Paul,

I'm merely pointing out your paucity of knowledge on firearms.
How about matches, do the Greens support the unrestricted sale of matches?
What's the Greens' acceptable number of arson victims?
How are you doing with the Greens support for farmers having guns, or do you have a mote in the eye, about ambulance size?

P,

It must be terribly hard to understand that a terrorist might have more than one motive to commit carnage.

That he was muslim extremist, his frequenting of their sites, his posts and his comments to colleagues leaves no doubt. That he was influenced by ISIS to go out and kill is also not in doubt given his calm and deliberate messages to police and the media.

What is still unanswered is why he chose to massacre people at the gay club that he frequented. I have proposed that it was because of his conflict between his sexual orientation and his faith. While I have also suggested that he went nuts (based on my belief that an entirely sane person is not inclined to massacre innocents) the lack of any record of mental illness plus the cool and calm way he planned the attack over a few days indicated that legally he was completely rational.

The only rational conclusion is that whilst there might be other contributing factors, this was a deliberate and planned terror attack by a radical islamist.

SM:

I agree with you that the tension and stress of two opposing values could well have been enough to tip him over the edge.

He wanted two things but could only have one of them. He may have felt like he had to make a stance. Either leave his religion on which he was probably very dependent emotionally or let go of his homosexual relationships which he could also have been emotionally dependent on. The strain could have been enormous and the only way to resolve it as far as he was concerned was to show allegiance to one or the other.

He chose Islam but may just as easily have gone the other way and opened fire on a crowded mosque. No one can prove any of this but it cannot be disproved either.

Perhaps it was not about terrorism or guns or homophobia but a very mixed up and tormented individual.

SM,

"It must be terribly hard to understand that a terrorist might have more than one motive to commit carnage."

"...I have proposed that it was because of his conflict between his sexual orientation and his faith..."

That is not the premise you started out with on this thread.

Your only premise then was that he was an ISIS extremist who targeted the gay night club for the reason - and for that reason alone - that he was aligned with fundamentalist Islam.

Since then, we have learned more of his background - and now you want to have it both ways.

"The only rational conclusion is that whilst there might be other contributing factors, this was a deliberate and planned terror attack by a radical islamist."

So even though you have spent the latter part of your thread deconstructing your own former argument...you now complete your dissertation by brushing aside all the peripheral information and rebounding to the stance you took in the first place?

Laughable....

//What a waste of words to demonstrate your Googling skills for trivia.//

What a waste of words to say that you are in favour of the State confiscating contraband.

Poirot,

I have never deviated from the fact that Mateen was an Islamic terrorist inspired by ISIS, however, I have the IQ to understand that there is usually more than one issue and have been prepared to look at those too. That he was homophobic in his comments to others and online whilst appearing to be gay would appear to be a motivating factor in the choice of venue and a spur to continue.

You appear to be confused hopping from one motivation to the other. Grow up.