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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsOmar Mateen: outlier who should have been reported by so many people!
Why didn't the authorities put him in the gun purchase denial database after his first wife reported his physical abuse?
Why didn't the authorities do anything about the co-worker who heard him say he fantasized about killing "a whole bunch of people"?
Why didn't the FBI enter him into the gun purchase denial database after investigating SO MANY reports of his violent speech.
No current law prohibits a person from being put on the gun purchase denial database in the above scenarios!
YET AGAIN THE AUTHORITIES FAILED TO USE EXISTING LAW AND DATABASES TO STOP A CLEARLY DERANGED INDIVIDUAL WELL BEFOREHAND!
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Duckhunter935
(16,974 posts)A right to free speech and are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)clearly isn't a fit person to own a gun (and that sort of thing doesn't fall under free speech protections, anyway; in a lot of places, if the comments have a specific target, they're prosecutable as "terroristic threats"
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jberryhill
(62,444 posts)I'm curious about your statement here:
"Why didn't the authorities do anything about the co-worker who heard him say he fantasized about killing "a whole bunch of people"?"
What is it, specifically, under the existing laws that "the authorities" should do about someone who says he fantasizes about killing a whole bunch of people?
Why didn't the FBI enter him into the gun purchase denial database after investigating SO MANY reports of his violent speech.
Because to be denied a gun purchase, you have to have to be convicted of a crime or to have been adjudicated to have a severe mental illness.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)able to stop those who make open threats while under investigation. Seems like wasted cash, if they just have to sit back and watch the horror unfold why spend the money to observe these persons at all? He was a person of interest. Making open threats. Casing bars of the very people he spouted hate against, from a family that openly supports the Taliban, which murders gay people.
If they can't stop anything, their job positions are redundant wastes of budget.
peace13
(11,076 posts)Flagging a person who has been investigated multiple times could certainly have saved lives here. I'm not saying he can't buy a gun.
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)Here's what the FBI did to investigate this man:
The F.B.I opened an investigation and put Mr. Mateen on a terrorist watch list for nearly a year.
James Comey, the F.B.I. director, said during a news conference on Monday that agents used various methods to investigate Mr. Mateen, including sending an undercover informant who made contact with the suspect, wiretapping his conversations and scrutinizing his personal and financial records.
They also sought help from Saudi intelligence officials to learn more about his trips to the kingdom in 2011 and 2012 for the Umrah, a sacred pilgrimage to Mecca made by Muslims. More than 11,000 Americans make pilgrimages to Mecca each year, and Mr. Comey said the F.B.I found no “derogatory” information about his trips.
They had no evidence or reason to charge him. You say no law prevents the FBI from putting him on a list to be denied a weapon through background check. In fact, no law allows the FBI to do that. He was thoroughly investigated, and they found nothing.
I am concerned with the undercurrent of what is reported about this killer.
They are saying that he was gay and in an act of self hatred he lashed out and murdered innocent people. What they seem to imply is that all gays are self hating and unstable, which implies that the nature of homosexuality is wrong. Even as people proclaim their tolerance, it seems to be somewhat loathing in character.
Have we come so far; are we supposed to accept the scraps from our better's table?
