The Orlando massacre

At least fifty people have been killed in a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.  The murderer was Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old US-born Muslim of Afghan extraction.  As always, we must be wary of early reports on an incident like this, which often later turn out to be wrong in major details.  Nevertheless, I do have a few observations.

First, Mateen's father describes his son as "anti-gay" and says that he had recently been enraged by the sight of two men kissing -- but also insists that the slaughter "had nothing to do with religion".  Well, whence comes anti-gay hatred and the kind of pathology that reacts with rage to something as innocent as a kiss, if not from the Abrahamic taboo system which Islam exemplifies?

Second, the anti-gun obsessives are once again pouncing upon a mass shooting as a pretext for renewing their attacks on American gun rights.  Mateen had no criminal record, was employed as a security guard, and had a firearms license.  It's hard to see how any restriction which has been proposed would have kept him from obtaining guns -- unless of course that "restriction" were universal confiscation, trying to disarm a hundred million law-abiding and responsible gun owners who, don't forget, include millions of liberals, gays, and members of minority groups.  And hasn't the War on Drugs shown us that even an outright ban can't keep things out of the hands of people who are determined to obtain them?

Third, we are already seeing the usual "thoughts and prayers" for the victims being offered by Republican politicians, members of the same party which for years has been whipping up anti-gay hysteria and bigotry among its own fanatically-religious supporters, many of whom would have been quick to denounce the victims of this massacre as perverts while they were still alive.  Fuck your prayers.  Rather than talking to your imaginary friend, try renouncing and denouncing the political party which helps fuel the hatred and violence gays still have to fear day by day in some parts of the country.

Update:  Police in Los Angeles may have prevented a similar mass killing at the pride parade there.