Ft. Hood Shootings

Yes.

Not sure about the rest of your post, but a thousand times yes to this.

There's not much of a line between his stance and that of a lot of the anti-Bush war protesters who weren't Islamic and didn't end up shooting anybody.

Why would complaining that wars are wrong be a telltale that someone's going to go off?

So it's politically correct to tolerate political incorrectness. So does that mean if our culture were appropriately "politically incorrect" that we would have pre-emptively punished this guy for being politically incorrect?

This is ridiculously circular and shows the inherent flaw in making "political correctness" an all-purpose bogeyman.

I think the issue in these types of cases (guy in Cleveland w/ a bunch of dead bodies in his house, school shootings, etc) is that people DO see the signs and for whatever reason don't do anything about it (fear, laziness, apathy). Then when people ask them why they didn't see any signs, it's easier for them to say there weren't any than to admit they probably should have done something before tragedy struck. Like you said, there have been too many examples where, after the fact, authorities have scrounged up tons of warning signs that were ignored. Something in this society makes people afraid to step in to other people's business when in fact it's everyone's business. Better safe than sorry.

Amen.

Most signs of such behaviour beforehand can easily,and usually will be, interpreted as being harmless.
My neighbour has two kids. They are often yelling, screaming, crying. They are happy kids when I see them, but they sometimes wake up late at night screaming for mommy, screaming just for the heck of it.

If I went there every time I can hear them scream, I d be actively bothering them, their parents, the entire family. I d be considered a watchdog, a stalker maybe, a pest.
However, if one day something happens, maybe their father runs amok and kills the entire family... I could claim I often heard them scream, but I still think its perfectly understandable I never alarmed the police.

Frankly, in retrospect the "signs" are always there, but if you go by that standard, you would have to call the police twice a day over nothing because a neighbour is yelling at his kids or wife, a stranger in a windowless van is sitting out front of the house, a guy with a suspicious bulge in his jacket is hastily entering a bank, or whatever.
These "signs" are not that clear without the context.

Shouldn't more consideration be given to just how he managed to wander around a non-combat area of an Army base with a loaded weapon, enter a building, and never once be challenged or stopped by anyone? Granted I don't know much about the daily operations of an Army base, I imagine it's not unusual to see men carrying weapons, but in that particular area?

They were small hand guns, that were easy to conceal. Plus it wouldn't be strange to see an armed guy walking around a military base. Even in that area.

I never understand the motivations for shootings like this. I mean you're pissed off about something, so you go out and shoot a bunch of people who had nothing to do with what your mad about

Wasn't the area he was in a processing place for those about to go to Iraq and Afghanistan? If he was against the war, it makes a twisted kind of sense he'd take it out on those who were about to go fight in it.

The sidearms were not standard issue; he bought one of them at a 'Guns Galore!' store.

If I were inclined to be 'politically incorrect' (which is a stupid fucking term, but what can you do), I would suggest that this shooting, in conjunction with the Ohio shooting, in conjunction with the fact that we've seemed to reach a point where 5 or 10 people get massacred every 3-6 months now . . . just maybe it's time we started treating the second amendment the way we do all the other amendments: a pretty good idea that can and will be circumscribed when the greater public good is threatened.

Cylon, the number of soldiers being re-deployed that have 'mental stability' issues is extremely large. Say what you mean - the guy was a muslim who had 'mental stability' issues. Don't succumb to the PC fascists for our sake!

I don't see how him having discussions with his religious leader about the morality of his actions and its impact on his faith would make him "suspect". There were also reports last week that the guy suffered severe harassment for being a muslim and a soldier - are we giving equal credence to them?

This right here is the crux of it.

How could he kill / severly injure 40 people with 2 handguns??

There's a lot of speculation that friendly fire (i.e. people trying to take down the gunman) injured a lot of people.

He probably had the Last Stand perk, too.

But not Martyrdom, thankfully.

Plus once you get that seven kill streak and call in that helicopter, the kills really start racking up.

I saw what you just did Millette.

At least somebody finds something interesting about this thread.

