Two Indian engineers at Garmin in Kansas shot, one killed
kansascity.com
kansascity.com
edit:
Definiton of terrorism from
Google:
the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims
Terrorism is, in its broadest sense, the use of intentionally indiscriminate violence as a means to create terror or fear, in order to achieve a political, religious, or ideological aim
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines terrorism as “the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”
Why do you think it's 'terrorism'?
Why does the race of the parties involved matter to you?
Because it was a politically motivated attack on civilians, the standard the FBI uses to determine terrorism.
For all we know, there was some prior history between the suspect and the victims.
Then you should attempt to know more before commenting, such as reading the article, or any of the other articles about this incident, where the gunman literally stated what his motives were.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/02/kansas-city-shooting-i...
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/fbi-def...
“Domestic terrorism” means activities with the following three characteristics:
Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law;
Appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion;
or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and
Occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S.
Edit:formatting
“Get out of my Country!” White Terrorist Shoots Asian-American Engineers in Wake of Trump Visa Ban"
Second degree murder is: 1) an intentional killing that is not premeditated or planned, nor committed in a reasonable "heat of passion"; or 2) a killing caused by dangerous conduct and the offender's obvious lack of concern for human life.
Most articles state the equivalent of the following, I'm using the one from The Verge: " Purinton has been charged with one count of premeditated first degree murder, and two counts of attempted premeditated first degree murder. "
> Why does the race of the parties involved matter to you?
" A witness said he yelled “get out of my country” to two of the victims, reportedly saying the men, believed to originally be from India, were “Middle Eastern.” "
That's the description of a hate-crime as he had no prior interaction with the victims. He picked on them precisely because of his perception of their skin color and mistakenly assuming they were his intended target out-group.
Because it mattered to the murderer.
EDIT: For clarity, it can be both a hate crime and terrorism.
Much of the anger here is coming from this undeniable attempt to deflect what this really is. Like that other guy said, own it.
In practice, that probably never happens. Hate crimes almost always coincide with the intent to terrorize the target population.
Nothing in my comment suggests this isn't terrorism. Saying "it matters to the murderer" can be applied equally to an act of terrorism or to hate crime.
>the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims
I think the very clear and undisguised political aim here is to stop non-whites from feeling welcome or safe to live and work in America.
and white lunatic doesn't count as a terrorist, but dylan roof or eliot rogers does.
Similarly, an attack can be lone-wolf at the same time as being a politically-motivated attack.
Checkout http://www.armslist.com/. The first time I bought a gun it was eye-opening: email a random person, give them cash, drive back with a gun.
So easy it's scary.
Ideology: right-wing extremism.
Plan: shoot some people in the group you want to leave, striking fear into the rest.
Seems fitting to me.
A person who shoots two people and then immediately goes to another bar to brag about it probably lacks the mental faculties to come up with such an elaborate plan.
The exact same actions could've been terrorism with this as the plan, but it sounds more like an angry drunk than executing on a premeditated plan.
Contrast that with someone like Dylan Roof, who would match the terrorist label much better:
> A friend recalled a drunken Roof ranting one night about his unspecified six-month plan "to do something crazy" in order "to start a race war."
Just like in USSR - where the dictionary definition of communism and 20 other *isms was changed and amended every year
In other words, a political motive.
Not in the US, where this cowardly, racist attack took place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_terrorism#Unite...
If this is terrorism, there are dozens of terrorists acts every day. Hate crime? Sure. Drunken armed fool on his way to jail and a couple of guys just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Absolutely. Terrorism. Screw that. The word doesn't describe what happened. The western world is not in a war to stop armed stupid drunken men. Perhaps that's a great idea, but even then it wouldn't be terrorism.
My working definition of terrorism, which has served me well over the years, is "the use of stealth to deliberately target civilians in order to effect political change"
I don't necessarily agree nor disagree with the particular event at hand being labeled as a terror attack, but I'd implore you to analyze your homebrew definition.
What's added? What's left out? Why should the "mainstream" definition be changed? Is it not specific enough for the people you think we should target with that term? Is it too specifically targeting people you don't think we should care about?
Stealth - what does this mean? The people committing the acts need to be creeping around beforehand? Or that they need to not announce what they're going to do before they do it (not the case for Northern Ireland terrorism, where warning phone calls were all part of the terror tactic - get everyone evacuated).
Further, in Northern Irish terrorism, civilians weren't deliberately targeted; in fact, many plots were modified to reduce the risk of injury to civilian bystanders. Disruption to civilians, sure, but the targets were more usually economic or governmental than civilian per se.
"Effecting political change with violence committed by non-state civilian actors" might be a working definition. And I think right-wing nutjobs killing specifically targeted ethnicities counts, just as much in the US as it did in 1930s Germany.
