Bad guys come to Texas...got more than they bargained for

[TLDR20]

True, most of our shooting is training...and that's a good thing. As the saying goes, it's a life-saving organization not a life-taking one. However, just one or two rounds fired unsuppressed even in an open area--let alone an enclosed room--will cause instant hearing loss. It may be even worse if you're the guy standing next to the guy firing.

Given that this is predictable, and something we are able to mitigate with technology, I think a strong argument can be made that suppressors are an OSHA issue.

Fair enough.

 

[Viper1]

She's a very vocal, very socially active, very Jewish anti-Islamic organizer. In other words, if Deathy were to name someone to personify Satan, he'd be torn between her and Dick Cheney.

Satan is in a universe all his own.

However; the 100% adversarial approach her and others espouse is incredibly disturbing. There are good and bad people in the world; however she believes anyone not a white, Christian-Zionist is bad, period, whether you're an American citizen or not. They had an interesting story on the shooting on NPR today. I'll keep looking for the link. For now, here is an article on Ms. Geller.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way...ut-the-organizers-of-mohammed-cartoon-contest

 

[SpitfireV]

Yeah, that law has always perplexed me, and I agree with your assessment.
In New Zealand a run of the mill suppressor for a .22 rifle sits in the box on the counter next to ear plugs and costs about $30.

There's a bit of a cottage industry with them too.

 

[pardus]

There's a bit of a cottage industry with them too.

Yeah, I heard a guy I served with is a big name with them now.

 

[Salt USMC]

She's a very vocal, very socially active, very Jewish anti-Islamic organizer. In other words, if Deathy were to name someone to personify Satan, he'd be torn between her and Dick Cheney.

That's a pretty good assessment of it. Pam Geller is one of those libertarian weirdos who thrives on hijacking the news cycle for just long enough that Gawker takes a minute to write a piece about how batshit she is. She organizes counter-protests at nearly every major Muslim rally in the United States, regardless of the subject matter. Basically, she's not one of those "Hey Muslim community, stop being violent and let's get along." She does the whole "Hey Muslim community, stop being violent" thing while poking them in the eye with a stick. It doesn't justify violence - not by a long shot. But in an age - and bear with me here because it's going to get a little kumbaya up in here - where we ought to be encouraging unity amongst the disparate American communities, people like Geller just want to flip over the table and piss on everything. Because reasons.

There's a legitimate first amendment argument in a "Draw Muhammad" contest. The participants and organizers are engaging in protected speech. However, when your entire public identity is built upon a pile of divisive public controversy, are you really any better than, say, Al Sharpton? Are you really helping? What kind of message does it send when you have a mob telling Muslims in Texas to "Go back home" when some of them have been American citizens longer than you've been alive? That, and this "creeping sharia" nonsense are a bunch of fear-mongering horseshit.

As I said before, I'm glad that those two dudes had a nice long car ride before getting shwacked. Google maps says that Phoenix to Dallas is around a 15 hour drive. Helluva trip. I hope that their AC was working because the weather is getting hotter by the day. But in the end, I suppose that it doesn't really matter, because inevitably they got ventilated

 

[OffShoreman]

What a awesome job by the patrol officer!! Reminds me of the old Texas ranger saying "one riot, one ranger". The fat boy swat team was bummed and probably breathing hard when they got there. My state is full of some eccentric folks with conspiracy theorist "tin foil hat" crowd and "leaving the union" crowd leading the charge. I guess that's what makes us tick. She is an absolute cray cray example. And I really think this whole cartoon thing was in retaliation for the shira law center being enacted in part of Dallas last year.

Maybe I am cray cray but the desert camo swat and others there are more disturbing to me. I guess my neighbors are OK with militarized police vs our troops training with jade helm once a year. Regardless of what I think, it would seem they had good security coverage for the event and that was a good thing.

 

[Centermass]

We need some Hank Hill clip art.

It ain't Hank Hill, but it's close.....

 

[Ooh-Rah]

 

[Ooh-Rah]

 

[pardus]

That's a pretty good assessment of it. Pam Geller is one of those libertarian weirdos who thrives on hijacking the news cycle for just long enough that Gawker takes a minute to write a piece about how batshit she is. She organizes counter-protests at nearly every major Muslim rally in the United States, regardless of the subject matter. Basically, she's not one of those "Hey Muslim community, stop being violent and let's get along." She does the whole "Hey Muslim community, stop being violent" thing while poking them in the eye with a stick. It doesn't justify violence - not by a long shot. But in an age - and bear with me here because it's going to get a little kumbaya up in here - where we ought to be encouraging unity amongst the disparate American communities, people like Geller just want to flip over the table and piss on everything. Because reasons.

