Driving in the car with my brother to visit for Father's Day this theme was brought up. My brother had read through some odd articles stating in the vaguest sense (or maybe it was the info filtered though his interpretation) that reform was Mateen's goal the whole time. As if to 'expose the flaw in the system'. My brother thought it was stupid. Cognitively invoking tragedy with the intent of gun reform? It's by nature the root of why the left wants gun reform, to prevent this exactly. Bare with me here, but the thing that came to mind for me was PsychoPass of all things - yes, anime. The intent of the villains to enact change through violent expositions of flaws... even though not too much changed afterward. I guess I'm 'squirreling' a bit here. But, yeah, I can see (unfortunately) how this is evident.The shitty thing about the gun debate is any real change is going to involve real change.
The older I get, the more Ockham's Razor becomes my philosophy. I think Mateen was a crazy fucker overfed on machismo and confrontational personal politics. I think he decided ISIS was the way to go because that took him out of the "crazy" column and tossed him in the "freedom fighter" column. Here we are, discussing terrorism over a guy whose allegiance to ISIS was watching some Youtube videos and spouting some talking points. By those standards, I'm a member of Coldplay. Nobody wants to die in vain, even people who desperately want to die. The Newtown shooter provoked a senseless tragedy. Mateen? He's got us all spun up over Syrian refugees and bullshit like that and all it took was a couple phone calls.
The media don't seem to understand the difference between terrorism and boilerplate mass murder. Politicians may understand but don't have an incentive to try to get the public to understand. Terrorism, as such, necessitates a political end. "Lone wolf terrorists" are by definition not terrorists. We've apparently redefined terrorism to be "murder committed by a Muslim." It's maddening, as is listening to Clinton and Trump have a dick measuring contest over who can combat "lone wolves" more effectively.