Literally the only differences between your definition and the ones provided above are:
1. They specifically mention illegal violence so that e.g. police forces aren't considered terrorist organizations. Fair distinction, IMO.
2. The part about stealth. (Because flying planes into buildings or blowing up cars is... stealthy?)
3. The part about civilians (the parent's definition is more accurate -- terrorist attacks usually but not always involve civilians). IMO yours is a worse definition. It means IED attacks in Iraq weren't terrorism. So confusingly, on the front lines of the global war on terrorism, few if any Americans died at the hands of terrorists.
> Hate crime? Sure.
Sure. Why the hell not? What makes a hate crime not terrorism? Terrorists attacks can be not hate crimes (e.g. if they target indiscriminately), but usually terrorist attacks are also hate crimes.
> Drunken armed fool on his way to jail and a couple of guys just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Absolutely.
How does this fit the "political change" aspect that's included in your parent's definitions? Wanting to not go to jail is only political in the most superficial of ways.
> The western world is not in a war to stop armed stupid drunken men
So who and what are we at war with, exactly? I've been trying to figure that out for close to two decades now. And the prevailing answer has changed at least three times while the name of the war hasn't. So maybe you're the one with a terrible working definition of "terror".
The reason why is that terrorism is a form of politics. You can either spend a lot of money and try to persuade a population to agree with your position or you can convince them to live in fear of your power and to do your will out of that fear. This, also, is why terrorism is such an existential threat. It's not because of the body count. It's because a very small number of terrorists can effectively hold hostage millions of voters. That breaks democratic forms of governance in bad ways.
For what it's worth, I view the "war on terror" in much the same way as I view the "war on landmines", or the "war on poverty". "War" is so overloaded as to be meaningless.
I think with terrorism you can at least offer a working definition and drive analysis further. With "war", it's such a mess that I think as a word it's useless now.
The KKK were terrorists. White bigots in the south were not. They were just bigots. Every stupid, angry, bigoted and violent person is not a terrorist.
To me an almost classic example is that couple out in California that shot up those folks. They had planned for weeks, bought gear, posted online. They were even shooting video in order to publish of the attacks as they occurred. That's terrorism.
In that case, I would argue that this attack fits your definition of terrorism.
The political ideology is white nationalism clothed in Islamophobic garb.
The immediate political desire is, in the attacker's own words, "get out of my country!"
It's hard to argue that killing someone (and by extension making people like them fear for their safety) is not a deliberate and planned way of getting "them" -- both the individual and the group that individual supposedly represents -- out of your country.
I believe you are conflating "having a political desire" with "...an implication here that there is some form of organized political desire that you are acting to further.."
If a man loved Nazis in 1938 and blew himself up in Times Square?
Not terrorism. There's no use of stealth in a pre-meditated way to instill fear to enact some political change. It's just some Nazi schmuck blowing himself up.
Apologies if I'm responding to what I think you are saying instead of what you are, but fuck me. There's a huge difference in talking about what people feel and what they do, right? I feel a bunch of damned fool things, Never thought that this was some sort of topic for political debate.
The problem is that a bunch of disparate unorganized attacks can have the same effect as a coordinated intentional terror campaign. At that point, you have to decide whether terror is defined by intent or effect.
One Nazi in times square? OK, not terror. A dozen Nazis all across America, even if uncoordinated? Terror.
I default to intent but am also liberal in allowing effect to stand in for intent.
Also, terrorism as you're defining it has always existed. The difference is that now the USA military-industrial complex and its servants in media and politics have decided to base most of their marketing on the "threat" of terrorism. Bathed as we are in a boiling soup of constant media manipulation, we can't trust our gut reactions to anything that the MIC care about, especially terrorism. As a bias check, consider all the many causes of death that have caused and do cause far more deaths than terrorism.
If you think the uptick in anti-immigrant, and more largely anti-minority, discrimination and violence has nothing to do with our politics I'm afraid I've got some bad news for you...
In the case of e.g. Iran they've basically been brought to the negotiating table by economic and political pressure. They're still far from clean, but at least they're tractable. IS on the other hand is functionally a state but politically and economically intractable. We and several Middle Eastern nations are at war with them. However their terrorist activities carried out outside their territory are still criminal activities best dealt with as law and order issues.
Terrorist acts are crimes. Very rarely does the definition of a crime include specific criteria on the nature of the perpetrator. In other words the crime committed only changes based on who committed it in pretty specific ways. For example there's a crime and there's conspiracy to commit the crime. Unless the definition of terrorism explicitly defines it as a crime committed by groups, I see no reason to exclude acts committed by individuals acting alone.
For instance, uniformed ISIS members are not terrorists - they are an army, albeit the army of a non-recognized state.
The reason is that stealth is necessary for planning a terrorist attack (and therefore redundant -- any violent attack on a civilian target is going to be stealthily planned almost by definition), and also not a pre-requisite in the after-math of a terrorist attack. In fact, most terrorist organizations brag about their attacks pretty openly. Even in some cases when they weren't actually responsible.
