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The Big and Senseless Mass Shooting Thread

Well what I was trying to say is that the U.S. Has had an open border to a failed third world narco state for 30 years. Granted it was caused by our policy. Now the Europeans will get a taste and only time will tell how this is handled. I have a feeling we will see a right up swing in Europe in the coming years.
 
San Bernadino Shooting

San Bernardino, Calif. – It started at a holiday party — perhaps with a slight or a testy exchange, something that prompted Syed Rizwan Farook to storm off angrily.

It ended in a bloodbath with 14 people dead and 17 more wounded — the deadliest mass shooting in the United States since Sandy Hook.


At its center, a couple, Farook and Tashfeen Malik.


Related:


Who are Syed Rezwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik?
‘Pray for us’ says a text from California shooting scene
Dressed in black, carrying semi-automatic rifles, they unleashed a massacre Wednesday at the Inland Regional Center, a facility for the developmentally disabled in San Bernardino, California.


That was their first brazen act. Then they led police on a chase. Farook fired while Malik drove.


They died in a hail of bullets when they tried to take on 21 officers.


Now comes the challenging part: What was their motive? Surely it couldn’t just have been anger at a party. The level of attention speaks to something much more meticulously planned.


Police don’t yet know.


The husband and wife didn’t leave behind a note at Inland Regional. But they did stash three explosive devices — rigged to a remote-controlled toy car — that didn’t go off.


The mass shooting


It was around 11:00 a.m. when Farook and Malik opened fire.


A text message landed in Terry Pettit’s phone from his daughter, who was inside Inland Regional.


“Shooting at my work. People shot,” she wrote. “Pray for us. I am locked in an office.”
Denise Peraza was also inside the center when she was shot in the back. She called her sister Stephanie Baldwin, thinking it might be time to say goodbye.


“As soon as the gunfire started, everyone dropped to the floor and they were underneath desks, and she was trying to shield herself with a chair, along with a man next to her,” Baldwin told CNN affiliate KABC. “Then, all of a sudden, she said she just felt (the bullet) going through her back.”


“I just want to tell you that I love you,” Peraza told Stephanie Baldwin over the phone through tears.


Peraza survived. She is in a hospital and is expected to recover.


Police have not released the names of those who died.


Within minutes, troops of officers stormed the building searching for an active shooter. They counted the dead — and shuttled the wounded out to triage.


“We had to come out with our hands up and be escorted across the street to the golf course,” a woman who works at the center told KCAL/KCBS.


“We stood there for hours, hours witnessing clothing of deceased ones on the street, people crying, co-workers crying, us wanting to get to our children.”


SUV shootout


But Farook and Malik slipped away in a black SUV.


Not for long. Acting on information that quickly pointed police to Farook, they went to his home in Redlands with a search warrant.


A black SUV drove by them. Slowly at first, then it sped away.


A police car took up pursuit, as the SUV raced back in the direction of San Bernardino. While Malik drove, Farook opened fire out of the vehicle.


Some 21 officers returned fire. When the SUV came to a halt, it was riddled with bullet holes. The couple inside was dead; their bodies found dressed in “assault-style clothing,” San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said. “Dark kind of tactical gear.”


One officer was wounded, but his injuries were not life-threatening, Burguan said.


In the chaos, police encountered a third person who was running away. “We do not know if they were involved,” Burguan said. “We have that person detained.”


But they feel confident that there were only two shooters — Farook and Malik.


This is notable given that, while there have been many mass shootings, it’s extremely rare when they involve more than one shooter. Only two of the 28 deadliest shootings since 1949 in the United States have had more than one shooter.


Guns galore


Two .223 caliber rifles were in the car with them, along with two pistols.


They were legally purchased, police said.


Two handguns traced back to Farook, an official said. He bought them three to four years ago.


Someone else bought the two rifles, possibly a former roommate — also legally three or four years ago. That person isn’t believed to have anything to do with the shootings, the official said.


“I think that what we have seen and how they were equipped, there had to be some kind of planning in this,” Burguan said.


Explosive devices


Back at Inland Regional, there was still danger to be dealt with — three explosives the pair had left behind.


