and easily obtained.
The people who kill people cannot easily kill SO MANY people without assault guns. It doesn't matter whether this hate-filled act was inspired with a terrorist group's agenda in mind. The slaughter is still the same. The issue is not international terrorism but the need to ban these weapons of mass killing from the hands of anyone harboring any homegrown hatred, which means banning them from the U.S. public, period.
Also posted at http://lavendertook.dreamwidth.org/198148.html with
comments
And the people in Orlando shot are no more dead than the children and adults shot in the non-ISIS inspired Newtown massacre. The scope of the slaughter is due to the easy obtaining of a military assault rifle, pure and simple.
And yes, a bomb would also create such widespread slaughter, as in the Boston Marathon bombing, but bombs take a lot more planning and ingenuity to assemble and thus allow more avenues for discovery--they are harder to pull off. The killer yesterday would have had to have done a lot more work and planning, that would have had a good chance of being discovered as he was already watched. But the assault rifle he obtained lawfully could not be taken away because anyone can buy one.
By calling this act a terrorist act, rather than primarily a hate crime, politicians can deflect from the weapon used and banning assault weapons, and focus on discriminatory crap against Muslims like expanding watch lists--which would have done NOTHING to prevent this already watched killer from obtaining his arms legally like any other violent hate-filled individual out there who doesn't fit an Islamic terrorist profile. It is not only the ISIS inspired who use assault rifles for mass killing and the people in Orlando would have been just as dead if their killer was a Christian fundamentalist or neo-Nazi homophobe. And targeting the mentally ill will do nothing good. No one should have an assault weapon. Rage is all too human and we do not take the hate crimes of domestic violence seriously enough, and that was clue for what this killer was capable of.
But not even the Democrats, let alone the Republicans want to take on the NRA, and we give them outs to not do so by making terrorism the issue here rather than the weapons available to the enraged.
No enraged person should have access to a trigger they can pull for mass killing, whatever ideology or lack thereof inspires them. (I'm not too crazy about access to individual targeted guns as well, and military use is another argument, but let's just start here with assault weapons to enact some laws against mass slaughter.) The second amendment was designed with flintlock rifles in mind, not automatic weapons with hundreds of rounds. By framing the act as terrorism, we deflect from the insanity of allowing these weapons for mass slaughter to be legal and easily obtained.
The people who kill people cannot easily kill SO MANY people without assault guns. It doesn't matter whether this hate-filled act was inspired with a terrorist group's agenda in mind. The slaughter is still the same. The issue is not international terrorism but the need to ban these weapons of mass killing from the hands of anyone harboring any homegrown hatred, which means banning them from the U.S. public, period.
Also posted at http://lavendertook.dreamwidth.org/198148.html with
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Your words are gold.
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Thank you, bb. *hugs*
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Without a doubt.
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M. and I are really struggling with dealing with the media and calling it terrorism (and the inevitable dread/cringe when you see that the name is Middle Eastern), when in fact, this is the act of a savage person who used ISIS as an excuse because he wanted to kill a lot of people (according to one of his coworkers) and committed a hate crime against a group he hated. And yes, easily obtained a weapon that NO people have any business having. No reason for it other than mass killings.
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Of course labeling it terrorism rather than a hate crime makes it easier to politicize, as Drumpf has done, ignoring the fact that banning Muslim immigrants would have done zero to stop a man who was born in the U.S. and was a legal U.S. citizen. But hey, why let the facts muddy the waters, right?
It's hard not to despair in the face of so much willful ignorance.
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*snugs*
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