Specifically, if you openly declare war, wear uniforms, carry weapons openly and follow other rules of war, your opponents can blow you up while leaving civilians alone (and you can do the same to them). Then you've just got a regular war going on.
Yes, that is correct. You recognized that well. Have a gold star.
One of the things that struck then me about the stories Solzhenitsyn tells is that terrorism winds up being a common charge under which people were sent to the Gulag under Stalin's regime. Terrorism is violence committed by one's political opponents when the political opponent has been classified as the other.
The rhetoric of terrorism achieved its current form with the bombing of the Beirut Marine barracks in 1982. Previously, during Vietnam the attackers of a military target would have been described in military terms because the US interests were such that the Vietnamese could not be cast as 'the other.' In Lebanon the US interests were such that there was no contradiction in casting the attackers as 'the other' (existing political alignments indeed encouraged it).
I'm pretty sure those sorts of crimes still fall under the FBI's terrorism label but their political masters don't really play that up. "Violent crimes committed by people who are not like you who we'd like you to hate" is as accurate a definition of terrorism as anything at the political level, nowadays.
I think in this case it is easy one. Left wing white would still be outside terrorist category.
I'm terribly ashamed of the state of our shining city upon on a hill.
I hope they are able to send his body back where they want him buried.
> His bereaved wife and his family are trying to raise money to send his body back to India for his funeral
Is it a common thing to raise money as in community support etc or despite being engineers and all people just do not save money for their emergency needs.
Edit: Sorry about this question. Now I think it is rather tactless question, asked on this unfortunate occasion.
You don't know whether they had some emergency funds that had recently been drained, or whether they chose to send money back to India to support someone else, or whatever.
Which means.. all of them.
Why would a developed country need 112 guns per 100 residents is beyond me. The US:
* is less dangerous than Yemen (where there's a war going on right now)
* most likely has smaller hunting areas than Russia
* has a standing army, unlike Switzerland
yet it still has more guns per capita than any of them!
Of course not everyone hunts, but then owning 2 or 3 firearms for different types of hunting isn't really outlandish.
The US literally has more than 1 gun per person. The US population includes:
* children
* senior citizens
* disabled citizens
* urban residents who most likely see hunting grounds once per decade
* the largest prison population in the world
* etc.
I don't buy your argument.
I thought I was saying that hunting can make a large contribution to gun ownership and not trying real hard to quantify it.
Guns unlike cars which also approach 1 per capita never really disappear. Not saying this is a good thing. Over the history of our gun owning country a lot have been made. Surely there are nuts out there that buy an arsenal but many guns are handed down over the years and kept. People also collect historical weapons.
It is hard to understand as suburban/city dwellers like myself, but in most other places in the country it is perfectly fine to be given granddad's guns and to keep them around adding to the statistics.
Giving your citizens the RIGHT to keep and use arms is a vital part of ensuring freedom and that tyranny by government or invading armies is terminated at the will of the people.
Would the British have invaded India had everyone been armed like the US citizenry is? I seriously doubt it. The army would have been liquidated by the people in short order. It would be suicide to invade a country of that many armed people.
This is why we have a right to own them. Because armies invade and governments become tyrannies.
Your narrative of British invasion of India is plain wrong. Also if the USG decided to become a tyranny there is nothing that the citizenry can do about it in this far and age. Guns or no guns.
There are other ways of protecting people and their rights other than having animals roam around who will shoot whenever there is conflict of interests(I understand that not everyone is like that).
Britain could have never conquered a fully united India, the same way it couldn't conquer China (though it chipped away at it for the better part of a century).
Regarding invasions, who's going to invade you? Canada? Mexico? Even if someone wanted to/could, they wouldn't be afraid of your personal weapons but instead they'd be afraid of your nuclear arsenal, of the largest navy, airforce and military budget in the world. A military budget equal to that of the next 10 countries.
All your guns do is promote unreasonable policing practices where people are shot on sight cause you never know if a suspect is carrying a gun. Oh, they also have a great side effect: if you ever have major internal problems or say, a civil war, millions of people will die cause everyone has a gun. Not that a lot of people wouldn't die either way, after all we've been using knives and machetes for millenia, but there's a reason all of today's armies use guns as the main infantry weapons.
The British never "invaded" India. This is a common misconception about Colonial Rule in India. Read about the "Company Rule in India" to understand better: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_rule_in_India
TLDR: The British established the "English East India Company" in 1600 to trade with India and did well for almost 150 years. The British had made friends with local princes and nawabs promising them protection if they allowed them to establish their Company. During the same time, the Portuguese, French, Dutch and Danish began to establish their businesses in other princely states of India. This caused friction between the British and the rest causing civil wars to break out. These wars continued for almost 200 years more and involved princely states fighting each other for the benefit of the foreign companies established in their states.