There's a legitimate first amendment argument in a "Draw Muhammad" contest. The participants and organizers are engaging in protected speech. However, when your entire public identity is built upon a pile of divisive public controversy, are you really any better than, say, Al Sharpton? Are you really helping? What kind of message does it send when you have a mob telling Muslims in Texas to "Go back home" when some of them have been American citizens longer than you've been alive? That, and this "creeping sharia" nonsense are a bunch of fear-mongering horseshit.

As I said before, I'm glad that those two dudes had a nice long car ride before getting shwacked. Google maps says that Phoenix to Dallas is around a 15 hour drive. Helluva trip. I hope that their AC was working because the weather is getting hotter by the day. But in the end, I suppose that it doesn't really matter, because inevitably they got ventilated

What do you mean by that? You don't believe that is a real thing?

 

[Salt USMC]

What do you mean by that? You don't believe that is a real thing?

Not in the slightest. Its just the latest evolution of "The Mexicans/Catholics/Communists/Jews are infiltrating America!" conspiracy. Do you know why I am not worried about Shariah? That pesky first amendment to the United States Constitution.

 

[pardus]

Not in the slightest. Its just the latest evolution of "The Mexicans/Catholics/Communists/Jews are infiltrating America!" conspiracy. Do you know why I am not worried about Shariah? That pesky first amendment to the United States Constitution.

Interesting, thanks.
You have more faith than I. The Constitution is under attack in this country and I am concerned about it.

 

[Salt USMC]

Interesting, thanks.
You have more faith than I. The Constitution is under attack in this country and I am concerned about it.

You are right that the Constitution is facing challenges due to some recent loose interpretation (Executive discretion, among other things), but the Establishment Clause of the 1st amendment has held strong for decades. Any piece of legislation that tried to enact anything resembling Shariah would result in a legal blitzkrieg the likes of which we haven't seen since DOMA. I mean, if there was overarching, generation-spanning master plan for Muslims to immigrate to America, weave themselves into its social fabric, and gradually install Shariah-compliant lawmakers, then MAYBE you would have cause for concern. But that kind of plan only exists in Tom Clancy novels and Pamela Geller's fan fiction stories. The fact is that we've had significant immigration from Muslim countries since the late 19th century, and in that time only one Muslim (Keith Ellison) has ever been elected to Congress. Even the city of Dearborn, which has something like a 40% Muslim population (and would presumably be the first city to adopt Shariah) has consistently rejected such proposals, despite fearmongering reports to the contrary. Hell, the head of the city council is a Muslim women!

Now, I am aware that some communities have adopted Shariah as a form of arbitrage, as is the case in one part of Dallas, but opponents conveniently ignore the fact that these forms of religious mediation are not legally binding, and are practiced in many other parts of the country. The judges that sit on this court insist that the system only handles civil matters, and that they will not handle criminal cases. If I take the subway from my apartment and go west for about 45 minutes, I run into a neighborhood with a sizable Jewish population complete with an established religious arbitrage system called Beth Din. This system has been in place since the 60's, and hasn't magically resulted in creeping Halakha across the country.

Finally, there's the practical component of it all; what would American Shariah even look like? Would it be Shia? Sufi? Sunni? A Sunni interpretation would be most plausible, but what juridical school would they use? Hanafi? Shafi? Hanbali? Despite what critics say, there are so many different interpretations of the Shariah according to the different schools that it's like trying to criticize the Common Law system without citing which country it originates. American Common Law is unlike Pakistani Common law, which is also unlike Australian Common Law, and so on. However, they still fall under the general "Common Law" heading. If "Creeping Shariah" is to live up to its namesake, the disparate and varied Muslim communities in America would actually need to get together and agree on a unified system. Can you imagine Iranian-Americans trying to reconcile belief with Somali-Americans, while at the same time accommodating native-born American Muslims? It just wouldn't happen.

In short: the notion of "Creeping Shariah" has no basis in rational thought. I put it in the same category as Jade Helm tinfoil hattery.

 

[pardus]

You seem to forget that one of the base tenets of Islam is to convert the entire world to Islam. Unlike the Jewish religion, which is why your example of them doesn't hold much weight in my eyes.
As for the practical component. I absolutely disagree with your assessment, why are American Muslims so divided and unable to work it all out, and yet European Muslims seem to have quite a nice Sharia system going on?

