Charlie Hebdo

[agent]

Seth McFarlane regularly lambastes all kinds of (famous, important) people in ways that could easily be construed offensive, though I doubt Stephen Hawking will be sending a hit team to his production offices any time soon.

[nando]

^ because it's ridiculous and many people don't believe in it. They're free to do as they wish - people are justifying the attackers because they drew some cartoons people didn't like? I mean, really, that's what it's come to now?

yeah, respect regardless of religion - we're also taught to believe in the easter bunny, santa claus, and the tooth fairy. it turns out that a lot of what kids are taught is false. when you start shooting at me because of your religious beliefs, there's no respect. not to mention all the other shit people do.

[freeride53]

Don't have much to say here, other than this:

I think what those terrorists did horrible, unhuman, and disgusting.

However, I also think that the authors at Charlie Hedbo are in the wrong.
They knew that they were pushing the buttons of extremists by being intentionally offensive.

As a child in most societies, you are taught to respect others, no matter their religious backgrounds.

If it is completely offensive to depict Muhammad to Muslims, why would you go out of your way to do such a thing?
When you know that it is one of the most offensive acts within Islam, why would you make it your objective to do such a thing?

Those author(s) were trying to get a reaction, playing with fire, etc.

[mrsleeve]

real life is not like a Bruce Willis movie in which to use for bench mark placement............... Its not about lowering your definition of success its about having a REALISTIC idea of what kind of effect your going to have in this kind of very very bad situation.


Also its all about how you wish to die in a situation like that, helpless and at the whims of your attackers or at least attempt to put up some sort of resistance.

[CorvallisBMW]

Thanks for proving my point Sleeve. If I drop my standards of success to zero, ignore the results, and change the stated goal to fit the results then I guess the test was a resounding success.

This.

[sumoashe]

Thanks for proving my point Sleeve. If I drop my standards of success to zero, ignore the results, and change the stated goal to fit the results then I guess the test was a resounding success.

[frankenbeemer]

Those are very strange definitions of success. Success would be stopping the attack, right? Well, they weren't able to do that. Some of their "defenders" hit one terrorist, but were still killed outright by the other terrorist, who when went on to kill every other person. Hardly a "success" when the death count actually goes up. If their goal is to "make the terrorists pay for their attack" then they failed quite miserably at that also, since the terrorists completed their objectives in full. Do you think these guys gave two shits about living? No. They had been so brainwashed they were probably looking forward to it, a la the thousands of suicide bombers across the world who have sacrificed themselves for the same ideals... you know, 27 virgins or whatever. Does taking out even 1 guy matter, when both would go on to be killed not even 48 hours later? I don't think so.

All in all, still a spectacular failure no matter how much spin the highly-vested, highly-biased originators of the test put on it.

I don't think they are spinning it nearly as much as you are, but I do agree that "making the terrorists pay" is not a measure of success given their desire for martyrdom.

[CorvallisBMW]

It doesn't appear your conclusions are shared by the TTAG website. They state:

"The main takeaway: seven out of the nine armed defenders got hits on one of the terrorists. There may have been one defender who managed both terrorists. Which means . . .
If you define success as two dead terrorists, the scenario we devised – one armed defender with a semi-automatic pistol facing two terrorists armed with rifles in an office environment – it didn’t happen. If you define success as making the terrorists pay for their attack, it was a partial success in two out of nine simulations. In one case, the armed defender’s survived only after running away.

I caution anyone reading this to wait for the complete results, which will include the full protocol, all the significant variables and Nick’s better-informed, expert interpretation of the results."

Those are very strange definitions of success. Success would be stopping the attack, right? Well, they weren't able to do that. Some of their "defenders" hit one terrorist, but were still killed outright by the other terrorist, who when went on to kill every other person. Hardly a "success" when the death count actually goes up. If their goal is to "make the terrorists pay for their attack" then they failed quite miserably at that also, since the terrorists completed their objectives in full. Do you think these guys gave two shits about living? No. They had been so brainwashed they were probably looking forward to it, a la the thousands of suicide bombers across the world who have sacrificed themselves for the same ideals... you know, 27 virgins or whatever. Does taking out even 1 guy matter, when both would go on to be killed not even 48 hours later? I don't think so.

All in all, still a spectacular failure no matter how much spin the highly-vested, highly-biased originators of the test put on it.

[z31maniac]

No one here said any such thing, its all in how you define success 1 or 2 people that might escape, or one attacker mortally wounded and there for not able to help continue with the plan, can be measured as a success...

That sounds like moral victory, hippie junk to me. :D

[mrsleeve]

No one here said any such thing, its all in how you define success 1 or 2 people that might escape, or one attacker mortally wounded and there for not able to help continue with the plan, can be measured as a success...

[sumoashe]

Love how people will see the results off a test like that and still proclaim "If I was there it'd be different". Or just generally debate the results based solely on their ego. Another great example of how reality and perception rarely intersect in this county.

[E30 Wagen]

Man, I'm getting kind of nervous for an outright war between the Islamic states and Europe. Think it could happen? I haven't been following politics at all so sorry if it's a dumb question.

[mrsleeve]

^
That ethos does not fit in darrin's world view so is not a valid analysis or positive outcome.

[frankenbeemer]

So this is interesting: http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2015/01/13/g...aris-massacre/

On Tuesday members of a gun-rights group called "The Truth About Guns" re-created the Charlie Hebdo massacre but with 1 key difference: an armed civilian in the Hebdo office. They ran 12 varying simulations throughout the day with various participants playing the role of the armed civilian. In every single simulation, the armed civilian was killed (save for the one where she ran away) and the gunmen completed their objective.

Think about that. Everyone in this simulation knew exactly what was coming for them. They knew how many people there were, when to expect them, what door they were entering from... they had perfect hindsight, and yet were still completely unable to stop the shooters from succeeding.

Hopefully this lays to rest the ridiculous fantasy that armed civilians are in some way capable of stopping things like this. These were gun-rights nuts, all well-trained and well-armed, with 100% knowledge and foresight in to exactly what was coming for them, and they were still killed outright. The idea that someone with zero knowledge of what's about to happen is somehow going to do better than this perfectly controlled reenactment would be laughable if it wasn't so impossible.

It doesn't appear your conclusions are shared by the TTAG website. They state:

"The main takeaway: seven out of the nine armed defenders got hits on one of the terrorists. There may have been one defender who managed both terrorists. Which means . . .
If you define success as two dead terrorists, the scenario we devised – one armed defender with a semi-automatic pistol facing two terrorists armed with rifles in an office environment – it didn’t happen. If you define success as making the terrorists pay for their attack, it was a partial success in two out of nine simulations. In one case, the armed defender’s actions enabled a successful retreat for the defensive shooter and some of the intended victims.

I caution anyone reading this to wait for the complete results, which will include the full protocol, all the significant variables and Nick’s better-informed, expert interpretation of the results."

[cale]

Absolutely agree. Canada's long gun registry was a direct result of the Ecole Polytechnique massacre where a guy with a mini-14 went on a rampage, it was a flinch decisions to appease the terrified public.