This in turn caused weakening of the princely rulers and strengthening of the foreign companies which commanded garrisons (supplied by the princely rulers) and funded by their business. This shift in power was instrumental in the British devising the Annexation policy called "Doctrine of Lapse" which was signed by these unsuspecting satraps. The doctrine basically stated: "Any princely state or territory under the direct influence of the British East India Company, as a vassal state under the British subsidiary system, would automatically be annexed if the ruler was either "manifestly incompetent or died without a male heir"." This along with the "Divide and Rule policy" enabled the British to establish a Colonial rule in India. All battles the British fought were through proxies (loyal princely satraps) and very rarely did the British actually involve in the fight. Once the Colonial rule was established (powers of the Company were transferred back to the Crown), the British started abusing their powers which in turn caused a surge in Nationalism (read about the First War of Indian Independence of 1857) which eventually ended in the Independence of India (in 1947).
The British technically never waged a single War (there were small skirmishes/battles) with India because that would have triggered all princely states to come together and fight them.
The whole idea of current united India came from opposing the British Rule. Before that, India was just numerous bunch of small kingdoms ruling their own tiny part of current India.
British entered India as East India Company, a trading arm of Britain, which I think is wholly independent of Britain in its ability to rule (politically and military wise) the parts of the world where it had trade operations.
You should also note that Britain had America under its control before US gained independence. If we just extend your logic, then you mean, US got independence just because all of its population were carrying a gun, and not because of strong will shown by personalities like Washington to have an independent nation.
They are from Madras, Tamil Nadu, India.
Actually, it was the existence of Madras, Oregon that I was unaware of. That's why I assumed the page was about Madras, India.
Don't get me wrong, visiting the US has always been a dream for me and almost everyone I know, since it was this place where someone could go to make something of themselves, you know a place where they accepted and rewarded you for the hard work you did. May be we grew up and now realize that dream was just really good marketing. Who knows, I am just sad I have to read stuff like this too frequently these days.
absolutely. im saddened that it feels so risky to visit/work in a country founded on(and to a large part lived up to) such lofty principles.
It should be noted that one of the injured was some random white dude who tried to pursue the gunman.
Again, I understand why you feel the way you do and I'm not dismissing those concerns, but there are a lot of wonderful people in the US as well.
Ian Grillot the hero in this story. There is a go-fund me page that was set up for him by his sisters.
Couple that with the fact that you are being fingerprinted and photographed, like you are some kind criminal, just because you want to visit the country and spend money there. That alone is enough for me to never visit the U.S..
Overwhelm the borders. Double or triple the numbers. Show peacefully that we are positive and not backing down to the pettiness and ignorance of the current (and temporary) leaders and their cronies.
Why bother risking personal harm to visit a country that expressly doesn't seem to want you?
Edit: Would down-voters like to comment on why this isn't a valid stance?
For example: would you, as a US citizen, choose to visit Iran vs going somewhere else?
But, on the other hand, I'm also amazed that with so many people in US carrying guns in their daily lives, it is a miracle that most people are walking and living and doing some great things. Whatever it is, this whole gun culture is beyond my comprehension and I think it is good thing.
Your odds of being murdered in a hate crime in this country are quite low. You're far more likely to be killed by a drunk driver or by falling down the stairs. As a general rule, any event that shows up in the national news is something not common enough to be afraid of, because anything that common is no longer newsworthy pretty much by definition.
Also, being murdered is the worst thing that could happen, and maybe that event is still rare, but a set of stairs isn't going to harass you or discriminate against you. There's a whole spectrum of bad things that could happen to people because of the climate in the US.
If you want to talk about other negative aspects, then fine, but that's a gigantic move of the goalposts.
For me, getting shot while walking on the street and getting shot when having a normal conversation in a bar looks almost same.
I genuinely want to know, what is the difference between the above comment and this particular incident. Because, this reasoning might also be the reason, why in U.S people prefer to have guns in their daily life (where living is the goal, and not how to prevent dying).
Having someone call you names or refuse you service, while bad, isn't what the original comment was talking about.
There were 33,636 deaths due to "injury by firearms" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta...
And there were 32,719 fatal car crashes http://www.statisticbrain.com/car-crash-fatality-statistics-... (ok, not serious source but I guess the real numbers are not too far away)
But I'm specifically talking about hate crimes. The vast majority of those firearm deaths were suicides, and the vast majority of the homicides weren't hate crimes. According to the FBI, there were 18 murders that qualified as hate crimes in 2015 (the most recent year available): https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2015/topic-pages/incidentsand...
Also, how many of those gun deaths were accidents, suicides, etc.?
>21,175 suicides
I'm thankful that at least in my country I will not get killed by a random person with whom I'm having conversation with.
