Pulse gay nightclub shooting in Orlando: the deadliest in US history

The United States owns way, way more guns per capita than the rest of the world. And the best research on gun violence suggests that’s probably contributing to our homicide problem — as exemplified by Wednesday’s horrific shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.

Here’s a map of firearm ownership around the world, using 2012 data compiled by the Guardian. The United States has nearly twice as many guns per 100 people as the next closest country, Yemen — 88.8 guns per 100 as opposed to 54.8 in Yemen:

This Sunday marks the 15 year anniversary of September 11—the worst terrorist attack on American soil. It was perpetrated by 20 al-Qaeda-affiliated men primarily from Saudi Arabia, and since then, fears of foreign terrorists have been understandably widespread.

But not one domestic terrorist attack since 9/11 has been committed by a foreign terrorist organization. Overall, terrorism in America is happening from homegrown radicals.

Donald Trump justifiably sparked mass outrage with his comments about “Second Amendment” people stopping Hillary Clinton from appointing anti-gun judges — presumably through firearm-related means. While that particular line was new, it followed a statement Trump has been making at rallies for months now: that Hillary Clinton wants to abolish the Second Amendment.

To be clear, this is nonsense. Clinton is not proposing anything of the kind, and her gun control proposals this cycle hardly entail mass confiscation or constitutional amendments. But Clinton’s position on guns, and her way of expressing it, has shifted in interesting ways over the course of her career.

Christine Leinonen, the mother of Orlando shooting victim Christopher “Drew” Leinonen, gave an absolutely heartrending speech at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday about the loss of her only child and the need for gun control.

Through tears, Leinonen described her son, who was 32, as “better than perfect.” She said that he was a “big Hillary supporter” and she is too. She talked about how the weapon that killed her son fired 30 rounds in one minute — and that it took five minutes for church bells to ring 49 times in honor of the 49 victims.

On June 12, a gunman walked into a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and shot and killed 49 people. Since then, we have heard a lot about guns, terrorism, and the gunman and his potential motives — but we have heard little about the victims.

In a new video from the Human Rights Campaign, produced by Ryan Murphy, 49 celebrities come together to share the stories of these victims. The histories reflect the wide range of backgrounds of those who died — from a pharmaceutical technician to a computer science college student interested in photography and hip-hop dance; white, black, and Hispanic; teenagers to young adults.

Univision aired a shocking interview on Tuesday with a man who claims that Orlando shooter Omar Mateen was his lover for two months — and that Mateen’s deadly rampage was specifically targeted at gay Latinos.

The man, who called himself “Miguel,” spoke on condition of anonymity and had his voice and appearance altered for an exclusive interview with Univision Noticias anchor Maria Elena Salinas, conducted in both English and Spanish.

Donald Trump insists that the key to stopping terrorism is having Muslims report on one another to the FBI. But Omar Mateen, the shooter who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, was “turned in” to the FBI.

And the person who did it was a fellow Muslim from Mateen’s own mosque.

Amid America’s grim epidemic of gun violence, doctors are learning new ways to save gunshot victims’ lives

According to the latest reports on the Las Vegas shooting, more than 50 people are dead and more than 400 injured after a gunman opened fire at a country music festival. But even the trauma center that is dealing with the massive influx of patients said doctors have a 97 percent survival rate.

Assault weapons are large, ominous-looking guns — or at least that’s how we colloquially define them. There is no strict definition of an assault weapon, but they tend to be modified versions of military weapons that can unload dozens of rounds in quick succession. These are the types of guns that President Obama has proposed outlawing, a policy he advocated for after a shooting in San Bernardino, California, that left 14 dead and 21 injured.

“We ... need to make it harder for people to buy powerful assault weapons like the ones that were used in San Bernardino,” Obama said in a primetime television address on Sunday.

Sen. Chris Murphy’s marathon 15-hour filibuster in early July captured the country’s attention, but it didn’t resolve what Congress should do to prevent suspected terrorists from purchasing firearms.