They were “pipe bomb type design,” Burguan said. Police secured them and remotely detonated them.


The explosives had been rigged to a remote control for a toy car, an official said. That remote was found inside the SUV. And in the vehicle was another pipe-like device, but it was not an explosive, Burguan said.


In Redlands, officers sent in a robot to check Farook’s residence, which they held surrounded into the night.


Brother-in-law shocked


Farook, an American citizen, was an environmental health specialist with the San Bernardino County health department, which was hosting the holiday party at Inland Regional.


He had worked there for five years.


In an online profile, he described himself as a “Muslim Male living in USA/California/riverside. Religious but modern family of 4, with 2 girls and 2 boys.”


He “enjoys working on vintage and modern cars, reads religious books, enjoys eating out sometimes. Enjoys travelling and just hanging out in the back yard doing target practice with his younger sister and friends,” his profile read.


Farook’s brother-in-law Farhan Khan was crushed at the news.


“I have no idea why he would he do something like this. I have absolutely no idea. I am in shock myself,” Khan said. “I don’t have words to express how sad and how devastated I am.”


Khan said he last talked to Farook a week ago. Farook’s family had tried to reach him Wednesday but could not all day.
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Source
 
nuttynutskin said:
Obviously Islamic terrorists aren't anything we need to worry about in the U.S. 8(
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Hmm was this terrorism or just a mass shooting?

Syed Rizwan Farook
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Tashfeen Malik
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Ahh, terror indeed. Unlike the planned parenthood shooter who was clearly just a misunderstood crazy person. Or the Shooting the day before that. Or the one on the day before that.

You're statistically 7x more likely to be killed by far-right, white extremists and 9x more likely to be killed by the police than you are Islamic extremists. But by all means, fear who you wish to fear.
 
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We really need to take away the lobbying power of the NRA. I hate lobbyists. They are just bribing our government for special interests that, in this case, kill people.
 
^On that note we really need to abolish the lobbying industry entirely. A counter argument might look like "But you can't really ban people from giving other people gifts or money can you?"

You can. Once you're an elected, public official, you should not be allowed to accept cash or gifts from private organizations. Aside from "lobbying", I don't know any other word in the English language to describe this other than bribery. The notion that bribery is free speech, and that our supreme court, our most elite set of judges in the country, have ruled it as such, just makes me want to leave.
 
manboychef said:
We really need to take away the lobbying power of the NRA. I hate lobbyists. They are just bribing our government for special interests that, in this case, kill people.
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But someone has to protect my right to take my guns to church (sarcasm​)
 
Considering how this attack took place in California, with it's strict gun laws, shouldn't we wait a bit and figure out how they got their guns before blaming the NRA?

I'm apathetic towards the NRA, but (and correct me if I'm wrong) I don't see anything plausible regulation that would have stopped this attack.
 
L.A. Times said:
San Bernardino massacre being investigated as terrorism, FBI says

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. _ San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook had contact with people from at least two terrorist organizations overseas, including the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front in Syria, a federal law enforcement official said Friday.

His wife and fellow shooter, Tashfeen Malik, also pledged allegiance to an Islamic State leader in a Facebook posting, two federal law enforcement officials said.

The revelations came as the FBI formally announced it was investigating the shooting rampage as an act of terrorism.

FBI Director James Comey said the assailants showed signs of "radicalization" but that there was no evidence they were part of a larger terrorist network.

Farook and Malik died in a police shootout Wednesday, several hours after bursting into a holiday potluck for the San Bernardino County Health Department and killing 14 people.

As the investigation expands, the law enforcement source said, agents are trying to learn more about the couple's contacts in the U.S. and overseas, "especially those in Pakistan," where Farook visited and Malik was born.

One key question, said the official, "is if they had any weapons or terror training in Pakistan." The source described "some kind" of contact between Farook and people from the Nusra Front and the radical al-Shabab group in Somalia. It's unclear what type of contact or with whom.

Authorities in Pakistan also said Friday that they were investigating whether Malik had ties to Islamic militant organizations.

Officials cautioned that Malik's Facebook posting did not mean that the militant group directed Malik and her husband to carry out the Wednesday attack, and that investigators think it instead suggests that the couple had become self-radicalized. One of the officials said the Facebook post was made under a different name and had since been removed.