P.S: I'm from India.
Events like that tend to lead Americans to buy more guns and ammo in anticipation of stricter gun control laws, rather than consider whether the proliferation of guns contributes to the problem at all.
Is the fix to some countries having nuclear weapons that everyone has the right to nuclear weapons?
Or, have we come to the conclusion that non-proliferation is the answer?
Being an Indian national, he would have had to have waited 8 years or more to become a permanent resident. In that time, he would have had his visa renewed repeatedly. His visa is likely to have been an H1-B.
I suppose, then, the questions are: Are you in favour of foreigners in America bearing arms? Or are you in favour of a faster permanent residency process?
Both of those things are the only real way that the victim could have legally carried a firearm.
Even still, it need not be just the intended target victim that is armed. You need a critical mass of enough bystanders having the capability to defend others. That is the only way to provide a chance at an effective defense as well as a strong psychological deterrent.
Would you feel confident to use your gun when you're relaxed in a social setting and someone suddenly starts shooting?
(I won't spoil the answer for you, plenty have been asked, you can google it.)
Also, there are instances in the US and elsewhere of shootings on places like military bases where everyone is armed, and many cases where the shooter planned for a confrontation with armed police. It might seem counter-intuitive, but much like the death penalty does not seem to be an effective deterrent for murderers, I don't see much evidence that armed civilians are an effective deterrent for murderers. I think murderers in general just don't think very logically.
The core question I'm asking is, why is gun control so effective in every other developed country? Why don't murder rates increase when gun control increases and ordinary people can't defend themselves?
Edit: Also, I want to address this claim:
> They're all marked by the same tragic feature - the total inability of the victims to defend themselves.
This is not always true. For a recent example, look at the shooting in Dallas. The victims were all armed, as were many civilians in the area:
> [The Dallas police chief] said 20 to 30 people, some of them wearing camouflage, showed up at the peaceful Black Lives Matter protest carrying AR-15 rifles and such items as gas masks, ammunition gear and bulletproof vests. “Doesn’t make sense to us,” he said, “but that’s their right in Texas,” where people can legally carry long firearms in public.
> Those people “began to run” when the shooting started, Brown said. “For our officers, they were suspects” until any involvement in the deadly sniper attack could be ruled out, he added.
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dallas-police-chief-...
You can also look at the history of shootings on military bases: http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/A-History-of-Shootin...
There's shootings like the 2011 one in Tucson, Arizona, where very lenient concealed carry laws did not seem to deter the shooter.
There are also instances of crimes being stopped by civilians with guns, I just want to point out that "all mass killings are marked by this feature" is not true.
Second the cities in the US with the strictest gun control laws have the highest gun death rates. I.e Detroit.
That's my sincere question, too. Even a sight of people toting guns gives me chills.
That sounds like a psychological condition known as hoplophobia. I think it's best treated by familiarising oneself with weapons of all sorts.
In general weapons aren't, in and of themselves, scary. It's the intent of the people carrying them which can be scary or not. Drunken half-wit shouting slurs? Scary. Single mother buying groceries with her kids? Not scary.
A sidearm on a belt is as inherently scary as a knife clipped to a pocket: not very, IMHO. It's all about the person carrying it.
As for why folks need weapons, IMHO arms-bearing is the fundamental difference between a slave and a freeman. I'd love to live in a modern Western society in which every adult carried a weapon of some sort as part of daily life, although I'm not wishful enough to think that our current society could do so safely.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoplophobia
"Hoplophobia is a political term and not a recognized medical phobia."
I haven't had a personal altercation get violent since I was a child. I could find dozens of anecdotes of violence in Europe, but that wouldn't lead to any greater understanding...
I get that you are offended, I think I could have gotten my wording better. I'm referring to the American culture somehow not suppressing such behavior enough, and I'm not saying people in the US are intrinsically worse than others.
It is likely you are not at receiving end of nativists in Mumbai/Bengaluru/Hyderabad and so on.
Your thankfulness looks more like an arrogance where death of less fortunate people would be random people dying in random towns/villages/cities and you couldn't possibly be bothered.
But, this is whole different thing, where individual's frustration and wrong perceptions results in death of people, which is not at all a case in India (or not as frequent as US gun killings).
Your point of poor people dying has nothing to do with any individual in India. It is a result of our whole political system which is designed in such a way that it is not easy to get solutions for seemingly straight forward things.
The closest thing which is similar to this incident is attacks based on caste which is common in India, but that too are not random, as victims are not taken by surprise when they are attacked/killed. Mostly they are overpowered by small group of narrow minded individuals, resulting in freak deaths.
I'm not sure if you are from India, and if yes from which part, as I really don't get the "nativists in Mumbai/Bengaluru/Hyderabad" part. I'm also not sure what you mean by nativists in India, as it may signify one of 100 things, depending on which part of India you are from.
