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The Highly Baffling Mystery of the Garland Shootings
I’m as perplexed as you must be:
Two gunmen have been shot dead after opening fire outside a conference on cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a suburb of Dallas, US police say.
They drove to the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland as the event was ending, and began shooting at a security officer before being killed by police.
The bomb squad has been called in to search their vehicle for explosives.
The event, organised by a group critical of Islam, included a contest for drawings of the Prophet.
Security had been high around the centre because of the controversial nature of the event, which included Dutch anti-Islamic politician Geert Wilders as one of the keynote speakers.
But Garland Police Department spokesman Joe Harn said there had been no credible threats in advance, and it was not immediately clear if the shootings were related to the event.
I applaud Mr. Harn’s open-mindedness and unwillingness to rush to judgment. After all, there are so many other obvious reasons two men might be inspired to attack this event. Here are my top ten theories:
1) They were sore that Pamela unfriended them on Facebook.
2) Someone in the audience stole their parking space.
3) When they said, “Stop eating your popcorn so loudly, it’s ruining the exhibition for me,” they meant it.
4) They were in love with Jodie Foster.
5) That’s what too many Twinkies will do to you, everyone knows that.
6) Pacquiao was robbed, man.
7) Yet another out-of-control iPhone-v-Android feud.
8) That’ll show Geert that you can’t go through the express lane with more than 20 items in Texas!
9) They told Geller to stop playing “Hotel California,” but would she listen?
10) Geert should have known better than to mess with their Dungeons & Dragons character.
All equally plausible, right? We’ll just have to wait for the results of the investigation, I guess, but in the meantime, what’s your theory?
Published in General
11.) Those stupid bastards thought they could mess with Texas and get away with it.
They were wrong.
Je suis armed to the [sexual gerund redacted] teeth.
God bless Texas.
Given their status as maginalized persons in our society, they have likely experienced a lifetime of discrimination and oppression. Their “otherness” has been held against them, resulting in internalized self-disgust that sadly was turned on their oppressors. Their attempts to find the identity and acceptance our society rigidly withheld from them has led to a cry for help, a response in the only way their limited options in our cruel society left them. It is a tragedy, but the greater tragedy would be that we do not see our role, if not fault, in this.
Solving these type of complex societal problems involves a mix of nationally sponsored and administered programs focused on acceptance of all races and ethnicities without judgement. In addition, investment in programs with a proven track record of success such as Head Start and bi-lingual education would begin to address the “otherness” that likely characterized their upbringing.
This tragedy could have been averted had the officers been trained to deal with these men in a respectful and honoring way, chatting with them to understand and hear their problems. And, of course, if guns were not available, if never would have happened at all.
Lastly, I would call for a series of city-wide cultural conversations, training officers in sensitivity to marginalized and oppressed persons, as well as an examination of the intent and insensitivity of the conference attendees. Please see my web-site for other cities and corporations I have worked with.
I hate to link to the thing, but this tendentious twaddle from Reuters is probably typical of the media reaction, including the mandatory reference to the execrable Southern Poverty Law Center.
Edit: Just followed Claire’s original link to the BBC News story. Looks like the media have their marching orders.
As exciting as it is that they’re dead, they would have been of more intelligence value alive.
11) According to network TV stereotypes, the perps were two rich white guys going after Uri Geller for bending their silver spoons.
“T” word
If I had my guess, the Obama administration will blame all of this on deliberately insulting the Prophet and Geert Wilders will be deported and labeled persona non grata and banned from entering the United States. And Pam Geller will be investigated by the DoJ for hate crimes. Other participants in the art contest/show will also be investigated.
Obama should be smoking mad about now and maybe even smoking. Look for a White House statement today (Monday), if not the president himself making an angry statement in front of the cameras without taking questions, condemning all those who participated in insulting Muslims around the world. Then look for the Leftist media hacks who will say that this is precisely why there needs to be new limits on free speech and new controls on guns.
Finally, as John Kerry publicly scolds and privately weeps, watch the Iranian leadership use this incident to say that America hates all Muslims and cannot be trusted and that this is the very reason that Israel, America’s puppet, must be annihilated.