A Facebook spokesman confirmed that the company took down the profile page that included the post cited by law enforcement officials. He said the post was discovered a day after the shooting when Facebook employees conducted a search of the site for the shooters' names. The company's policy, he said, was to remove posts that "support or glorify" terrorism. The post had gone up Wednesday about 11 a.m. PST, around the same time the shooting began, he said. He said Facebook provided the contents of the post to law enforcement.

Witnesses and police have said Farook, a county public health worker, had been at the holiday party but left, possibly after a disagreement with a co-worker, and returned with Malik to attack the gathering.

That could be construed as workplace violence, the law enforcement source said, noting that evidence and witness recollections suggest that they shot Farook's supervisors first. Or, the source said, "after they got away" and were missing for several hours, they might have hoped to launch a previous plan for an even larger strike.

An acquaintance who prayed with Farook at a San Bernardino mosque told the Los Angeles Times that the shooter said he liked his wife because she wore a "niqab," a veil that covered almost all of her face.

Nizaam Ali, 23, said Friday he thought that Farook liked Malik's niqab because it showed she was religious and wasn't embodying "the modern role of women today, working and all that."

Ali, a student at California State University, San Bernardino, said he occasionally talked to Farook at Dar al Uloom al Islamiyah of America mosque.

Ali remembered Farook saying something like, "That's what really made me interested in her, that's what made her stick out from the other women."

Ali said he thinks wearing a niqab is courageous, especially in the West where people aren't familiar with such clothing. The two men agreed about that, he remembered.

"Other than that, his wife never came up in other conversations," he said.

He said Farook met his wife online, a practice Ali said is common among his friends. "In our community, it's different," he said, noting that it's difficult for Muslim men to find women to marry. "Internet has become something that eases it."

Ali said he had met Malik on a few occasions, but the niqab obscured her face. "If you asked me how she looked, I couldn't tell you," he said.

The couple were married in Islam's holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia last year, according to Farook's co-workers at the Health Department and others who knew them. The Saudi Embassy in Washington confirmed that Farook spent nine days in the kingdom in the summer of 2014.

Authorities said that when he returned to the U.S. in July 2014, he brought Malik with him on a fiancée visa. After a background check by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, she was granted a conditional green card last summer.

The couple's infant daughter was born in May, according to records. Malik was 29, according to records. San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan had erroneously given her age as 27. Farook, a U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent, was 28.

An attorney representing Farook's and Malik's family said Malik never spoke about Islamic State or terrorism.

"As far as I know, there was no discussion of any of that (among family members)," Mohammad Abuershaid said.

The couple hadn't been married that long, he said. "It wasn't like the family had much time to get to know her."

Abuershaid said the family was very conservative and that it would have been unlikely that Malik discussed her thoughts on world events, including the trouble in the Middle East, with her in-laws.

"Tashfeen was an individual who kept to herself most of the time," Abuershaid said. He added that she was a soft-spoken housewife who stayed at home with the baby.

The family has met with the FBI and plans to meet with agency officials again Monday, the attorney said.

Another lawyer for the family said family members were shocked to learn about Malik's and Farook's involvement.

"There's never been any evidence that either of the two alleged shooters were aggressive (or) had extremist views," said David Chesley.

A federal law enforcement source said Malik and Farook made an unsuccessful attempt to destroy their electronic devices.

David Bowdich, the assistant director in charge of the Los Angeles FBI office, said investigators have recovered evidence of multiple explosive armaments and that the assailants attempted to destroy their "digital fingerprints."

He added that two crushed cellphones were found in a trash can.

Comey said the FBI was trying to determine if the assailants were inspired by foreign terrorist organizations.

"We are spending a tremendous amount of time, as you might imagine, over the last 48 hours trying to understand the motives of these killers and trying to understand every detail of their lives," Comey said. "We know that this is very unsettling for the people of the United States. What we hope you will do is not let fear become disabling, but to instead channel it into an awareness of your surroundings."

