Umptety shooting in usa. Orlando case

[MKSheppard]

Yeah, trying to use the no-fly list as an excuse to curtail people's rights without any kind of due process is authoritarian fuckery. I'm looking at you, Clinton. The better question is what step between his ex-wife claiming he was physically abusive and him conducting this shooting failed. Because assuming she's telling the truth, the Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban exists for the purpose of preventing people like him from owning firearms.

Both the No Fly List and Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban are authoritarian lovefests that violate the 5th Amendment.

[hunter5]

Yeah. The no-fly list isn't really connected to much else. In most cases we'd call that a good thing, since the no-fly list is riddled with false positives and getting yourself off it is nearly impossible.

But then something like this happens and people go "he was on the no-fly list? WHY WASN'T HE STOPPED!?" The answer is "remember all the literally thousands or tens of thousands of people whose civil rights would have been violated in the past fifteen years if everyone on the no-fly list was prohibited from acting in a trusted job or prohibited from getting a weapons permit."

Yeah, trying to use the no-fly list as an excuse to curtail people's rights without any kind of due process is authoritarian fuckery. I'm looking at you, Clinton. The better question is what step between his ex-wife claiming he was physically abusive and him conducting this shooting failed. Because assuming she's telling the truth, the Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban exists for the purpose of preventing people like him from owning firearms.

He would have to be convicted of Domestic violence for the Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban to be in effect. I am not even sure if charges were even brought against him.

[Terralthra]

The DVOGB requires the person in question to have been convicted of domestic violence, not simply accused or described of such.

[MKSheppard]

The DVOGB requires the person in question to have been convicted of domestic violence, not simply accused or described of such.

Here in Maryland, simply being accused of DV gets your gunz confiscated for the FEELS.

And second, Misdemeanors don't = Felonies, except in the Lautenberg Amendment, once again for the FEELS.

[Terralthra]

When women stop being disproportionately murdered by male partners or ex-partners in an escalation of previous domestic violence, I'll give half a shit about your FEELS about guns. The DVOGB undoubtedly saves lives.

[Grumman]

Both the No Fly List and Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban are authoritarian lovefests that violate the 5th Amendment.

He would have to be convicted of Domestic violence for the Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban to be in effect. I am not even sure if charges were even brought against him.

Which would be an answer to the question. Regardless of whether or not the DVOGB is a bad law (and the restraining order half of the law certainly looks like it is), the government doesn't need more power just because it failed to use the power it already has.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I have already ruled that gun control is not the topic of this thread. We already have two. Any further derailment on that topic, shit gets merged, or I just flush your asses to HOS, depending on my whims.

[Terralthra]

Apologies, Alyrium. If you want to delete or flush my post, feel free.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Apologies, Alyrium. If you want to delete or flush my post, feel free.

You're fine for now. I am charitably assuming everyone involved missed my original ruling. Including Shep.

[Dragon Angel]

I'm impressed at the high bar certain people have set for themselves. "The majority of Christian fundamentalists don't mass kill people like Islamic radicals do, so no the level of treatment is not equal at all!!!" "But it's not that much of a problem if birth control for women is so restricted even as minimal as I'm trying to make it, men just have to use more condoms!" (By the way, good luck convincing a rapist to use a condom, I'm sure they'll be more ethical whenever that happens.)

Like, wow. Great job clearing that. You're certainly much much better than those Evil Muslims. I'm sure your myriad of laws continuing to fight against LGBT existence to their last breaths are sooooo much better. Let's just forget Britain, which had mandates of sterilization for homosexuals, and Russia, where gangs are literally encouraged by the state to go forth and hunt gay people down, and literally any other country which has or had these disgraces to human history. ban all muslims vote republican

Non-sarcastically, some people need a fucking perspective. I'm not speaking of only in this thread, but pretty much anyone who says "well they're so much worse than us we should be concentrating all our efforts against them" while saying in the same breath that we are a glorious first-world nation. I don't think "first-world" counts for much in 2016 when you still have state-sanctioned religions going out of their ways to keep on trying so hard to curtail rights for anyone who is not white, a woman, or in this case, people of different sexuality or gender. Yeah, we aren't like Russia. Is this still the hill you wish to die on?

I'd like to state too that I'm kind of unimpressed with the people going all the way to mental illness as another primary cause. Mental health care in this country is shit already, adding to stigma really does not help people like me.

