At least 14 killed
Another one. Is it going to be every other day now? Every day? Several per day?
The New York Times is live updating.
A little over an hour ago –
Police Report Multiple Fatalities, Possibly as Many as 12
Coral Castro, the multimedia coordinator for the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department, said that details about the shooting were still in flux, including the number of suspects and casualties.But she reported that there were “possibly 12 fatalities.”
Ms. Castro said the department was assisting in the investigation and she emphasized that information was still coming in. The police are searching for three possible suspects, she said, but no one is in custody.
She said a news conference would be held at 1:45 p.m. local time at the corner of Waterman and Vanderbilt in San Bernardino.
Seven minutes later –
At a news conference, local and federal law enforcement officials reported that at least 14 people were killed in the San Bernardino shooting, and that another 14 were injured.
“We do not know if this is a terrorist incident, said David Bowdich, Assistant Director of the FBI’s Los Angeles office.
Officials said that the shooters dressed in equipment “suggesting they were prepared.” But Chief Jarrod Burguan of the San Bernardino Police Department said the motive was still unknown, and he said “we have no information at this point to indicate this is terrorist related in the sense that people may have been thinking.”
The US is a shameful country in many ways. This is one of them.
By “terrorist”, they mean “Muslim”.
It would be great if they meant “politically motivated.”
We either need to stop calling these acts “terrorism”, as in meant to achieve a political goal and just call them murderous rampages; or change “terrorist” to mean “making people afraid/victimising innocent people.”
Will we find the people targeted the building because it’s a federal service like Timothy McVeigh?
It’s baffling.
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944.71555.144310995587370/1082764608408666/?l=7e40d9a527
@1 Learjet
So, if the terrorists happen to be Muslim what term should we apply then? Perhaps we could use the term ‘radicalised’ instead, unfortunately the dead are still dead, I doubt that PC platitudes will make any difference whatsoever.
Sorry s/be ‘@ learie.’
The iPad spell check is a pain in the arse.
The US is a shameful country in many ways. This is one of them.
Please don’t say that.
The husband in this duo was born and raised in America, had a good job, was upwardly mobile and had a six month old daughter. His wife was welcomed in as an immigrant only a few years ago. He had everything going for himself, his wife and his child. America didn’t fail him, he failed America.
It was he and his wife who were shameful. They threw everything out the window…life, future, job, family and offspring…only to indulge their murderous (sectarian?) hatreds.
PC platitudes?
RJW: the man who shot up the Planned Parenthood wasn’t labelled a terrorist because he’s white. But how is it different? People whose heads are filled with a sense of being badly treated by the world get revenge with big guns
John, the “welcome” experienced by many migrants is really a lot like “really unpleasant experiences of racism and bullying.”
John, the “welcome” experienced by many migrants is really a lot like “really unpleasant experiences of racism and bullying.”
Yes, this is all our fault. We brought this upon ourselves. We are racist. We bullied these two victims into killing 14 people at a Christmas party and into wounding 17 more, 10 of whom are in critical condition and may well die. And wasn’t it just appalling and thoughtless on the part of the police to have killed them in a shoot out?
In any case, had Chris Columbus not been so cheap and bought a compass worthy of the name, none of this would have ever happened.
@learie,
John, the “welcome” experienced by many migrants is really a lot like “really unpleasant experiences of racism and bullying.”
Nonsense. Sure there’s plenty of racism and bullying, but I can’t think of another country (well, maybe Canada, where I live) that has been as welcoming of immigrants as the US. Especially those that integrate. America was built by immigrants (to the detriment of the indigenous population, of course) and is still their number one destination. Trying living as a “migrant” in almost any other country in the world! I won’t deny that guns are a big problem, but, as Paris and Brussels have recently shown, terrorists never seem to have difficulties acquiring them.
America failed the victims.
There aren’t many places other than America where this could have happened. This kind of thing is pretty much unheard of in the UK, for example, where guns are very much more difficult to get hold of.
One thing’s for sure (especially now that we’re learning more about Farook), Islam has once again failed America.
There won’t be one every day, because there are usually multiple mass shootings on the weekends when people aren’t busy working. But there are more mass shootings than days in 2015.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/02/the-san-bernardino-mass-shooting-is-the-second-today-and-the-355th-this-year/
And just to emphasize the oppressive regularity of these events, have a link to 4 identical stories. Thanks, The Onion.
http://www.theonion.com/article/no-way-prevent-says-only-nation-where-regularly-ha-51444
@ 9 latsot,
Perhaps we should categorise these incidents, America is certainly a favourable environment for the alienated loner who has access to a private arsenal of semi-automatic weapons and who then decides to take revenge for some perceived offence. I’m not convinced that more restrictive gun laws will necessarily protect the public from concerted terrorist attacks, presumably France’s firearm legislation is more restrictive than America’s, it didn’t make any difference.