 

[Salt USMC]

You seem to forget that one of the base tenets of Islam is to convert the entire world to Islam. Unlike the Jewish religion, which is why your example of them doesn't hold much weight in my eyes.
As for the practical component. I absolutely disagree with your assessment, why are American Muslims so divided and unable to work it all out, and yet European Muslims seem to have quite a nice Sharia system going on?

Yep, the Quran does say that. It also commands followers to kill Jews and nonbelievers and a whole bunch of other people. There are also a series of Surahs and Sunnahs that command followers to obey the laws of the country they inahbit. That they must follow the leader and not break their convenant, or commit other treacherous acts. There is also a Surah (9:5 if you're curious) that commands Muslims to "slay idolaters wherever you find them, and capture and besiege them", but the very next two lines command the faithful to grant mercy to them if they seek protection and "So as long as they are upright toward you, be upright toward them. Verily, Allah loves the righteous."

I am not a Muslim so I have no problem saying that Islam's canonical texts are filled with contradictions, inaccuracies, and downright weird stuff. The Medina verses are considerably more violent than the Meccan verses, and say a whole bunch of stuff that would make any reader of the Quran go "Whoa! What's up with this stuff?" But that's the thing: you don't read the Quran or Hadith by themselves without knowledge of the 1000+ years of jurisprudence and scholarly thought that have gone into them. With the exception of the Salafis and their offshoots (e.g. Wahhabis), all Muslims follow a Maddhab, or school of juridical thought. These Maddhabs decided long ago that, in the context that they were written (i.e. when Muhammad was fighting and fucking people up) these verses are not universally applicable. Some scholars later broke from this view, such as the Shafis and later some of the Hanafis circa 11th century CE. One particular Hanafi scholar, Sarakhsi, argued in the Kitab al-Musbut that eternal war against the non-believers was the duty of every Muslim. Unfortunately, his idea became the persistent view of the Hanafis until around the 17th century. People, possessing brains and free will, just said "Hey, is this what we really believe?" and simply abandoned the idea. Meanwhile, Shias and Sufis don't even bother with that.

What I'm trying to say is that people like Pamela Geller who read the Quran and raise the alarm are reading canonical texts in a vacuum. What would happen if you did that with the Bible? If you ignored the Council(s) of Nicea, the Reformation, and the abrogation of the old testament? Well, you too would think Christianity was a fucked up system that forbade the wearing of mixed fibers, eating pork, tattoos, and being gay. That's right, tattoos are straight banned: "Leviticus 19:28 “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the Lord.”"

But we read these texts and are aware of the theological history behind them. We know that some long-dead philosopher said "Hey, is this what we really believe?" and rejected it. Muslims are people, after all. Rational (sometimes), free-thinking people, and they are able to look at these violent verses and say "I like all this other stuff, but not that killing stuff. It's kinda icky." As a person who studies this topic, I have yet to be killed by a Muslim. Maybe it will happen some day, but I'm beginning to think that maybe they're not too keen on this violence stuff. Other Muslims may be! ISIS is an example of a Salafi group that reads a near-literal interpretation of the Quran and Hadith, rejecting all Maddhabs and centuries of scholarly thought. A little bit like Pamela Geller, I suppose.

Islam in Europe is a product of conditions that are unique to that continent. Conditions that you cannot apply universally. Why do certain groups of people emigrate to Europe instead of America? What policies foster or discourage family planning? Why are we even talking about "Europe" as if it were a homogeneous nation instead of 50-or-so countries? What qualities does France possess that encourage immigrants from Muslim countries to flock to it rather than, say, Denmark? Why does a financially-troubled nation like Greece experience less controversy from its Muslim communities than comparable communities in the UK? Time and time again you're treating these peoples and their religious identities as a single, homogeneous entity. It's like saying that starting bar fights is a character trait of all Marines because you've seen them get kicked out of Oceanside bars nearly every weekend.

Really, in the end I am not concerned with the notion Shariah in Europe, because the topic at hand is Shariah in America.

