The history of Florida was forever changed yesterday as it became the home of America’s deadliest mass shooting. A lone gunman, 29-year-old Omar Mir Saddiqui Mateen started shooting inside the crowded gay nightclub, Pulse in Orlando, Florida just before the club closed for the night killing 50 people, another 53 were transported to Orlando Regional Medical Center, some with critical injuries, the death toll may rise.
The violent attack started at approximately 2:09 a.m Sunday morning as patrons were starting to wind down and settle up their bar tabs. An Orlando police officer was working as security at the club and managed to engage Mateen in gunfire, possibly saving the lives of many more. Mateen had escaped the building but due to the shootout with the cop retreated back further into the club, managing to take control of a group of close to 30 hostages. Orlando PD and the swat team tried unsuccessfully to wait or coax the shooter out for close to three hours before finally managing to evacuate the terrorized party goers a little after 5 a.m. The swat team used a controlled detonation in an effort to confuse the man holed up inside then broke down a wall with a bobcat and went in, rescuing the hostages.
This blatant attack on the LGBT community during Gay Pride month, when the LGBT community around the nation, their friends and supporters are celebrating, created the desired effect. Widespread panic for the LGBT community which is continuously marginalized in our society. This group of people who are forced to fight for the same rights they had at birth has recently been the target of attacks, physically, mentally as as a community.
Just last week, the LGBT community was looked at as a pariah in America’s society, across the south right now there are campaigns to force the states to stop making anti gay laws. Corporations are being forced to change the plans to build in certain areas, or to take their events there, due to the way gay and transgender people are treated. Now the nation is mourning and attempting to come together in solidarity for the gay and transgender community.
In the last 24 hours we have learned so much about the man who perpetrated this horrible cold blooded mass murder. Omar Mateen’s family has spoken out his father, Mir Seddique, told the press that this was not a religious attack, that his son had been enraged recently after seeing two men kissing in downtown Miami. His former wife told the media that she had left Mateen only four months after they were married due to his emotional imbalance and rage.
According to the police press conferences, Omar Mateen called 911 and told them who he was, pledging allegiance to the Islamic State during the course of the attack. The attack is being labeled as domestic terrorism and is being investigated by the FBI. Oddly, Mateen is no stranger to the FBI, the agency had investigated Mateen twice in the last 3 years, once in 2013 and again in 2014. The FBI could not find any reason to continue to pursue or investigate him however in both cases.
The question keeps being raised how could he gain access to these weapons. The answer is simple, he is an American citizen with a clean record. He had the right to buy these weapons, just as anyone else. In fact, Omar Mateen not only was a former armed guard at a Florida courthouse but he has a special G class weapons license which allows him to carry and travel with his weapon. It has been found that he had purchased the murder weapons within the last week. The native new yorker who moved to Port St Lucie, Florida drove almost 100 miles from his home to commit this heinous crime. This was a well thought and planned out attack, the question is was it anti gay or anti American?
The media and government officials have been quick to label this a terrorist attack, domestic terrorism. Much quicker than they are to define a mass shooting as a terrorist attack when the perpetrator is a Caucasian nut with a gun. Mateen happens to be a Muslim so the story is his faith is the reason behind the attack. I wonder why Christianity doesn’t get the same bad rep when the Christians are out killing in masses, which happens more in America than Islamic attacks. He’s dead so we’ll never know if he had any reason for what he did or as his wife said he was unstable. Lucky media, they get to tell the story how it fits the Government’s anti gun agenda,
Blood is needed in Orlando but getting enough may be a problem. I found out during the course of My investigation into this that while the law nationwide was changed last year, Florida still bans gay men from donating blood. Did you know that? I didn’t. Until last year it was illegal for a gay man to donate blood anywhere in the U.S. Though it is now legal in most states, there is a stipulation that excludes most gay men from being able to donate, in order to be a gay man and donate blood in the U.S. You must not have had sex with a man for at least a year. So ONLY celibate gay men are allowed to donate blood.
I can understand back in the 80’s when HIV and AIDS first hit the scene and AIDS was seen as a gay disease but this is 2016. We have so much more knowledge on HIV and AIDS and blood should all be tested before usage, the fact that this legal discrimination is allowed is something we should be addressing. I hate to thing that any of the victims of this horrible crime have to die because though blood was available, it wasn’t accepted.
“We can’t confirm — and I’ve talked extensively with the police department — that it was a direct hate crime against the LGBT community, it could have just been a person looking for a packed nightclub to go in and start shooting. We can’t confirm that yet,” Terry DeCarlo, head of the Florida LGBT Center of Central Florida old reporters. Adding that his main concern now is providing support for community members and their families.
One mother, Christine Linonen was interviewed multiple times during the course of yesterday morning’s chaos in Orlando. He son Christopher was missing and while not shedding a tear while she appeared to cry she begged America to get rid of the assault rifles. She said that she is now a member of a “horrible club” of people who have lost family members to these weapons. She begged us Americans, to do something, anything to get them out of the hands of criminals. How nice of her to stop her grief for a moment to further the government’s agenda.
Reporters and politicians alike are quick to point out that the type of gun used is the same as used in the Sandy Hook and San Bernadino shootings. Every time something like this happens it’s about the gun and if the shooter is Muslim or not.If he’s white, the media and government says “we have to get the guns from mentally ill people” if the shooter is Muslim he “hates America and is aligned with Isis or the Jihad”
What happened in Florida is horrible, how the government will use it to further their anti Muslim agenda is worse. 50 died in Florida, thousands will die before this religious war is over. It’s barely gotten started.
