Terrorist Kills 50 And Wounds 53 More In Gay Nightclub In Orlando

Where do you live and what do you think is true?

 

To be fair, I was just hoping to keep politics out of it for a while. I know politics will inevitably come into this conversation and it should. I was just hoping we could go a few days before it went that route and I was hoping for just updates for a little while.

For instance today there's a gentleman claiming the killer was talking to him via a gay messenger app. Adds a weird wrinkle to this story. Maybe this man was a sexually confused person who lost it.

 

You don't have to keep it in a certain Thread, like all discussions about gun violence goes in there. If you like, you can create a thread just for this particular shooting, or add the discussion to an appropriate thread of your choice.

We just ask that it be kept in the Politics and Religion section because that kind of topic can get heated quickly, and people don't necessarily want to read a gun debate when they go into a topic expecting to find information about the shooting or to share their general thoughts.

But you can always post a link in here directing people to that other thread if they want to hear more about your thoughts on gun violence concerning this topic.

 

Azndude, I appreciate the olive branch to Real. You're both great guys. Despite differences, we all agree these heinous acts are happening far too often. I'm sure you're both equally frustrated.

Hopefully we find a solution.

 

@Azndude2190 is the man. We're all just understandably emotional when s*** like this happens.

 

So there seems to be some growing sentiment that this guy was probably a closet homosexual or at least had some bi-curiosity. His ex-wife said he was forced to repress a lot of his feelings around his family (and she specifically pointed to his father) including anger, sadness, and of course homosexuality is not treated kindly in Islam. His ex-wife said that could definitely have been part of it.

Experts say in cases like this, repression can lead to misplaced anger and that anger could manifest itself in violent ways even if this is most definitely an extreme form of that.

 

I'd bet the sexuality issue is more at play than religious terrorism. He went there twice a week for 6 months. He asked a man out when they were in the police Academy.

Sadly, his father is okay with him killing 50, but is adamant his son wasn't gay. Says a lot.

 

I think it's probably both. He's feeling repressed and the reason he's repressed is because his father, family, and religion would look down on him for being gay. Since he can't be a gay Muslim (in his mind), he gets angry. That anger instead of being pointed at his father is pointed at himself for being gay and then transitions into gay people in general. I mean I'm not psych analyst but that's what I see.

I think the radical Muslim part of it was just the manifestation of that anger and the outlet he found for it.

 

I found this bit of info interesting.

The shooter asked out loud, all the people he was holding hostage, hiding anywhere they could in the bathroom, if any of them were black. One guy spoke up and answered yes. Then the shooter said something like, "I'm not after you, I feel sorry for how you're treated in the US, I'm doing this for how the US has treated my country."

I don't know what elements of this are sexual oppression/repression from his family, and what is genuine contempt for the US, but I can't think it's a coincidence that he shot up a gay club after going there for so long. I don't think you scout out a place for that long. Some people said they had seen him coming there for years.

 

Even that logic isn't sound because it's not as if gays have been treated wonderfully in the US. If he's going after America and the people who have (in their mind) oppressed his people then why target a gay club specifically?

I think he's a sexually repressed and frustrated man. He can't turn to his family, he loathes his wife since he's gay and doesn't actually want to be with her, so he turns to religion. Islam traditionally (like Christianity) looks down on homosexuality and look at it basically as a dysfunction. He points his anger at gay people because he feels like they're responsible for his confusion. That anger spreads to an America where people are becoming more and more openly supportive of the LGBT community. Radical Islam becomes a sanctuary for him where he can express his anger. Then he gets a chance to get revenge on these nasty Americans, but really he takes it out on a gay nightclub because he's angry at these guys he's known for years who have tempted him in a way he's been told is unnatural.

 

I will take that as a tremendous compliment.