 

[Salt USMC]

Hell, let me give just one more example since I'm on a roll here: on the subject of portrayals of Muhammad, there is no agreement between the various sects. Sunnis, for the most part, forbid the portrayal of anything with a soul (tasweer or tasveer), because of a number of Sunnah from the Bukhari Hadith collection. Supposedly, the prophet's wife Aisha forbade portrayal of humans and animals because angels would not enter any house that contained them. These Sunnah, coincidentally, also warn against dogs. There's a whole shitload of stipulations surrounding this issue, but they're covered here if you've got time: http://salaf-us-saalih.com/2013/02/...ng-with-a-soul-shaikh-ibn-baaz-rahimahullaah/

Shia, on the other hand, are generally cool with drawings of Muhammad, mostly because they draw from a different Hadith. Persian art is one of the only genres where you will find depictions of Mohammed, though some artists took stylistic liberties with his depiction (some drew him without a face, some used an image of a flame for representation). The point is that Shia Muslims aren't about to get up in arms about Draw Mohammed contests and their ilk. It's just one more thing to consider when talking about Islam and Mohammed cartoons.

As far as Sufis go, I'm pretty sure they're just cool with everything.

 

[Dienekes]

@Deathy McDeath I'm by no means jumping into the Islam debate, but I noticed the section on jurisprudence and scholarly thought. Given the vast amount of people that believe in "founder's intent" in my neck of the woods when it comes to the Constitution and other legal documents known as "intent of the law", I'm curious as to your thoughts about how that applies to religion or when under a form of religious law?

 

[Salt USMC]

@Deathy McDeath I'm by no means jumping into the Islam debate, but I noticed the section on jurisprudence and scholarly thought. Given the vast amount of people that believe in "founder's intent" in my neck of the woods when it comes to the Constitution and other legal documents known as "intent of the law", I'm curious as to your thoughts about how that applies to religion or when under a form of religious law?

That's hard to say for a few reasons: as I mentioned before, I'm not a Muslim (and not religious at all, really) so I don't have a de facto belief in the singularity of God/Allah/whatever or the infallibility of Mohammed. A lot of Islam's core beliefs are predicated on those two concepts, which is why you generally don't have Muslims speaking out against Mohammed's more questionable practices, like child marriage. One could argue that a truly divinely-inspired religion would be flawless at the outset and not require any interpretation or further development. Others might say that God's will is vague and unknowable to humanity, and so some interpretation is necessary. Scholars have been talking about this for centuries. This is where you get one of the core concepts of Shariah development, known as ijtihad, which more or less means "independent reasoning", but should not be confused with classical concepts like Aristotelian logic. At a time when the juridical schools were beginning to coalesce and figure out their place in the world (around the 9th century or so), it was reasoned that somebody needed to figure out how to codify this new Shariah thing. It should also be mentioned that the Hadith was still very new at this time, and the first authoritative collection (the Bukhari collection) wouldn't be published until ~850 CE or so. An educated person, it was argued, should have all of the knowledge and tools necessary to arrive at a legal decision that was compliant with the will of Allah as told through Mohammed. So the scholars who formed these early Maddhabs were really trying to figure out the rules for their religion as it was being formed, which is no easy task even under the best circumstances. Scholars say that around 900 CE is when the Maddhabs said "Okay, that's it. We're done here" and decided that they had answered all of the fundamental questions necessary for the Shariah. They say that 900 was the year that the "Gates of Ijitihad" closed. Other scholars (including Wael Hallaq, whom I hold in great esteem) disagree that the gates ever closed, and point to the development of separate philosophical tracks as proof. Salafism, for example, is an offshoot of the Hanbali Maddab that did not gain traction until Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab began preaching in the 18th century, centuries after the so-called closing. Salafism is now the predominant Maddhab for Saudi Arabia.

I don't like making normative statements about religion - I try to describe them as they are. As such, I can't say what role I think founder's intent should play in Islam or other forms of religious law. From where I stand, as an impartial observer, Islam's interpretation of the law has changed and probably will continue to change.

Good question, by the way.

 

[pardus]

Yep, the Quran does say that. It also commands followers to kill Jews and nonbelievers and a whole bunch of other people. There are also a series of Surahs and Sunnahs that command followers to obey the laws of the country they inahbit. That they must follow the leader and not break their convenant, or commit other treacherous acts. There is also a Surah (9:5 if you're curious) that commands Muslims to "slay idolaters wherever you find them, and capture and besiege them", but the very next two lines command the faithful to grant mercy to them if they seek protection and "So as long as they are upright toward you, be upright toward them. Verily, Allah loves the righteous."

