I admit--I wasn't very accurate on my original speculation. Allow me to try again.

[trumad]

OK--- I do believe that that the suspects were inspired by ISIS. Inspired but not card carrying members.

I think they were gearing up for some pretty serious shit but jumped the gun because something set Syed Farook off at his workplace.

No idea what it was---but he left the party pissed and returned to wreak havoc. I don't think that was the original plan.

Let's review: I do think they were about to do some serious terrorist shit --no doubt. I think the the dude got pissed at the event about something, went home, got his wife and returned for mayhem.

If that was the plan all along---then they are lousy terrorists. Don't get me wrong---killing 14 people is pretty destructive---but Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook killed 26 and he wasn't classified a terrorist.

So is this a case of going postal---or is this a full on terrorist attack---or both?

Side note: I'm not minimizing terrorism--personally I think all mass shootings like Sandy Hook are Terrorism.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

1. I'm leaning towards the altercation at the party

being ginned up on the part of Farook to be seen leaving the party. Get into an argument, leave in a loud huff so that people know you're not there.

Just speculation obviously.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

2. They rented the SUV a few days before.

I consider this terrorism with a location change.

[randys1]

5. I consider it the result of a country with more guns than people.

[pipoman]

7. Only dummies think guns make people want to kill others.

[randys1]

8. I didnt say that, but are you calling me a dummie?

I dont play the alert game, but if I ever did this i would be silenced so fast

[pipoman]

10. Only if you believe guns cause people to want to kill others...

[randys1]

11. I didnt say that and yes you are calling me a dummie

having read some of your other stuff here at DU, i am not surprised

You deserve to have that hidden, as it is an unwarranted personal attack using a lie to make the attack

[trumad]

13. Let's try my new ignore policy.

Buh bye

[pipoman]

17. My heart is broken...

[pintobean]

27. I predict peeks.

Lots of them.

[pipoman]

30. There are plenty of people I disagree with on forums...it's one reason I like them..

https://m.

[Rex]

37. Well yeah, guns don't make people want to kill others. They give them the opportunity to.

And defend from those taking the opportunity to kill them with guns. I think overall the weapons are the primary problem in the cycle. The number of firearms are also a primary problem. Our brand of capitalism would also cause a huge problem.

[pipoman]

39. There are many contributions to the problem

There is no easy answer....The NRA has evil politics but their only real threat is to challenge laws on constitutional grounds. Then based on very smart people's opinion of the merit of the threat they determine whether or not to move forward with a bill. Without the NRA someone would challenge.

There is a flys to honey approach to achieving UBC for instance, but alas, gun control is only interested in doing exactly the exact same thing year after year expecting different results (actually knowing the truth and willfully ignoring it)..

[hrmjustin]

3. Terrorist attack.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. still full of fail

you're trying too hard to make the facts fit what you want to be a 'postal event' rather than what it was, a planned terrorist attack inspired if not directed by isis.

you've focused on one bit of data - the alleged confrontation at the party before the actual attack, while ignoring all the other data that indicates planning, preparation, etc. You are trying to make the facts fit the theory rather than using the facts to filter out the theories that don't fit.

[trumad]

19. No I am not...

I'm saying they were gearing up for a serious attack and things got pushed ahead because he got pissed. I don't think this was their original plan. If it was---they suck at terrorism.

[Yo_Mama]

35. They obviously planned to carry out additional attacks, but I think this was planned

I don't buy the workplace violence theory at all. There's nothing to it.

I think the meeting was chosen because higher-ups were coming in, so it was a "nice haul" from this sicko's point of view.

This very obviously wasn't planned to be a suicidal attack. The short fire stream and quick exit were probably planned along with the rental, etc, so that they would be free to pick their next target. Apparently this facility was used in police active shooter drills, so he probably had a very good idea of what the timing had to be.

There was a bomb threat earlier at Loma Linda that day. I wonder if these guys were responsible.

I bet these lovelies had a police scanner, and when they realized the police were going to stop the car, they returned home to get a "clean" vehicle, only to be shocked when the police showed up.

Part of the Paris attacks were a sequence that seemed to have been planned to draw the police and military units away from the main attack, which did partially succeed, btw. I think that was their plan here.

[pintobean]

21. Yup. You've been right on this.

That's what happens when you let the facts tell the story.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

6. I agree mostly, except for the going home to get his wife part. He was said to have returned about

10 minutes after leaving in a huff. She had to have been in the truck and it took him ten minutes to go put on his tactical gear and get his wife and return to the party and start blasting.

