What a silly and badly timed statement. If you don't think that there is already many groups trying to do this, than you are mistaken.

truly...like, can we not be patronizing? it's a hellhole here but there are people trying to change things for the better, with or without your support, whether you notice them or not.

R.I.P. to those that lost their lives in yet another sad tragedy.

This shouldn't be downplayed as a hate crime. As someone who hated to see gay people kissing, there's a reason he chose that specific club. There's no two ways around it.

 

 

This interview is appalling. How utterly patronising of the man and woman, Owen does well to stick it out as long as he did, but if I were there I'd have left earlier. The woman saying he was homopbic "months ago" and he might have attacked her for being a "gobby woman"... as if homophobia is something that passes in a week. He shot up a gay club.

This shouldn't be downplayed as a hate crime. As someone who hated to see gay people kissing, there's a reason he chose that specific club. There's no two ways around it.

This interview is appalling. How utterly patronising of the man and woman, Owen does well to stick it out as long as he did, but if I were there I'd have left earlier. The woman saying he was homopbic "months ago" and he might have attacked her for being a "gobby woman"... as if homophobia is something that passes in a week. He shot up a gay club.

Owen Jones had clearly been upset about this all day. He had tweeted some angry comments about the fact that the BBC were showing an old woman's birthday party (two months after her birthday) on both BBC1 and the News channel, rather than covering Florida on the News channel. You can sense the frustration building up in him as the discussion went on. I just hope that the other two people will watch the discussion today and accept that their comments were misjudged. I don't think their comments were meant to be patronising or to downplay the scale of yesterday's events, but they didn't seem to grasp why Owen was so offended.

What a silly and badly timed statement. If you don't think that there is already many groups trying to do this, than you are mistaken.

 

I'm glad to hear there are, and sorry if it came over badly, that wasn't my intent. I'm just so sick of the Right-wing stymying every attempt to change things. If the whole unifed gay population came together (the Pink Dollar is very powerful) and made it clear they won't stand for it anymore then something good would come out of it. I'm afraid though that there are just as many gun-toting supporters throughout US life and it needs a unified mass movement not small groups of activists, all organised to work together for Peace and Justice. That means marches, media attention, keeping the pressure on in the same way the Civil Rights movement did in the 60's.

 

 

truly...like, can we not be patronizing? it's a hellhole here but there are people trying to change things for the better, with or without your support, whether you notice them or not.

 

It wasn't meant to be patronizing, sorry if it came over that way. My bitter words come from 50 years of abject disappointment with American Guns. When I was a child we hero worshipped the USA, we loved everything American, we had been saved from the Nazis with massive USA help and the UK was on it's knees economically. USA TV shows were all over TV and we saw an idealised Pleasantville to aspire to. We had superheroes, pop music, hippie culture, love and peace and Civil Rights.

 

At the same time we had Vietnam, black people murdered for speaking up, Martin Luther King was murdered, and Robert Kennedy shortly after, these impacted on me but I kept my love for the USA, and the idealism. I even did a degree in American Literature, history and geography, and had my first ever holiday as a student on the West Coast. I loved it. I still worshipped America, and especially small-town America, people were friendly and inviting, far more than the reserved British would be to complete strangers. By the 90's I holidayed every year, more or less, in the States, still loving it but troubled more and more by the never-ending shootings and the media acceptance, the culture acceptance, and having to endure the loss of my lifelong hero, John Lennon, shot dead by a nutter.

 

So, I continued on with a love-hate relationship for the States, into the new century when things just got worse and worse. Bush and the Bankers, world crisis, one mass shooting after another, even the brutal murder of small children and a President, a good decent man, exasperated by the powerful Gun control lobby, couldn't do a thing to change it. And so I got the stage where, despite all the great efforts of sane citizens in the States, the insane are in control and with Trump on the horizon...who knows. It's very hard to be optimistic.

 

Young Americans need to gather, say no more, and then boycott any organisation which supports the gun lobby. Hitting them in the wallet will make them listen, and making life as difficult as possible for politicians who support guns will make them think twice if their financial support suddenly evaporates. The problem is anyone who sticks their head above the parapet knows they are at risk from the Angry, so it needs to be a mass movement, safety in numbers. I wish dearly things could change...

 

I know that your statement did not come from a condescending nature, I guess as a gay American, we are all a little on edge.

 

Everything you are saying is 100% dead on. But, I fear nothing will ever change. The fact a man that was under watch by the FBI and had a background of violence and mental disorders, could purchase an assault rifle, is not only mind boggling as it is infuriating.

 

We have had almost 140 shootings this year and we are only in early June. Not only are we dealing with that, but, now we are dealing with fundamental Christians yelling "attack!" On Muslims. Which is just very funny when all of America's gay community is calling for an outreach of love and coming together. This country is filled to the brim with unintelligent, blood thirsty ass holes, that are quickly killing off anybody that does not fit with their ideology. Want to start a mass shooting? Just stop by the gun department in Wal Mart after you buy your weekly groceries.

Edited June 13, 20169 yr by Tyler

I found it staggering to read that people who are deemed sufficiently dangerous to merit a flight ban are nevertheless able to buy guns. For some inexplicable reason, the NRA don't seem to think there is anything wrong with that.

The NRA is a parasite to the American society.

 

The sad thing is, the number of pro gun Americans out weighs those that are anti. Which makes it almost an impossible issue to tackle through politics. For instance, if Hillary Clinton were to come out today and say "WE NEED TO BAN GUNS", that would only further Trump's chances of actually winning. Sad times.