[Crown]

Dear false equivalence fallacy proponents; name me the civilisations that exist (or have existed) where women's rights and gay rights are as protected and championed more than modern Western democracies.

Ta.

[Wild Zontargs]

Looks like the shooter was either gay himself or did a lot of long-term deep-cover research and planning:

Orlando shooter was a regular at the gay nightclub he attacked, used multiple gay dating apps

The man police say killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando early Sunday morning had visited the club at least a dozen times before carrying out his attack, a witness told the Orlando Sentinel on Monday.
The suspected shooter, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, may have also used several different gay dating apps, according to reports from MSNBC and the Los Angeles Times.

And a former classmate of Mateen's told The Palm Beach Post he believed Mateen was gay, and that Mateen once asked him out romantically.

Three additional witnesses confirmed that they had seen Mateen at the gay nightclub more than once before.

"Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent," one witness, Ty Smith, told the Sentinel.

"We didn't really talk to him a lot," he added. "But I remember him saying things about his dad at times. He told us he had a wife and child."

Chris Callen, who performs at Pulse under the name Kristina McLaughlin, told The Canadian Press and CNN's Anderson Cooper that Mateen had been going to the bar one or twice a month "for at least three years."

Smith later told The Canadian Press that Mateen said that he "couldn't drink when he was at home—around his wife, or family. His father was really strict."

Smith and Callen say that they stopped talking to Mateen when he pulled a knife on them after they made a religious comment.

"He said if he ever messed with him again, you know how it'll turn out," Callen said.

Reports of Mateen's flashes of anger and aggression align with what Mateen's ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, told CNN on Sunday night.

"In the beginning he was a normal being that cared about family, loved to joke, loved to have fun, but then a few months after we were married I saw his instability," she said. "I saw that he was bipolar and he would get mad out of nowhere. That's when I started worrying about my safety."

She told reporters earlier on Sunday that Mateen had beat her and emotionally abused her while they were married between 2009 and 2011.

'He was very creepy in his messages'

An Orlando man told MSNBC's Chris Hayes on Monday that he had seen photos of Mateen on the gay dating apps Grindr, Adam4Adam, and Jack'd over the last several years. At least two of the man's friends had been contacted by Mateen on the apps.

"He was very creepy in his messages, and I blocked him immediately," the man said.

Kevin West, another regular at Pulse nightclub, told the Los Angeles Times that he chatted with Mateen on and off for a year on the gay dating app Jack’d, but had never met him in person. Incredibly, West said he met him for the first time as he was dropping a friend off at Pulse on Saturday night.

“He walked directly past me," West said. "I said, ‘Hey,’ and he turned and said, ‘Hey,’” and nodded his head, West said. “I could tell by the eyes.”

A regular performer at Pulse told CNN's Anderson Cooper that he saw Mateen there a couple times a month, often with another man.

The reports come after Samuel King, a drag queen, told The Daily Beast that he had befriended Mateen while the two worked next door to each other in Fort Pierce. King said that Mateen had seemed generally accepting of the fact that he and his friends were openly gay. King said that he even recalls Mateen going at least once to the nightclub where King performed.

'He was always socially awkward'

A former police academy classmate of Mateen's told The Palm Beach Post on Monday he thought Mateen was gay, and that Mateen once asked him out romantically.

The classmate, who did not use his name, said he, Mateen, and other classmates would sometimes go to gay bars after classes at the Indian River Community College police academy.

He told the Post he thought Mateen was gay, but not publicly. He added that Mateen was "awkward" and other members of their friend group felt sorry for him.

"He just wanted to fit in and no one liked him," he told the Post. "He was always socially awkward."

Mateen, a US citizen born in New York in 1986 to two Afghan immigrants, was living in Fort Pierce, Florida, when he rented a car and drove to Orlando to carry out the attack on Sunday morning. An FBI representative said that he "was organized and well prepared" for the attack, and the ATF confirmed that he was armed with an AR-15 assault-style rifle and a handgun that he had legally bought a few days before.
Mateen was a security guard and had a Florida firearms license that allowed him to carry concealed weapons. He called 911 during his rampage at Pulse and pledged allegiance to ISIS, while also expressing sympathy for the Boston Marathon bombers and an American suicide bomber who died fighting for Al Qaeda in Syria.