Farook and Malik had amassed an arsenal of 2,000 9 mm handgun rounds, 2,500 .223-caliber assault rifle rounds and "hundreds of tools" that could have been used to make explosive devices, authorities said.

The couple fired at least 65 shots when they stormed a party at the Inland Regional Center, where about 80 people had gathered. Twelve of the 14 dead and 18 of the 21 injured were county employees, police said.

Hours later, the couple exchanged gunfire with police on San Bernardino streets, launching bullets into homes and terrifying residents.

Farook and Malik used two assault rifles and two semiautomatic handguns, all of which were bought legally, according to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

On Friday morning, dozens of reporters were let inside the Redlands town house where Malik and Farook lived. The doors and windows were boarded up, and the home was sparsely decorated. The upstairs had a crib, baby toys and children's books.

In the middle of the living room, a copy of the Quran rested on a small black table. On another table was a lengthy list of items the FBI had seized in its investigation: Christmas lights, an iPhone, boxes and bags of ammunition, letters, a passport and gun accessories.
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Full article at link: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/sa...d-as-terrorism-fbi-says/ar-AAg2yv9?li=BBnb7Kz
 
jammin83 said:
Yeah^

It's partly our media but they do it from birth on. From LSD stickers, to razor blades in apples on halloween, somebody is trying to hurt/kill you and invade your home. Since 9/11 its gotten worse. I have a syrian name and I get searched EVERY time i'm at the airport. People are just paranoid as fuck all of the time. I really don't think it's going to get any better, probably a lot worse. Seems like cops kill more people than anybody else aside from gang violence. America is such a police state and our justice system is fucked. The culture here is really starting to get to me.

I know...don't like it, don't live here. I think I'd like that.
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Compared to Europe where many adults are still really kids being looked after by the state. No one has any faith or pride in their culture (unless they're migrants). I wouldn't say the Europe doesn't have a stranger danger mentality, maybe 20 years ago it didn't but that has changed massively. One part of European culture I do enjoy is working class (work mate) solidarity.
 
alasdairm said:
you think that it's appropriate to compare guns to cars as deadly weapons?

i totally agree. so, you'll definitely agree with me that:

  • to own a gun, you should be required to get a learner permit and, subsequently, pass a test to get your license. just like driving
  • the license will have to be renewed regularly. just like driving
  • different weapons will require different types of licenses (e.g. semi-auto weapons will require a different license). just like driving
  • if you own a gun, you will be required to carry insurance. just like driving
  • your weapons will require regular safety testing. just like driving
  • your weapons will have to be registered. just like driving
  • registration will have to be renewed regularly. just like driving
  • your ammunition will be taxed very heavily. just like (the gas you use when) driving
  • etc.
we agree on these, right, nutty? because guns are just like cars so we should treat them just like cars.

alasdair
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Cars need keys too, there are ways to make guns so they need the owners fingerprint.
 
Droppersneck said:
Mmm that reminds me of a delicious deli I ate at in the small Quebec town of saint agathe called Slovenia. Veal sandwiches were on point. Any way back to my point so in these early stages it is just fences and way to process but once the economic safety net is pressed to the max and the populations speak out I garuantee you the policies will be hardline or "mean spirited"
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They will have to be. A welfare state only can exist when everyone feels a part of it. A predominant sense of give and taken in the culture. A large percentage of people entering with only an interest in what they can take. Also an unfortunate increase in indigenous Europeans with a similar mindset.....and of course it will fall apart.
 
Bardeaux said:
Hmm was this terrorism or just a mass shooting?



Ahh, terror indeed. Unlike the planned parenthood shooter who was clearly just a misunderstood crazy person. Or the Shooting the day before that. Or the one on the day before that.

You're statistically 7x more likely to be killed by far-right, white extremists and 9x more likely to be killed by the police than you are Islamic extremists. But by all means, fear who you wish to fear.
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The fear is not from being killed. It is the propaganda that it is used for to radicalise the Muslim population into a much more wahhabistic view of their faith that one should have a healthy fear of.
 
Oh great, the islam-bashing has infected another thread.

If only we could keep the xenophobic rants in the discussions of their origins, huh?
We all know that prejudice outbreeds rational thought, etc etc etc 8)
 
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