The Army's official statement is that there's no evidence of that, and while it's easy to believe it's a CYA, I tend to believe them in this instance. Proportionally speaking, there aren't really that many armed folks (at least with live ammunition) wandering around military bases (generally only MPs/security personnel and folks that happen to be going to the firing range at the time), and the location where the shooting took place wasn't one where there'd be a lot of them around. With no one else (in the immediate area) armed and people in shock/panicked/whatever, it's perfectly reasonable to believe the guy reloaded once or twice or even more during his spree, until armed security folks showed up.

As for whether "rampant PC-ness" made folks overlook the warning signs? Maybe, maybe not. The military is extremely sensitive to scandal. They got burned enough in the late 80's and through the 90's that they're very touchy about doing anything that could be turned around on them and paint them in bad light. In short, they probably do not (and shouldn't) "profile" Muslim soldiers in the military...because it's not a war on Islam, natch. I think it's still questionable whether the Army actually knew the blog posts were his, or were even aware he had the blog. From what I've read, the guy had never been deployed before, so it's entirely possible he'd never had to undergo a full security screening (since a "noncombat" doctor working inside the United States is not usually considered a "security sensitive" position).

Either way, it'd be utterly impossible for the military to monitor every aspect of a Soldiers' life, and doing so only to Muslim soldiers would be discriminatory. Let's not forget that there have been plenty of non-Muslim soldiers who have gone off their rocker and killed people, too.

Nice strawman, Cylon. No one in any article anywhere has referred to not dealing with this man as political correctness. You were the one who decided that it was political correctness that prevented people from dealing with him. It could have been anything from thinking his rants were letting off steam, it could have been a first ammendment issue, or it simply could have been that no one thought his words would lead to actions.

Yeah, it says I'm not an asshole.

It's just so much easier to paint the guy as an "Islamic radical" than a "US Army Major who had a severe mental breakdown, who happens to have heard all the horror stories from people who got back fomr the war."

Or he could be both.

But what are the odds?

It's funny how people's memories are altered by new informations about a subject. I'm willing to bet the guy never yelled "Allah akbar", but hey, he's an Arab! He surely said that. They all do when they explode and shit!

The point is that they don't have all the facts yet. So why jump to conclusions? The guy's still alive and you'll probably have all the information about who to be outraged at shortly. Just hold off on lighting your torches and picking up the the pitchforks for a bit.

Ugh, and a guy on another board just compared Obama's reaction to the Fort Hood incident to Bush's reaction to 9/11. Jesus christ, I need coffee.

I think hindsight is always 20/20 and these assholes on the news who take on this accusatory stance that, "the signs were all there, why didn't you act on them?" are the same ones who would cry and whine about someones civil rights being trampled when and if anyone had acted on those signs.

Not likely.

I heard someone complaining about how Obama didn't go to Ft. Hood for the memorial, but Bush did. This less than a month after people complained about Obama showing up at the arrival of the casualties from Afghanistan. So basically, whatever he does is wrong.

Uhm, I pretty sure that no matter how you slice it, the dude that gunned down 12 people is the guy to blame.

You betcha. In some cases, anyway. At least if the guy being "profiled" was savvy enough to get the media involved at all.

Oh god.

Nice use of quotes to insinuate something.

Yep, but that's not altogether different from any other President in recent memory. Maybe the vocal ones complaining are a little louder than usual, though.

Clearly I wasn't using 'who' to indicate which individual committed the crime (that's pretty well known at this point) but rather to indicate the group/system that helped create the situation that lead to this.

As can be seen by those throwing out 'political correctness', there is a desire to expand blame beyond this individual and his actions. So yes, we know the individual who pulled the trigger but we don't know exactly why he did it and what could have been done to avoid it.

"Maybe"?

Come on, you're better than that.

I wasn't really intending to insinuate anything. Just presenting the hypothetical scenario. "Religious Profiling in the Military! Our Special Report tonight at 11!"

What insinuation did you think I was trying to make?

Yeah, I'll upgrade it to a "definitely."

Theeeerewego!

It was the insinuation that profiling doesn't happen. When you put a single word in quotes you are negating the word, as if the profiling wasn't real.

ETA: I'd also like to see some connection between those asking why something wasn't done about this man and their defense of civil liberties. I'm pretty sure that venn diagram would have very little overlap.

Oh, OK. Wasn't my intent to imply that profiling doesn't happen, but I can see how you would see that in that fashion. Sorry for any misrepresentation.

Fair enough. Objection withdrawn, your honour.