The overnight shooting at the gay nightclub is the deadliest shooting in US history, with more fatalities than the mass shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007 (32 dead) and the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012 (27 dead).

Mateen was the subject of two separate FBI investigations in 2013 and 2014 — the first after he made inflammatory and contradictory statements about terrorism that raised concern with his coworkers, and the second after a source close to the FBI indicated that he may have had ties to the American suicide bomber who prayed at his mosque in Fort Pierce.

The director of the FBI, James Comey, said on Monday that Mateen had mentioned having links to Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and the ISIS in the past three years, but that the FBI investigations were closed because of a lack of evidence.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Dear false equivalence fallacy proponents; name me the civilisations that exist (or have existed) where women's rights and gay rights are as protected and championed more than modern Western democracies.

Ta.

The governments are not being compared. The religious attitudes are. Where the religion is permitted to run rampant, this and worse happen frequently. Where it is not--where a secular government keeps religion in check and influences people's beliefs counter to their religion--shit like this happens less often and both gay people and women have better legal protections.

If the catholic church or southern baptists were allowed to set policy, I would be in prison.

[Wild Zontargs]

Well shit. That other potential shooter arrested for bringing an "arsenal" to the LA pride event? Also gay.

James Wesley Howell's ex-boyfriend: 'It didn’t surprise me at all.'

JEFFERSONVILLE — The James Wesley Howell that Jeffersonville knew was a quiet young man best known for walking his black Labrador, Midnight, through the streets of the well-to-do Louisville, Ky., suburb his parents called home.

But 30 minutes away in the small city of Charlestown, friends and a boyfriend told a different story. This Howell, they said, was a troubled and sometimes violent man who had a dangerous relationship with fast cars, big guns and many of the people closest to him.

It remains unclear why the Southern Indiana man was in Santa Monica, Calif., early Sunday, when he was stopped on his way to a gay pride event in Los Angeles. When Howell, 20, was arrested, police said they discovered three assault rifles, high-capacity magazines and ammunition in his car, along with a five-gallon bucket filled with explosive chemicals. He remains in jail there on a $500,000 bond. The FBI also is investigating.

Joseph Greeson, of Clarksville, said he hadn’t spoken with Howell since June 1. The two car enthusiasts met through a friend last November, and Greeson had done some rim and lighting work on Howell’s Acura, the same car Howell was driving when police stopped him in Santa Monica.

“I never really got, like, any bad signals,” said Greeson, 18. “Just that it was strange and kind of weird. He was an only child and just kind of lonerish. I don't know. It’s hard to explain.”

Greeson said he heard his friend had skipped town last week. Howell’s parents called Greeson’s mother looking for their son. And though Greeson said he knew Howell faced prior legal trouble in Indiana, he said he couldn’t fathom the man driving to California to harm anyone.

“He might have got scared because he got in trouble here and stuff,” Greeson said. “He might have just been heading out and then had the guns with him for whatever reason and just, you know, wrong place and wrong time.”

Howell’s most recent troubles occurred last October, when he was arrested in Clark County after police said he pointed a loaded gun at a neighbor. He was ordered to forfeit all weapons in April after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor intimidation charge connected to the case. As part of the deal, Howell was sentenced to a year of probation. A felony charge of pointing a firearm was dismissed. An Indiana probation officer met with Howell three weeks ago, rated him a low-level offender, and had yet to schedule an in-home visit, according to the Associated Press.

Across the river in Louisville, Howell’s fate in criminal court is pending. Three days after his plea deal in Clark County, a grand jury indicted Howell on charges of speeding, fleeing police and reckless driving. Howell is accused of driving 103 mph in a 55 mph zone in February. Police allege he sped off before an officer could arrest him.

In a video of the incident Howell sent to Greeson and other friends, the police officer is seen asking for Howell to roll his windows up and get out of the car. Howell, ignoring the officer, steps on the gas.

“He sent it to all of us in a group and thought he was, like, badass for running away from the cops,” Greeson said. “We all quit talking to him for a while after that.”

Early police reports suggested that Howell told Santa Monica authorities he intended to inflict harm at the gay pride parade in West Hollywood. Department officials later walked those comments back, saying the man had only told them he was headed that way.