Again, I'm not saying there are no freak deaths in India. It is common in every corner of the world where there is more than one man. But, death by an individual in a public setting is not common and that too by a gun is almost impossible in India. That was my whole point.
Absolutely understandable observation. Factual even. I don't own a gun and have no financial interest in companies that manufacture or sell ammunition. However, I'm afraid the perception among readers might be that this is a problem we can solve by reducing or eliminating access to guns.
I'm not aware of the full details of what happened but I think we need to address the underlying issues as well.
There's clearly a lot of cognitive dissonance and leaps of faith even in this discussion because apparently the Klan's activities amount to terrorism but actions of a deranged lone wolf do not.
As much as we talk about us being civilized, conversations like this remind us that we are all fundamentally animals with a very limited capacity to care about issues that we don't see as directly affecting us.
I think the question I care about is how do we prevent these things from happening repeatedly? I'll be blunt. I have no interest in "justice" for the victim's family for the sake of "justice".
By the way, I wouldn't call what happens in India as "freak deaths".
http://m.hindustantimes.com/india/it-is-beef-says-lab-about-...
> Police maintained that the report was of no use in the investigation into the murder and assault.
Not trying to single out India. There are people who benefit from this bountiful harvest of fear and hatred everywhere. I'm just saying the issue is more than gun control.
People might perceive Kansas as a backwards agrarian holdfast, but Olathe where this happened is a pretty thriving tech and aerospace corridor. Everyone here is pretty upset about it. Hopefully justice will be served.
“It’s not about where he [victim] was from or his ethnicity. We’re all humans, so I just did what was right to do.”
>"Remember, the shooter had been told by Trump-Bannon that Muslims hate America and should be excluded from the US."
This lays bare the author's intention to blame Trump for every crime that is ever committed against middle-eastern people in the US. This is obviously an absurd and extreme notion.
So this article is an extremely biased, politicized version of a legitimate news event. I thought HN had an "original source" policy. The link should probably be changed to the actual news article upon which this drivel is based, which is here [1].
[1] http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article134508139....
The fact that Trump wants to partially enforce long-standing immigration laws does not make him a racist or someone that lends support to racists, and neither does the mere observation that the vast majority of large-scale terrorist acts happen to be committed by people from specific parts of the world. If that is all you've got, your argument isn't going anywhere.
This is the problem with all of the Trump criticism. It's all innuendo. If there are facts to make a case, then make it and people will support it. Right now all I see is a President that is enforcing some laws. You know, like the ones he has to swear to uphold when he takes office.
(1) Your President - "the mexicans are rapists, drug dealers, ... some are good people" "bad hombres/bad dudes"
(2) Bannon at CPAC yesterday - "we are a nation with a culture not based on economy or borders"
(3) What can I write about targeting Muslims - the muslim ban, Bannon saying that we need a war to unite the country and next war will be the war against Islam in which (he believes) Russia can help.
(4) Shouting everyday that the WH is implementing and will implement all the hateful rheotric they campaigned on
And you say "you would not put Bannon anywhere near the government" -- Seriously? He is a member of National Security Council and chief strategist to your President.
Let us know what will it take for you to accept that the current WH has racists in powerful positions? Should Trump post a tweet proclaiming that he is a racist?
Also please have a response better than "but Mexicans/Islam are not a race, that is a country/religion".
(2) I'm not sure how that supports racism
(3) I disagree with the travel ban. However, the vast majority of large-scale terrorist attacks - the kind that shake economies and make people scared to travel and shop - have been committed by people from one specific religion who tend to be from very specific parts of the world. It isn't racist to make that factual observation and attempt to at least curb it.
(4) Again, I disagree that I have heard any "hateful rhetoric" from Trump. I've heard a somewhat dire worldview, but he isn't entirely wrong about that. There are many things that are out of whack in this world. If you're referring to his stance on immigration, we have immigration laws that previous Presidents refused to enforce. He just wants to partially enforce them. That isn't "hateful rhetoric" - that's just what Presidents are supposed to do.
I said that I, personally, wouldn't have chosen Bannon for a cabinet postion. Further, Trump isn't "my president". I predicted that both Hillary and Trump would be disasters. We were screwed when the primaries ended. I just don't like to denigrate people without facts, and all I see in the media and in your response is "I'm pissed that my side lost, so I'm going to take everything that Trump or anyone associated with him does or says and interpret it negatively".
Complaining about leftists reveals someone's brain damage. Sow now you stand by it, riiight?
But these are all incidents that have a backdrop of some sort and these stories are quite common in any country you go to. I'm not talking about such incidents. What I'm talking about is random shootings: Rarely is it the case (at least I haven't heard of any in India) that some random stranger comes up to you and starts unloading bullets just because you are of some different ethnicity/background. Be it school shootings or pub fights, most incidents that come out of USA are racial targeting where the perpetrator does not have any idea about his targets (victims).