Either way, I said on Wednesday afternoon that this looked like a man/woman (husband/wife) team but it was still not clear at that point whether it was a workplace or terrorist attack. I was leaning toward terrorist attack because, as you may remember, it was implausible that more than one person would be involved in a workplace attack. Multiple attackers are more likely bank robbers or terrorist cells, but workplace incidents usually only involve one person.

[B2G]

16. They left the house together first thing in the morning

telling his mother they were going to the doctor.

Before he even arrived at the party.

[GusBob]

9. At first reports I thought this was a postal event

By the end of the day, I was thinking terrorism. 2 thing missing from your scenario:

Renting the SUV, and dropping the kid off with a bogus excuse.

He went to the party to make sure that one guy was there, the Messanic Jew whom he had argued with, that's my opinion

[alcibiades_mystery]

15. And destroying all their electronics the day before

That's the biggest nail in the coffin of trumad's theory, or any theory that suggests a change of plans. The only other explanation would be that they planned to attack some other site that day, but switched to the work party because of the confrontation. That scenario is deeply implausible, since it would require us to explain why he would ALSO attend an informal work party on the same day he was planning some other terrorist attack.

No, they planned to attack that scene because 1) he knew the layout; 2) he'd been there before and knew there was no major security; 3) it also fed his revenge on the coworker; 4) there would be a lot of people congregated.

[trumad]

22. You may be 100 percent correct.

If so---they were pretty shitty terrorists. Again---not to minimize what they did---but I really can't figure their end game with all the ammo---bombs, etc.

[alcibiades_mystery]

24. It's a pretty consistent rule that unskilled bomb makers will make piss poor bombs

that fail to go off during their mass shootings. This happened in Columbine, where had the bombs actually gone off, it would have been far, far worse. It happened in at least one other instance, and it happened on Wednesday afternoon: their bombs were shit.

I wouldn't pretend to know what happens in cases like this when the shooting starts, but I think it's also very difficult to imagine what people without training will do when 150 or so people panic at the shooting. The terrorists in Paris had some clear military training: they covered each other while reloading, and were apparently good shots. That again is hard for the untrained, as you well know as an Army veteran. As it stands, these two shitheads managed to hit 31 people, killing about half. It's not Bataclan accuracy, but it's also not that low, given the circumstances. I'm not sure they would have done better at a mall or movie theater.

[magical thyme]

38. agreed. Additionally, I think they planned to get out alive so didn't stick around to kill more

They wore masks to hide their identities, killed as many as they could in a very short time frame, trying to get out before the police arrived. They intended to do future attacks, based on the piles of ammo and bombs at home.

They weren't banking on being immediate suspects due to nervousness and the argument.

If the argument was deliberate, it was bad planning. He would have done better to slip out unnoticed rather than draw attention to himself.

[B2G]

18. They didn't drop the kid off anywhere

Grandma lived with them. They just left.

[GusBob]

23. The reports I read said the left the kid with his mom earlier in the day

And said they were going to the dentist

Eta to add: according to the brother in law

[B2G]

26. According to her lawyer, she lived there.

On the 2nd floor.

Which would explain all her ID cards being splashed all over MSNBC today. But does not explain her being there with them for the hours they were there after the initial shooting or her apparent lack of interest in anything going on in the house and garage.

[GusBob]

28. Yes right

And oh hey mom about that black SUV out front......ummm

He liked to work on cars he may have told her they were car repair things. He was known to practice shoot so the guns could be excused

Who knows

[malaise]

12. I think he was accumulating his arsenal

for the ultimate work place attack - he was angry and he realized he had them all in one place. Yep they are all terrorists.

[JI7]

14. i think it was more personal but still had to do with him being islamic extremist

[rockfordfile]

20. Both in that the religious extremists

Both in that the religious extremists were already set off. Clearly they were already going postal.

Mass shootings are a form of terrorism. Religion sets people off.

I've laughed at person one time at a park who had a Jesus tattoo on his arm. He got upset and angry yell what's so funny. The tattoo looked like Jesus coming out of his arm. Religion does crazy things to people.

As a country we got to get a hold on the crazy gun culture that is going around.

Take a look at a republican's Christmas card. What a idiot.