I am not a Muslim so I have no problem saying that Islam's canonical texts are filled with contradictions, inaccuracies, and downright weird stuff. The Medina verses are considerably more violent than the Meccan verses, and say a whole bunch of stuff that would make any reader of the Quran go "Whoa! What's up with this stuff?" But that's the thing: you don't read the Quran or Hadith by themselves without knowledge of the 1000+ years of jurisprudence and scholarly thought that have gone into them. With the exception of the Salafis and their offshoots (e.g. Wahhabis), all Muslims follow a Maddhab, or school of juridical thought. These Maddhabs decided long ago that, in the context that they were written (i.e. when Muhammad was fighting and fucking people up) these verses are not universally applicable. Some scholars later broke from this view, such as the Shafis and later some of the Hanafis circa 11th century CE. One particular Hanafi scholar, Sarakhsi, argued in the Kitab al-Musbut that eternal war against the non-believers was the duty of every Muslim. Unfortunately, his idea became the persistent view of the Hanafis until around the 17th century. People, possessing brains and free will, just said "Hey, is this what we really believe?" and simply abandoned the idea. Meanwhile, Shias and Sufis don't even bother with that.

What I'm trying to say is that people like Pamela Geller who read the Quran and raise the alarm are reading canonical texts in a vacuum. What would happen if you did that with the Bible? If you ignored the Council(s) of Nicea, the Reformation, and the abrogation of the old testament? Well, you too would think Christianity was a fucked up system that forbade the wearing of mixed fibers, eating pork, tattoos, and being gay. That's right, tattoos are straight banned: "Leviticus 19:28 “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the Lord.”"

But we read these texts and are aware of the theological history behind them. We know that some long-dead philosopher said "Hey, is this what we really believe?" and rejected it. Muslims are people, after all. Rational (sometimes), free-thinking people, and they are able to look at these violent verses and say "I like all this other stuff, but not that killing stuff. It's kinda icky." As a person who studies this topic, I have yet to be killed by a Muslim. Maybe it will happen some day, but I'm beginning to think that maybe they're not too keen on this violence stuff. Other Muslims may be! ISIS is an example of a Salafi group that reads a near-literal interpretation of the Quran and Hadith, rejecting all Maddhabs and centuries of scholarly thought. A little bit like Pamela Geller, I suppose.

Islam in Europe is a product of conditions that are unique to that continent. Conditions that you cannot apply universally. Why do certain groups of people emigrate to Europe instead of America? What policies foster or discourage family planning? Why are we even talking about "Europe" as if it were a homogeneous nation instead of 50-or-so countries? What qualities does France possess that encourage immigrants from Muslim countries to flock to it rather than, say, Denmark? Why does a financially-troubled nation like Greece experience less controversy from its Muslim communities than comparable communities in the UK? Time and time again you're treating these peoples and their religious identities as a single, homogeneous entity. It's like saying that starting bar fights is a character trait of all Marines because you've seen them get kicked out of Oceanside bars nearly every weekend.

Really, in the end I am not concerned with the notion Shariah in Europe, because the topic at hand is Shariah in America.

Dammit you write a lot!

First paragraph, yeah it's a religion that commands it's followers to convert or kill the whole world. That is evil.

Second,

With the exception of the Salafis and their offshoots (e.g. Wahhabis)

you say that like it's meaningless, that's tens of millions of people. It's the very people that we are currently fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Third, I don't care about the Bible or Torah either.

Fourth, I know many Muslims are just ordinary people who just want to live and have a good life like the rest of the "normal" people in the world. Good for them. Like Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists whatever, I really don't give a flying monkey fuck in what you believe in, as long as that belief doesn't affect anyone else. When Christians try to introduce their faith into a science class, or Muslims try to ban alcohol or bacon, then I am going to stand up and tell them to fuck off.

Fifth, you seem to have forgotten that Europe, had colonies that were inhabited by tens of millions of Muslims, Algeria, Morrocco, Tunisia, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia to name a few. That is primarily why they emigrate to Europe.
Europe also falls under one government, almost like the USA is a country of united states.
Regardless of the sects etc... in Islam, they all follow the same book(s) and rules. Just like Christians.

IMO you should be worried about what the Muslims are doing in Europe, it's just a matter of time before they try that here in the USA.

 

[pardus]

Wenzel Strategies (2012): 58% of Muslim-Americans believe criticism of Islam or Muhammad is not protected free speech under the First Amendment.
45% believe mockers of Islam should face criminal charges (38% said they should not).
12% of Muslim-Americans believe blaspheming Islam should be punishable by death.
43% of Muslim-Americans believe people of other faiths have no right to evangelize Muslims.
32% of Muslims in America believe that Sharia should be the supreme law of the land.
http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2012/10/31/sixty-percent-of-us-muslims-reject-freedom-of-expression/
http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2012/10/poll-nearly-half-of-us-muslims-believe.html