Even the caste-based violence in India stems out of some real backdrop: Inter-caste marriages, dowry harassment etc. All these are avoidable if you have the right social circle. What you can't avoid is crazies going around with guns shooting random people based on how their look.
http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article134041159....
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-kansas-city...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overland_Park_Jewish_Community...
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C5...
https://www.google.com/search?q=Paris+Terror+Threat&rlz=1C5C...
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C5...
I think that this stuff is really, truly tragic and that one of the takeaways is that terrorism is really effective. Please don't be terrorized.
No, you shouldn't drop your plans of visiting.
There's some bad shit going down in this country, but it's not to the point where people need to fear for their lives. (And I think/hope it will remain that way.)
Why? A single incident in a country of 300 million people does not make it an unsafe place. Do not live in fear.
http://www.npr.org/2017/02/19/516016940/a-thriving-rural-tow...
Olathe, and I guess Johnson County in general, is a weird place. It's like the Texas of the Kansas City Metro area: wealthy, egotistical, and clueless. Based on some of the jaw-dropping shit I've heard locals say, this is probably not the first time these engineers experienced an incident of public racism.
Although you're correct about Johnson County.
I don't find our level of racism any different than when I travel elsewhere in the US. There are bigoted people everywhere, but most people around here just want to raise a family and hang out with their neighbors, whatever color they are.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit to add: Thanks for updating your comment!
+1. I had to remove I know I'm risking downvotes, but.
Given that you value "rational heads" it is ironic you managed to not read my post with a rational head.
Edit: Also, given that, as a state Kansas failed to enact measures that are proven to minimize occurence of such things, i think it does not get to complain about being demeaned. These deaths are on Kansas, as a state.
>Kansas failed to enact measures that are proven to minimize occurence of such things
Source?
"In 2015, for instance, a law was passed allowing Kansas residents to carry a concealed firearm without a permit or training."
I could likely find more (education, social services, etc.), but well, i don't think i need to look further after that.
E: Also have this: https://i.imgur.com/6f7lRRH.png
Are you sure you want to stick with this argument?
vvv E: holy shit, your willingness to be absurd about this is mind-boggling, especially when you ask for source for a thing i already linked. further engagement with you is a waste of everyone else's time. and yes, at this point i mean to be unkind to you, since you're just trolling, not expressing fear in response to a murder vvv
>Gun possession increases the frequency of deaths due to terrorist attacks
Please provide evidence to support this conclusion.
>Basic physics.
Physics doesn't say that owning a gun will make you point it at another person and pull the trigger.
>Guns make it easier to achieve death of others.
Agreed.
>All other things being equal, less guns = less deaths, more guns = more deaths.
This doesn't follow. Please provide a source. Less apples = more starvation?
>Kansas makes it worse by not even pretending to restrict guns to anyone of any mental disposition.
Does this lead to more deaths due to terrorist attacks (guns or no)? Source?
Edit:
>holy shit, your willingness to be absurd about this is mind-boggling
Isn't it mean to call someone absurd? ;)
The courts are quite clear we have a constitutional right not privelage to keep and bear arms.
Perhaps the state of Kansas and Missouri as well, was simply recognizing that trying to control this right would be ultimately shot down in the courts and a waste of time and energy to futilely do so.
The Boston bombers used explosives not guns, Timothy Mcvey used a truck load of explosives not guns made from fertilizer and fuel oil. The scale of death from that far FAR out numbered any mass shooting to date.
The guy in France that just drove a truck and ran over people didn't use a gun.
It's nonsense to focus on guns. Mental illness is what you should focus on. But you and others don't because it's not as easy to define or pin down as a black piece of metal.
Shame because that is the real issue in these tragedies. Mental state.
Setting aside the discussion at hand, will you unpack what you mean by this? Both the 1st and 2nd amendments are considered rights, yet do have constitutionally-upheld restrictions in the US. Please note I'm not arguing one way or the other whether your statement or these restrictions are correct or not. I'm just trying to understand fully what you mean by this statement.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act
Do you mean can in the sense of constitutionally pass a law restricting them? Do you consider these restrictions, or something else? In your opinion should the restrictions above be lifted? Something else entirely?
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13723202 and marked it off-topic.
All i did was try to give him the benefit of the doubt until it was clear he was trolling. If things like this bother you, i recommend actually taking steps that discourage people from arguing in bad faith.
It is extremely hard to determine when someone is just ignorant, or when they're taking the piss; but when it's clear the latter should not be acceptable.
HN depends on us keeping our comments more civil and substantive as a topic gets contentious or another person's comments get annoying. I say more because we all have a bias not to perceive how we're slipping in such situations (it always feels like someone else started it, and did worse, while "I merely", etc.), so there needs to be a conscious counteraction.