Howell's arrest came as the country reeled from the massacre in Orlando, Fla., in which a gunman killed 49 people at a gay nightclub early Sunday. The incident stoked fears of violence at gay pride events across the country, though police said they do not know of any connection between Howell and the shootings in Orlando.

Greeson and others told IndyStar that Howell harbored no violent feelings toward the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. In fact, they said, Howell is gay.

“He didn’t like anybody to know about it,” said Zach Hambrick, an ex-boyfriend from Charlestown. Hambrick said he met Howell on a dating app. Although the pair were happy at first, Hambrick said, things soon went south. They haven't spoken in several months, Hambrick said.

“After things went bad, that’s when he started getting violent with me,” said Hambrick, 17. Asked about Howell’s arrest in Santa Monica, Hambrick said, “It didn’t surprise me. It didn’t surprise me at all.”

Hambrick said his ex-boyfriend kept a collection of guns. In a small house Howell briefly shared with Hambrick in Charlestown, neighbors said, he kept a couple of handguns and a rifle displayed in his room.

“I don’t know why he had so many,” Hambrick said. “He didn’t hunt. He just had them.”

Records from the Charlestown Police Department detail allegations that the day before Howell’s October arrest, he pointed a rifle at Hambrick. Howell told police he held the gun at his shoulder but kept it pointed skyward as he told his former boyfriend to leave, an account echoed by multiple witnesses. No charges arose from that allegation.

Jeremy Hebert, 37, the Charlestown neighbor named in the October 2015 arrest report, said he had multiple concerns about Howell. During one of Hebert's encounters with Howell, the younger man sat in his car, clearing ammunition from his rifle. Between each rack, he raised his gun and pointed it at Hebert.

Another time, Hebert said, he overheard Howell yelling that he wished “he could take everybody out.”

“Get the kid some help and everything,” Hebert said.

Howell is scheduled for an arraignment in Los Angeles on Tuesday. Prosecutors in his pending Louisville case, meanwhile, filed a motion Monday to revoke Howell’s bond in that case, according to the Jefferson Commonwealth attorney’s office.

Back in the Jeffersonville neighborhood that Howell’s parents called home, many neighbors declined to speak with IndyStar. The large house belonging to his parents was apparently empty; a privacy screen set up just inside the doorway shielded the interior from view.

Chris Rowe, 43, who lives a few houses down, said he was friendly with the Howells and never expected something could be amiss.

“His parents have given zero indication that they are anything but squared away,” Rowe said.

Rowe, who works as a juvenile probation officer in nearby Floyd County, said he was previously unfamiliar with Howell’s criminal history in Clark County. But he said he sympathized with the man’s parents.

“I deal with juveniles, so I know the pickle they get in. That’s their flesh and blood. That’s their kid. What are you supposed to do? You can’t just boot him out on the street,” Rowe said.

“I feel bad for the parents. Your child is how many thousands of miles away? When are you going to get to see him again?”

[Dragon Angel]

Dear false equivalence fallacy proponents; name me the civilisations that exist (or have existed) where women's rights and gay rights are as protected and championed more than modern Western democracies.

Ta.

The governments are not being compared. The religious attitudes are. Where the religion is permitted to run rampant, this and worse happen frequently. Where it is not--where a secular government keeps religion in check and influences people's beliefs counter to their religion--shit like this happens less often and both gay people and women have better legal protections.

If the catholic church or southern baptists were allowed to set policy, I would be in prison.

Not to mention it's missing the point I made about comparing troubles. A person with late-stage terminal cancer will objectively have their life more difficult than a person with something that does not involve imminent death, but that does not mean we tell people without a terminal illness to suck it up. Why should fundamentalism of every creed be different?

[Wild Zontargs]

Apparently, the police are arresting an accomplice in the Orlando shooting. Sounds like his second wife helped him scout targets for an attack, including Disney World.

[Dragon Angel]

I think this thread needs a voice from the other side of the divide:

I'm on the Kill List. This is what it feels like to be hunted by drones
Friends decline my invitations and I have taken to sleeping outside under the trees, to avoid becoming a magnet of death for my family

Malik Jalal Tuesday 12 April 2016441 comments
pg-29-drones-ap.jpg
There have been 255 drone strikes on Pakistan since 2004 AP
I am in the strange position of knowing that I am on the ‘Kill List’. I know this because I have been told, and I know because I have been targeted for death over and over again. Four times missiles have been fired at me. I am extraordinarily fortunate to be alive.

