Ball of Complications

The mass murder in Orlando is one of the most complex events in my history.

1. We have a Muslim
2. We have a legal gun owner
3. The gun is an AR-15 which many believe should be banned.
4. We have an anti-gay religious guy
5. We have a man who has been coming to a gay bar for as long as a year
6. We have a guy who has been flagged by the FBI
7. We have a guy who is on the no-fly list

 

1. We know the guy is a Muslim.  He attended mosque.  But is he an extremist?  If he is, why do the other people in his community not identify him as one?

   And we have conservatives looking to liberals to explain why they do not connect yet another atrocity committed by a Muslim as being not linked to Islam in some way.

   If he is an extremist, then what do we call him?  Here are words we are debating:

   Radical Jihadist
   Radical Islamist
   Radical Islamic Terrorist
   Islamism
   Terrorist
   Mass murderer
   Hate criminal
   Evil

2. As far as we know he purchased the rifle legally.  That puts the NRA folks in a position to want to protect his rights to own the gun even though it goes against their ideology regarding terrorists and their weapons.
3. We are debating, and have been debating, whether assault rifles or AR-15s should be legal for private citizens.  Or although AR-15 isn’t technically an assault rifle, should it be considered one.
4. We assume that this was a religiously motivated hate crime, but could he be a closeted gay who was struggling with a moral conflict with Islam?
5. Why was he having dating chats with gay men who come to the club.  Why was he spotted at the club dozens of times of a year?  Reconnaissance?

   You have liberals having to defend their belief that terrorism has nothing to do with Islam. What if the guy had been a Christian? When the say it had nothing to do with Christianity?

   And what do that extreme anti-gay Christians do with their belief that gays should be executed. Do they applaud a Muslim for the terrorist attack?

6. If he was interviewed by the FBI, should he be allowed to buy a gun?  What do you do if he already bought the gun before the FBI investigated him?
7. Should people on the no-fly list be buying guns?

This is complicated.  NRA people defending a Muslim “terrorist”.  Radical Christians defending an Islamic hate crime against gays.

This is a hard event to process.  One thing that occurs to me is that radical Christians and conservatives have more in common with radical Muslims than they do with the rest of their faith.

The debates are confusing.  We have people who support Trump, defending a man because of his anti-gay, pro-gun positions, but who Trump says should be banned from our country.

I do not know how to debate this issue, because it’s a ball of issues each of which are complex in their own ways.

It feels like something is shifting.  We’re seeing part of the country prioritize gun rights and anti-gay sentiment higher than their dislike of Muslims and terrorists.  What do we do with that?  I don’t know how to interpret that.

I was hoping that in writing this, I would be able to come to some sort of understanding, but all I really understand is that I’m concerned about people who do not see this is more complicated than black and white.