General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Well, this will not be popular, but in this country you cannot stop a lone nut with a gun! [View all]justiceischeap
(14,040 posts)Mateen purchased his AR-15 within a week of the shooting. Had the bill the GOP blocked 6 months ago been passed, he would have had to find one illegally. Would he have been able to? If he had found a black market weapons dealer, could he have afforded the purchase? We won't know the answers to these questions because he was able to go to his local gun shop, even though he had been investigated twice for ties to ISIL, and legally purchased a weapon that has no other use than to kill human beings.
Yes, the US is violent too. I think some of that can be laid at the feet of political rhetoric. We can also lay that at the feet of the Hannity's, Beck's, Coulter's and Limbaughs of the media. We can lay blame on the GOP for introducing 200+ anti-LGBT bills in the past 6 months. We can also blame the GOP for the dismissive attitutudes toward women.
There are lots of reasons for violence but those are some immediate ones that come to mind. Also, I love our freedom of speech but we need a way to classify and criminalize hate speech because that doesn't help either.