Currently, federal law makes it illegal for gun shops to sell firearms to customers who fail to meet certain requirements — because they have a felony conviction or a certain mental health history, for instance.

It’s understandable if you don’t know quite how to feel about the latest mass shooting in America, a deeply horrifying event during which a man killed almost 50 people at an Orlando gay club during pride month on June 12.

But when Samantha Bee had to film a new episode of her show Full Frontal less than 48 hours afterward, the emotion she chose to express was anger.

The mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando over the weekend was a horrific tragedy, ending the lives of 49 people, many of whom were Latino as well as openly LGBTQ.

Ninety percent of the 49 people killed were Latino or of Latino descent; specifically 23 victims were Puerto Rican, according to the New York Times.

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut took the Senate floor Wednesday morning calling for a vote over a proposal to prevent people on the FBI’s terrorist watch list from buying firearms.

He wouldn’t relinquish it for close to 15 hours.

People on federal terrorist watch lists should not be able to buy guns.

That may sound like a pretty uncontroversial proposal. But it’s run aground in Congress, prompting Senate Democrats to join together for a filibuster on Wednesday in response to the massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.

At a Monday vigil in Salt Lake City for the victims of the Orlando shooting, Utah Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox gave a moving, tearful speech apologizing to the LGBTQ community for treating them poorly in his early life, and expressing gratitude to them for helping him realize the error of his ways.

It’s an incredible speech full of empathy and humility, and it’s worth watching in full. The speech is not only a moving tribute to the Orlando victims — it’s also a great example of how to be a good ally to marginalized communities that you support but aren’t a member of.

There are a few big things we know about gun violence in America: The US has way more guns per capita than any other country. It has far more gun homicides per capita than other wealthy countries. States with more guns have more gun deaths. And people with guns in their homes are more likely to be killed or to kill themselves with guns.

1) How are guns actually used? Tom Smith of NORC at the University of Chicago pointed out that “studying how guns are actually used in general” was a top research priority — including the question of how many people use guns for defensive purposes.

For many LGBTQ people whose lives are constantly politicized, calls to avoid politicizing the attack on the local community probably come as quite a surprise.

It took a Supreme Court case in 2003 to finally overturn laws that made it illegal for two people of the same gender to simply have sex. It was only a year ago that the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional to prevent two adults of any gender to legally wed.

What happens in the wake of the worst mass shooting in modern US history — one that killed 49 people and left 53 gravely injured?

Americans buy more guns.

As with every mass shooting before it, politicians are responding to Sunday morning’s massacre at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando by extending their “thoughts and prayers” to the families of the 49 victims who lost their lives.

But what does it mean for politicians to offer their thoughts and prayers to a marginalized community they’ve prayed against?

Congress convened Monday night and engaged in a ritual that’s now almost routine: They held a moment of silence for victims of a mass shooting, this time for those killed at Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Sunday.

But this moment of silence was different. House Democrats broke custom, chanting, “Where is the bill?” at Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and his Republican colleagues.

After Omar Mateen was identified as the Orlando gunman who carried out the worst mass shooting and most deadly anti-LGBTQ hate crime in modern US history, his ex-wife told the media that Mateen had violently abused her during her brief marriage to him in 2009.

Sitora Yusufiy said that her family had to “literally rescue” her from Mateen after just four months of marriage, during which he had beaten her and kept her “hostage.” Mateen had a short, violent temper, Yusufiy said, and was “mentally unstable and mentally ill,” possibly with bipolar disorder.

At 2:06 am Sunday, Mina Justice woke up at home to a text sent by her son, Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, age 30. It read, “Mommy I love you.”

Justice would soon realize her son was trapped in the bathroom at Pulse, a gay nightclub where a lone gunman was holding people hostage Sunday morning in Orlando, Florida. Her phone stored a disjointed record of Eddie’s last moments, as he told her someone was shooting and asked her to call the police. Mina read the texts on video for the Associated Press: