OK, here are some questions that interest me since yesterday's horrific attack. I'm hoping people provide me some detailed answers, but yes or no is fine as well:
1. Do you believe that increased gun control measures might have prevented yesterday's attack? If so, which measures and how would they have helped? Surprise - I have no idea. On one hand I 100% agree that background checks, restrictions on types of guns, registration, safety training, etc should all be mandatory parts of owning a gun. On the other hand, if I was confined in a restaurant, theatre, bus, whatever in a similar situation to what we saw last month, if I was given two options - A. Having a gun on me or B. not having a gun on me....I'd pick A. Even though, I'm sure I'd just end up Cheddar Bobbing myself in the leg or getting shot by cops when they arrive on scene.
2. Yesterday's attack was in a gun free zone. Do you believe that gun free zones are working out for us? Do you think that if one or more of the party guests had been armed, the result might have been different in a positive way (i.e., lives would have been saved)? See my answer above. If I were there, I'd prefer having a gun to try to decide what works best as opposed to not. I certainly wouldn't use it without some SERIOUS calculation first about whether or not it was of any value.
3. The police yesterday used armored vehicles. Is this a good argument as to why police forces should have this type of military equipment? Or do you prefer if they didn't? No opinion
4. Yesterday's attack was not prevented by the NSA's collection of metadata. Is that because what the NSA is doing will never stop these sorts of attacks, and therefore the NSA should stop (since many believe it is a violation of our civil liberties)? Or should the NSA continue collecting metadata, since chances are they will stop future attacks? Or should the NSA actually increase their efforts, as some Republican congressmen want (like Kevin McCarthy)? I'm ok with data collection. I'm sure it's a slippery slope but I do trust our government to a great extent and would hope that it would be used only for the purposes of rooting out this crap
5. In my disagreement with Ministry of Pain, I came out against profiling of Middle Eastern looking people. He is for it. He thinks it's necessary to keep us safe, while I worry it will lead to bigotry against a lot of innocent people. Which side do you come down on? Case by case basis. I don't think it's bigotry to "profile" - everyone (yes EVERYONE) does it on some level. Just from life experience there are things I know to be true. I am not a bigot, I enjoy diversity - visiting other countries, accepting of all people (except Republicans). These life experiences just allow you to build an "opening tree" on generalities that are true of a large part of certain cultures. I think some of those generalities are absolutely "earned" and of course not all in the race represent those generalities - I would never say that, and would say they are open to change as well. Even these generalities don't bother me - I don't think acknowledging them is a BAD thing if it's not used for bad. I certainly don't look twice when I see an Arab walk into a restaurant or board a plane with me - however, if I saw 6 middle eastern looking 40 year old men all move into a house next door to me and start working in their garage all hours of their night, I'd find this suspicious. If it were 6 20 year old college aged kids, I'd probably think they were frat brothers and smoking weed in the garage. If that is bigoted, then I guess I am one, but it's just based on life experiences, knowledge, and being aware of the world.
6. If yesterday's attack turns out to be ISIS related, should the USA retaliate against ISIS? If so, what specifically should we do that we are not doing? I don't know that it even does any good at this point. I really don't. Seems like France, UK, Russia are doing a lot of the work we might be doing if Bush was still our President. If it prevents this type of thing now and in the future - sure, I'm all for it. But it likely doesn't. And I definitely don't want troops on the ground. Period
7. Does it bother you whether or not our leaders, including Obama, refer to this as a terrorist attack, or as an act of radical Islam? Why or why not? Don't care at all. Obama can call it terrorism, radical islam, I can call it late for dinner, you can call it whatever you want. The action is the same. The problem is the same. I'm not sure why anyone would get ruffled about not defining it a certain way. I'm open to a reasonable explanation from someone about why that matters. To me - it does not. What we do about it and what happened matter - and that's it.
That's all for now. I'll probably think of more later.