It is absolutely astonishing that this sort of thing happens quite a lot in a civilised country and then again astonishing that bringing in a law to control the sale of guns is almost an impossible thing to do as well. I feel absolutely terrible for the people affected by this but they really do need to do something.

The most horrifying thing about the Gun Control debate is that even completely common sense reasonable ideas are dismissed as trespassing on their rights.

 

I'm sorry but there is never a circumstance under which a private citizen buying a weapon of WAR is justified. These assault riffles are designed to brutally murder countless people in a short period of time. No private individual should ever have access to firearms like this. Ever.

 

If you think that checking that someone is on the terror watch list, or is not in a fit mental state or has an extensive criminal past is not an ok level of checks to be carried out on people owning firearms then you are the problem. You should probably go right ahead and take a long walk off a short cliff. At the very least you should be sectioned.

 

How the NRA can sleep at night i'll never understand. They are to blame for hundreds of thousands of innocent lives lost directly as a result of their corrupt lobbying. The idea that the united states is a democracy is almost as laughable as the NRA continually suggesting gun control in the UK and Australia doesn't work.

 

We've had 8 mass shootings since the 1840's, you've had 8 since last f***ing Monday. Take a thousand seats, delete your account and stop being such a shit stain on the fabric of humanity.

It bothers me that doing anything at all about guns is not even open for discussion. What Silas just said is similar to what I've seen all over Facebook, and when anyone brings up the issue they'll get accused of using a tragedy to push an agenda and/or that anti-guns is anti-freedom, end of debate. Well, Facebook arguments are never worth it anyway, but I've overheard it at work too, and what seems like common sense to those of us in this thread is nearly impossible to explain to a huge portion of Americans. The most common argument is "guns don't kill people, people kill people", and in this case, "it's a terrorism problem not a gun problem", "if he didn't have a gun he would've used a bomb", etc etc etc. A lot of the other arguments focus on "what if this" and "what if that", we can't ban guns because all of these things MIGHT happen...ignoring the reality of what actually IS happening now and will continue if nothing is done about it. I used to think people cared more about their second amendment rights than the safety of others, but nope, people genuinely believe America's a safer country with guns than without. People are still convinced that Obama wants to take away everyone's guns, even though ownership rates have increased during his presidency and he's done literally nothing to stop it for 7+ years. To be fair, I'm terrified of what would happen if we ever do get gun legislation, it'd quite likely lead to chaos if people think they have to give up their guns. But I have family and friends who are openly LGBT and now fearing for their lives because of this tragedy, which in my mind is far far worse.

Have to say, it's been somewhat 'relieving' (for want of a better word) in the aftermath of this and other mass shootings to attribute most of the blame for American gun culture to the NRA's current level of seemingly insurmountable power, with the sense that general attitudes are slowly changing and that lives of innocent people are starting to be defended and valued by society above any rights or perceived safety associated with guns (even if that means most of the population is now in favour of stricter background checks only). That way change and legislation seemed at least possible, even if it was to take years to come about. Hearing the anecdotal accounts of Facebook feeds etc. over the last couple of days, both the likes of Jordan's above and from Americans I know, is truly shocking and completely disheartening though. It's scary how educated and otherwise intelligent people can so easily excuse the availability of guns as irrelevant to atrocities like this, and worse still; that pro-gun rhetoric can be legitimately strengthened in response. "If people had guns to defend themselves, if elementary schools had armed security guards" etc...

 

And that's without mentioning the blatant homophobia and racism that's accompanying this all too often.

 

Extremely sad times. RIP to all the victims.

 

 

The NRA is a parasite to the American society.

 

The sad thing is, the number of pro gun Americans out weighs those that are anti. Which makes it almost an impossible issue to tackle through politics. For instance, if Hillary Clinton were to come out today and say "WE NEED TO BAN GUNS", that would only further Trump's chances of actually winning. Sad times.

http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun...assault-weapon/

 

And whoop there it is.

 

(We had a 10-year assault weapons ban?)

http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun...assault-weapon/

 

And whoop there it is.

 

(We had a 10-year assault weapons ban?)

 

The most they will be able to get banned is assault rifles.

 

 

Yep from 1994 - 2004. Bill Clinton being responsible for it. I blame Bush for it not being extended.

Seeing all the names of the people who have died during this tragic even has made this more real for me, I just still cant get my head around it :( RIP to all 49 people who died.

The most they will be able to get banned is assault rifles.

Yep from 1994 - 2004. Bill Clinton being responsible for it. I blame Bush for it not being extended.

 

 

There's two things to note about the 10-year "ban" though -

 

1. It didn't actually ban semi-automatic assault weapons, it just capped how many features it had; and

2. It had no notable effect.

I don't think their comments were meant to be patronising or to downplay the scale of yesterday's events, but they didn't seem to grasp why Owen was so offended.

After watching the video, tbh I can't grasp it either. He seems to throw a tantrum just because they disagreed with him and is then offended when the woman refers to the man who shot all those people as a lunatic. I'm not trying to say who was right and who was wrong in regards to comments made in the discussion, but it just came across as a very childish way of dealing with a debate.

Time have released a powerful and amazing tribute to the 49 victims of the Orlando shooting in their magazine front cover:

 

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k150/Harry_Flynn/ClFyAAcWIAE7YWi_zpsjprcf5uh.jpg

Has everyone seen this powerful recollection of the night, from one of the survivors?