Do you honestly think i was uncivil? Made unsubstantive (non-factual?) comments? If so, where?
Because quite frankly on reviewing the conversation i cannot see it. I can see only comments from me that are perfectly polite and factual, except for the last edit in the last post i made, where i stopped being polite.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13724307 was uncivil, as you mention. So was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13723815. I don't mean to pick on you personally, but your username sticks in my mind as someone who's done this kind of thing a fair bit. You're a good commenter otherwise, so I/we'd appreciate it if you'd work on this.
One of the things we've been working on in our office is learning empathy. So we take the characters in an incident narrative, reverse/flip all persons/locations and then see how it changes our perception of the incident. So in this example, if we reverse everything, it becomes: "An Indian man shouting "Get Out Of My Country" in a bar shoots and kills two promising young American engineers working in India.". The effect that has would naturally be to make Americans afraid of going to or being in India, hence: terror alert, terrorism. So I can empathize and understand why the author of the article described the murderer as a terrorist.
Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-kansas-india-idUSKBN1630LZ
CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/24/us/kansas-olathe-bar-shooting/...
Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/2...
Ah yes, all that "silence".
But still the facts here speak for themselves. The guy shot 2 Indians specifically because he thought they were 'Middle-Eastern' (i.e. Muslim). It's terrorism and it's good the writer called it terrorism, since the BBC article seems to not use this term.
Terrorist
The word ‘terrorist’ is not banned, but its use can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding. We should convey to our audience the full consequences of the act by describing what happened. We should use words which specifically describe the perpetrator such as bomber, attacker, gunman, kidnapper, insurgent and militant. We should not adopt other people's language as our own. Our responsibility is to remain objective and report in ways that enable our audiences to make their own assessments about who is doing what to whom.
When we do use the term we should strive to do so with consistency in the stories we report across all our services, and in a way that does not undermine our reputation for objectivity and accuracy. It is also very important that we strive for consistency across the international and UK facing sites. If a BBC World story uses very measured language but a UK version does not, a user will rightly question the different approaches.
The words ‘terror’ and ‘terrorist’ may be used in a non-specific context, or in direct quotes - but it is not for us to label a particular group or specific act as terrorist.
Beware of paraphrasing and selective quotation, eg: “The Israeli prime minister said that while ‘terrorist’ attacks continued he would not back down.” Putting the single word ‘terrorist’ in quotes may give the impression that the BBC is sceptical about the prime minister’s assessment of the nature of the attacks.
Domestically, we tread a similar line on Northern Ireland. The IRA is so well known, worldwide, that a label is not necessary. Groups such as the Real IRA and Continuity IRA can often be best labelled as dissident. A second reference to organisations such as the UFF and UVF could be along the lines of: The loyalist paramilitary organisation warned...
"“Get out of my Country!” White Terrorist Shoots Asian-American Engineers in Wake of Trump Visa Ban"
Oh so the guy shot two Asian-Americans because of Trump's Visa Ban. Too bad that's not at all what the article says. At most the article says
"The White House sets a tone in a country. Trump’s assertion that “Islam hates us” and his project of a Muslim ban sent a signal permitting hate crimes to the millions of unbalanced people in the US into whose hands the National Rifle Association has insisted on putting firearms. "
So let me get this strait. For this thought experiment I'm going to present the ideas as how I feel the author may see them.
A -> B -> C
A: Some guy, who was democratically elected by laws and regulations set up, established, and agreeded upon by all citizens of the US. He ran on a platform of ideas that he wanted and by extension, due to his ability to have a majority election, are mirrored by a majority of the states in the union.
B: This guy does what he said he would do, or at least the closest political equivilent.
C: People take this to mean we can just kill people whenever we want!
Also, I very much take umbridge with the statement that the NRA advocates, or results in, "unbalanced people" owning guns. I'd like to see some proof of why that claim is made. The NRA is perfectly fine with a specific set of gun control measures like FIDs, the right to refuse sale, and citizen run background checks. I don't think just stomping your feet and saying "the NRA is the problem" is going to make this (or any situation) better.
I also find it very funny that the only victim not mentioned in the title is the one who isn't "Asian-American". I know many far right-wing people who I'll send this to so they can have a chuckle at this sort of white washing. Big Brother would be proud at this authors ability to create a narative in such few words. He's given "For Sale, Baby Shoes; Never worn" a run for it's money with this one.
A better title would be "Three shot, one killed in Racist Attack" or something. I'm not a writer but leaving out a victum because it doesn't sound good in your title is just extremely sad in my opinion.
B: This guy ran on a xenophobic platform, declaring to ban an entire religion (unconstitutional). Travel ban, by the admission of his own people, was a way of "making it legal".
C: Emboldens extremists and racists in his fan base to commit murders.
A -> B -> C
There, fixed it for you.