I don’t want to end up a “Bugsplat” – the ugly word that is used for what remains of a human being after being blown up by a Hellfire missile fired from a Predator drone. More importantly, I don’t want my family to become victims, or even to live with the droning engines overhead, knowing that at any moment they could be vaporized.

I am in England this week because I decided that if Westerners wanted to kill me without bothering to come to speak with me first, perhaps I should come to speak to them instead. I’ll tell my story so that you can judge for yourselves whether I am the kind of person you want to be murdered.

I am from Waziristan, the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan. I am one of the leaders of the North Waziristan Peace Committee (NWPC), which is a body of local Maliks (or community leaders) that is devoted to trying to keep the peace in our region. We are sanctioned by the Pakistan government, and our main mission is to try to prevent violence between the local Taliban and the authorities.

In January 2010, I lent my vehicle to my nephew, Salimullah, to drive to Deegan for an oil change and to have one of the tires checked. Rumours had surfaced that drones were targeting particular vehicles, and tracking particular phone signals. The sky was clear and there were drones circling overhead.

Artists in Pakistan target drones with giant posters of child victims
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As Salimullah conversed with the mechanic, a second vehicle pulled up next to mine. There were four men inside, just local chromite miners. A missile destroyed both vehicles, killed all four men, and seriously injured Salimullah, who spent the next 31 days in hospital.

Upon reflection, because the drones target the vehicles of people they want to kill in Waziristan, I was worried that they were aiming for me.

The next attack came on 3 September 2010. That day, I was driving a red Toyota Hilux Surf SUV to a ‘Jirga’, a community meeting of elders. Another red vehicle, almost identical to mine, was some 40 meters behind. When we reached Khader Khel, a missile blew up the other vehicle, killing all four occupants. I sped away, with flames and debris in my rear view mirror.

Initially I thought the vehicle behind was perhaps being used by militants, and I just happened to be nearby. But I learned later the casualties were four local laborers from the Mada Khel tribe, none of whom had any ties to militant groups. Now it seemed more likely that I was the target.

The third drone strike came on 6 October 2010. My friend Salim Khan invited me to dinner. I used my phone to call Salim to announce my arrival, and just before I got there a missile struck, instantly killing three people, including my cousin, Kaleem Ullah, a married man with children, and a mentally handicapped man. Again, none of the casualties were involved in extremism.

Now I knew for certain it was me they were after.


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US authorises drone attacks
Five months later, on 27 March 2011, an American missile targeted a Jirga, where local Maliks – all friends and associates of mine – were working to resolve a local dispute and bring peace. Some 40 civilians died that day, all innocent, and some of them fellow members of the NWPC. I was early to the scene of this horror.

Like others that day, I said some things I regret. I was angry, and I said we would get our revenge. But, in truth, how would we ever do such a thing? Our true frustration was that we – the elders of our villages – are now powerless to protect our people.

I have been warned that Americans and their allies had me and others from the Peace Committee on their Kill List. I cannot name my sources, as they would find themselves targeted for trying to save my life. But it leaves me in no doubt that I am one of the hunted.

I soon began to park any vehicle far from my destination, to avoid making it a target. My friends began to decline my invitations, afraid that dinner might be interrupted by a missile.


I took to the habit of sleeping under the trees, well above my home, to avoid acting as a magnet of death for my whole family. But one night my youngest son, Hilal (then aged six), followed me out to the mountainside. He said that he, too, feared the droning engines at night. I tried to comfort him. I said that drones wouldn’t target children, but Hilal refused to believe me. He said that missiles had often killed children. It was then that I knew that I could not let them go on living like this.

I know the Americans think me an opponent of their drone wars. They are right; I am. Singling out people to assassinate, and killing nine of our innocent children for each person they target, is a crime of unspeakable proportions. Their policy is as foolish as it is criminal, as it radicalises the very people we are trying to calm down.

I am aware that the Americans and their allies think the Peace Committee is a front, and that we are merely creating a safe space for the Pakistan Taliban. To this I say: you are wrong. You have never been to Waziristan, so how would you know?

The mantra that the West should not negotiate with “terrorists” is naive. There has hardly ever been a time when terrorists have been brought back into the fold of society without negotiation. Remember the IRA; once they tried to blow up your prime minister, and now they are in parliament. It is always better to talk than to kill.