And all of this idiocy will play out while the crew of a Marshall Islands freighter, once thought to have been under the protection of the United States, continues to languish in an Iranian port but may be brought up on charges of spying and threatened with execution so the Iranians and the rest of the world can see how much further our most awesome and intimidating leader can be pushed.
“The mayor said the city had permitted the event even though officials knew its inflammatory theme could provoke an attack.”
Note to Supreme Court: this is how you deal with the “heckler’s veto”: double taps, not double-talk.
Agreed.
That said, this seems like a return to the mean in terms of Jihadi professionalism: the Kouachi brothers these guys were not (thank God).
Exhibiting Their willingness to participate in Western Civilization under “Freedom of Speech,” They entered Their performance art piece called,”Pissed Muhammad.”
So many comments and nobody’s mentioned Mossad? I’m disappointed.
Aren’t the police who shot the Muslim protesters going to be prosecuted?
Preliminary ID of one of the suspects. (Suspects?)
I’m actually now curious to look into this, but is anyone aware of any useful intelligence we got from Dzhokhar Tsarnaev himself that we wouldn’t have gotten from his and Tamerlan’s computers?
Let’s not climb up on any high horses, here. This could easily be a Crusades related incident.
USA v. Elton Simpson. Yep, sounding more and more like a Hotel California dispute thing to me.
I don’t know, but intelligence, sort of by definition, wouldn’t be advertised–so it’s possible we wouldn’t know.
Is this where we cue the Teddy Roosevelt “Man in the Arena” Speech? We should. One minute you are standing there, then two terrorists with AK-47s come up and start shooting. You deal with the situation. Then those who were not there start pointing out how you could have done better.
It is Texas. You start shooting, we shoot back. Gun control in Texas means a tight shot group. We hit what we aim at, and those we hit often end up dead.
You want them captured? Let the Federal Government deal with that. They have the resources – resources they seem not to be using. Once they start shooting? If it is in Texas, they will likely end up dead. Texas is not Colorado, California, Maryland or Massachusetts. Terrorists here are going to end up dead. Unless they want their 72 virgins, my suggestion is to commit terrorist acts in those other states I mentioned.
Finally, I am referring only to terrorists. There are many fine citizens of Texas who practice Islam, and go about their lives peacefully. They do so, because in Texas we still judge people by their deeds, not their religion or race.
Besides, they will shoot down terrorists, too.
Seawriter
Let’s be honest. This is either going to be a case of workplace violence. (Somebody works there and there was violence) or a domestic dispute gone wrong.
Islam being a religion of peace is above consideration.
On the other hand if they find out that a Christian was involved in anyway then it will be a religious attack of biblical proportions with the need to have a national conversation about everything a Christian has ever done wrong and the need to remove Churches tax exempt status for their loathsome stand on homosexuality and other sins / vices.
Tea Party related. A bunch of right wingers get together, in Texas no less, and some religious minorities end up dead.
But of far less value to the gene pool.
They would have been a legal and political football to be used by all that support their cause. It is better for us and them that they are dead.
11) The two guys were betrothed to each other and heard that there was a baker at the conference who wouldn’t make them a cake.
True.
My speculation — and I may well be wrong on this; we’ll have to wait and see — is that what happened in TX was more an amateur job than what we (you) saw in Paris. If so, that probably means there’s not much to learn that’s actionable, but we’ll never know now.
The good news is that these guys were clearly under-prepared and underarmed to attack this target, and they would have realized it if they had half a brain. If we’re going to have Jihadi terrorists, I hope they’re this stupid.
We are still researching and gathering facts so it’s too early for us to know anything concrete, but we do know it definitely wasn’t terrorism.
Charlie Hebdo was a fixed location with a security arrangement that could be reconnoitered. This conference was a one-time event, with no way of knowing in advance what security if any would be there.
It still doesn’t look like they sent the A-team this time.
There may not even be a “they” in this case.
There seems to be two kinds of domestic terrorism: 1) semi-professional types who are well-financed and trained, often abroad, such as we saw with Charlie Hebdo, 9/11, and the London Tube bombers and 2) Self-financed, self-taught amateurs like the Tsarnaevs, Major Hasan, and the Beltway Snipers.
Both kinds are dangerous, but the former kind are much more dangerous. Based on what I’ve seen so far, these idiots appear to be of the amateur variety.