BTW, I’m not a citizen of the US, and like most people outside the country, think that America’s gun culture is rather bizarre and anachronistic. My point is that we shouldn’t conflate crimes committed by mentally ill, isolated individuals with those animated by a fanatical belief in a religio-political ideology.
Another misconception is that ‘we’ ie Western culture, is necessarily a major cause of Islamic terrorism, that attitude seems rather patronising, as it ignores 1400 centuries of Muslim supremacism and the inability of some of the faithful to accept that Islam is just another religion. So I don’t agree that America, or any liberal democracy is always automatically culpable in some way.
@6 learie,
As far as I’m concerned that person was a terrorist.
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944.71555.144310995587370/1083084991709961/?l=5c4c433fca
In case anyone was still wondering…
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/05/us/tashfeen-malik-islamic-state.html
Helene, I am far too depressed to deal with racist nastiness. I’ll point out that by your thinking, it follows that all Catholics abuse children.
What has happened in America that so many people respond to stressors in their lives by turning to this extreme violence? Every day? I know it’s a big country, but what’s the thinking behind this? I’m powerless so I’ll prove my power? I just hate everyone?
The fact that people bought guns on the day after Thanksgiving gives me shivers.
John @ 5 – what I meant was that one of the ways we’re shameful is the ease of getting guns, and what results from that, and the power of a lobby to prevent fixing the problem, and the love of guns and violence that pervades the culture.
@learie
I’ll point out that by your thinking, it follows that all Catholics abuse children.
Huh?!
No. But plenty of priests did. And the Church chose to protect the priests rather than the children.
Tashfeen Malik came to America on a “fiancé visa”. She repaid her welcome by pledging allegiance to the Islamic State and murdering 14 of her hosts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/05/us/tashfeen-malik-islamic-state.html
@13, RJW:
Shouldn’t we be looking at numbers? One shooting in Paris, a gagillion in the US. More restrictive gun laws certainly do make people safer in general and make terrorist acts harder to organise. Presumably the Paris terrorists had to smuggle the guns into the country rather than just buying them perfectly legally from the supermarket. It seems reasonable to speculate that if guns were easier to get hold of in France, there might have been a lot more shootings and they might have been a lot worse. To claim that restrictive gun laws made “no difference” makes no sense. No difference to what? You’ve no idea what would have happened if it were easier to get guns.
Shootings are major news in the UK – and France – where we don’t tolerate guns much, but an everyday occurrence in the US, where guns are very easily available. The availability and fetishism of guns in the US is a toxic combination and we don’t need internet diagnoses of mental illness or people defining what is and isn’t terrorism in a politically expedient way.
People are shooting shit out of each other for various reasons. It happens a fuckload less – regardless of the justification – where weapons and explosives are harder to get hold of.
Security requires restrictions. In the UK, we’re moving toward restrictions that fundamentally break our freedom and won’t have the slightest impact on terrorism, I’m very much against those particular restrictions. But control of gun owenership is known to be an effective way to reduce the number of people being shot. I’m all for that.
Could we PLEASE quit calling every shooter a loner just because the press does? Many of the people who shoot other people are not, in fact, loners. That is a designation that the media almost invariably tacks onto people who do mass shootings, especially if they are a single shooter (therefore, lone shooter). Many of these people may have been isolated; that does not mean they are a loner. It may be that they don’t like being isolated (loners do), and that actually appears to be the case in at least some of the shootings. Society didn’t accept them, didn’t welcome them with open arms, and they responded by picking up a gun and giving society what for. That is not a loner. That is a person who is alone not by choice.
For those of us who really are loners, and prefer just to be left in peace without the goddamned phone ringing to disturb us when we’re trying to read, write, or just think slow and beautiful thoughts (or slow and ugly thoughts if we’ve been reading the news), this is a disturbing trend. It demonizes the loner, and makes people scared of anyone who isn’t gregarious and outgoing.
I’m sorry I don’t have exact statistics for you, but I’m too busy to Google right now, since I’m currently dealing with approximately a 90-hour workweek (thank goodness I’m a loner – the isolation of that would drive me to drastic reactions if I were not). You could try reading A Party of One by Anneli Rufus, which talks about this very nicely.