I have travelled half way across the world because I want to resolve this dispute the way you teach: by using the law and the courts, not guns and explosives.

Ask me any question you wish, but judge me fairly – and please stop terrorizing my wife and children. And take me off that Kill List.

A reminder that fundamentalist Islam is far from being the only cause of sociopolitical troubles in the Middle East.

We are also greatly to blame.

[Broomstick]

Well shit. That other potential shooter arrested for bringing an "arsenal" to the LA pride event? Also gay.

The good news there is it looks like he got caught before he actually hurt anyone.

[Dominus Atheos]

Well shit. That other potential shooter arrested for bringing an "arsenal" to the LA pride event? Also gay.

The good news there is it looks like he got caught before he actually hurt anyone.

At this point, there's no indication that he wanted to harm anyome. It's looking more likely that he's just a gun nut fleeing from a criminal case in Indiana and taking his gun collection with him.

The police chief already said that she was wrong when she tweeted that he statedthat he wanted to harm the parade, and the "IED" found in his car was just tannerite, which is used for target shooting.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Well shit. That other potential shooter arrested for bringing an "arsenal" to the LA pride event? Also gay.

The good news there is it looks like he got caught before he actually hurt anyone.

At this point, there's no indication that he wanted to harm anyome. It's looking more likely that he's just a gun nut fleeing from a criminal case in Indiana and taking his gun collection with him.

The police chief already said that she was wrong when she tweeted that he statedthat he wanted to harm the parade, and the "IED" found in his car was just tannerite, which is used for target shooting.

Yeah, if it was just tannerite, he is likely a gun nut who likes to make cans explode. I mean, you *can* make bombs with it (it is an explosive), but you'd have better luck with a bunch of gasoline and ammonium nitrate in terms of explosive bang.

[Dominus Atheos]

Although I am lolling at how perfectly the case encapsulates every bias I have about small town Indiana and southern California cops.

[Broomstick]

At this point, there's no indication that he wanted to harm anyome. It's looking more likely that he's just a gun nut fleeing from a criminal case in Indiana and taking his gun collection with him.

The criminal case involves him threatening someone with a loaded gun. He's on probation for it. That makes me think he hasn't harmed anyone... yet.

Plenty of people own multiple guns and like to shoot cans. For the most part, they also refrain from pointing guns at other people. This guy seems like an exception to that rule.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Although I am lolling at how perfectly the case encapsulates every bias I have about small town Indiana and southern California cops.

In fairness, fucking around with tannerite is a hell of a lot of fun, but it is kind of a rural thing. I would hope police would know what it is and what it is used for, but in southern california it might just be an outside context problem. It might not be legal there. Conversely in Virginia, you can detonate up to 75 lbs of the stuff in a day without needing a license so long as you dont violate city ordinances.

[Zaune]

Even if it's legal, I can see how someone saying they're going to Pride with a load of tannerite in their car would be probable cause. It might not be powerful enough to make a useful nail-bomb on its own but it'd certainly make a good detonator.

[Wild Zontargs]

Well, this whole mess is becoming an amazing example of why you shouldn't rely on pre-packaged narratives to understand what's going on. [Apologies for touching on guns in passing, but it's relevant as a narrative.]

It's a straight white Christian Republican male again!
If you mean gay/bi Muslim Democrat male from an Afghan family, then sure.

It's an ISIS sleeper agent who slipped through the border security and/or immigration checks!
He was born in the US.

Gun control could have stopped this!
He was a licensed armed guard, and the FBI couldn't find enough on him to do anything despite several investigations. Unless you want draconian laws (thoughtcrime checks and/or total ownership bans), it wouldn't help.

It's all part of an anti-LGBT war in America!
If he and his wife were also scouting other sites, including Disney World, then it sounds like PULSE was an ideologically-acceptable soft target, rather than the central element of the plan.

Well, what about that other straight white male gun-nut in LA?
Another gay/bi guy who was going to Pride, and forgot to take his noisy hobbies out of the trunk first.

Radical Islam had nothing to do with this! Look at all the different extremists he liked!
They all had something in common: pro-radical-Islam, anti-West. His family was full of radical Islamist nutters. He grew up soaking in it. It probably had something to do with it.