[Generic Other]

25. I agree

OMG, I agreed with Trumad!!

[octoberlib]

29. You might find these tweets from the NYT foreign affairs reporter interesting.

Rukmini Callimachi ‏@rcallimachi 4h4 hours ago
1. Everytime someone carries out an attack in IS' name, we come back to the same question: Did IS pull it off? Or was attacker acting alone?

2. The anomaly is the Nov 13 Paris attacks, where we saw 7 attackers leave Syria and infiltrate Europe to carry out mass murder.

3. More common scenario is Garland, Texas where gunmen drive to a community center & open fire, mins after pledging allegiance to Baghdadi

Rukmini Callimachi ‏@rcallimachi 4h4 hours ago
4. We consider what happened on Nov 13 to be "worse" because it showed the long reach of the Islamic State. The problem with that outlook


Rukmini Callimachi ‏@rcallimachi 4h4 hours ago
5. Is that it fails to acknowledge what ISIS has been working to create: A system through which extremists can be radicalized in situ


Rukmini Callimachi ‏@rcallimachi 4h4 hours ago
6. Without ever traveling to Syria, and without engaging with members of the Islamic State, they are able to download the ideology


Rukmini Callimachi ‏@rcallimachi 4h4 hours ago
7. Via the internet, and they can find all the tools for mass murder online, including recipes for IEDs and pipe bombs and ideas on tactics

Rukmini Callimachi ‏@rcallimachi 4h4 hours ago
8. We fail to see that Lone Wolf phenomenon *is* an IS creation & was an al-Qaeda creation before that. It's what they are trying to inspire

Rukmini Callimachi ‏@rcallimachi 4h4 hours ago
9. Think of the Tsarnaev brothers and their carnage in Boston. They learned to cook bomb using al-Qaeda's magazine yet had no link to them

https://twitter.com/rcallimachi

[sanatanadharma]

31. Americans radicalized by the obnoxious stupidity and ignorance of fellow Americans.

Americans radicalized by the obnoxious stupidity and ignorance of fellow Americans.

When the most popular Republican presidential candidate is an outright fascist racist...

When Christians ignore Jesus and promote the same end-times-war-of-the-worlds prophecies as does Daesh...

When the NRA promotes killing as sooo dammm easy...
...and sexy...

Then who needs outsiders to stir the passions of the put-upon.
Until we accept all Americans, the unaccepted are going to get mad.

[2naSalit]

32. Makes me wonder about the incident at the party before

the shooting part. I wonder if there was another person at the party who was on to them and was either not willing to participate in some plot or was about to expose them..? Rather than being insulted by someone or something as seemingly trivial. If there was someone else aware of their bomb factory or collection of armaments and possibly previously intending to be a participant... Seems they had other targets in mind and maybe someone at the party, who is probably dead now, had threatened the original plan.

Seems a little more plausible, to me at least.

[Nye Bevan]

33. They were planning a huge Jihadist attack, that is obvious.

But his Jewish coworker pushed him over the edge and inspired him to do the attack at his workplace.

[Yo_Mama]

34. I think you are still inaccurate.

It is obvious that this was planned for the gathering, because some stuff was done the day before, and other stuff was done just a few days before.

But they did do a controlled fire and leave, and a lot of the preparations were done to hide their identities - smashing the cell phones, renting the car, etc.

I think this was planned to be part of a sequence. After the shooting spree, the explosives were supposed to go off (failed). When enough personnel were at the county, they probably planned to strike somewhere else.

I think they underestimated law enforcement's ability to respond, and weren't able to go to the second target. Also, some rather brave guy at a nearby business had people run in for refuge, grabbed his revolver, and ran out there and hid behind something. He saw someone with a gun come out of the building and get into the SUV, which would have allowed the police to immediately target it. That man may have prevented them from an afternoon of merry mayhem.

[flamingdem]

40. I agree with the sequence idea but the tip to go to the Redlands house came from a coworker

who recognized Farouck as the killer, from what I understand.

[Yo_Mama]

42. The ID of the rented vehicle would probably have allowed the police to throw up a cordon

I am assuming this lovely pair had a police scanner.

I doubt anyone recognized him in that getup, but I think the police followed up on several lines, including the leaving shortly before.

[Rex]

36. Dunno the entire media circus had me bewildered and then there is the baby.

If this ends up like a bad movie, I will not be surprised. I am done guessing, it is now stranger then anything I could think up.