Paris Attacks Kill 129, Injure 350+

[The Divine Potato]

David Cameron is gonna raise Britain's terror level to the highest level.

This is a scary time.

I thought it was raised to the highest level

[Rainshard]

David Cameron is gonna raise Britain's terror level to the highest level.

This is a scary time.

I thought it was raised to the highest level

It was at the penultimate level.

[ashleysummer]

Agree!
Condolence to relatives!

[Angel]

I don't understand people . . .
I'm not even sure how to respond to all of this.
France has my support and many other American's support as well.
It doesn't change what happened, but at least we can let them know that we know what happened and we support them and will stand behind them, just as they stood behind us after 9/11.

[Shadow00]

I dont know how it happened either...
So many attacks...
So many dead people...
All for religion.
And then, after all these attacks, all those dead, all of which in the middle east from ISIS attacks and whatnot, some people died in france and suddenly the whole world got triggered.

Im not saying that its not terrible what happened in france, but imagine living in a state like yesterday's for YEARS, with carpet bombings, hospitals and schools being blown up, while the rest of the world couldnt care less.
Fun,right?
On other news, they say terrorism has no religion.
I would also like to add that only religion has terrorists, i cant really view anyone else as such.

[Rainshard]

That's because it has never been this close to home. They were innocent people from countries most are familiar with. People have different ideologies, backgrounds, culture and influences to those in the middle east. They cant relate to those people so they dont see it happening to thenselves.

Plane crash in Egypt? It's Egypt. A very different area which many percieve to be dangerous. The attack on France in January? Their target were illustrators who offended them.

Now, violence has been brought to innocent relateable people on a large scale. People fear this will happen to them. That is why this is a big deal. An event like this has shown the world that ISIS have grown bold enough to move away from simply terrorising distant and unfamiliar people in another country, but instead strike very close to home.

Excuse spelling and grammar, written on a phone

[Angel]

On other news, they say terrorism has no religion.
I would also like to add that only religion has terrorists, i cant really view anyone else as such.

Religion in itself is not evil, people are evil.
Also, what about the school shootings? Is that not an act of terrorism? Someone going into a school and killing children for whatever reason they think they have? It's not because of their religion, I can assure you of that.
Terrorism is NOT a religion.
What IS terrorism? Think about that for a minute.

[Dr Frook]

terrorism is the simple act of using violence and fear (creating terror) for some political or otherwise agenda - no need for religion to be thrown in the mix.

and as for the cause of these 'terrorists' - I don't even think they know what their cause is. They may think that they are doing themselves a favor, giving themselves points with the big man in the sky. Sadly they are achieving nothing other than creating heartache for the families of the dead and contributing to even more death, ironically, with their own political grouping.

[Shadowstar1922]

On other news, they say terrorism has no religion.
I would also like to add that only religion has terrorists, i cant really view anyone else as such.

,
Religion in itself is not evil, people are evil.
Also, what about the school shootings? Is that not an act of terrorism? Someone going into a school and killing children for whatever reason they think they have? It's not because of their religion, I can assure you of that.
Terrorism is NOT a religion.
What IS terrorism? Think about that for a minute.

considering christianity has one of it's definitions of marriage as, "a rapist and his victim" and also commands people to rape groups of people, and ontop of that demanding the rape victim be executed (Judges 21:10-24, Numbers 31:7-18,Deuteronomy 22:23-24,Deuteronomy 22:28-29, Exodus 22:16-17)

do not claim that religion itself is not evil. it demands evil and inspires people to create evil and do evil things in its name.

This attack on Paris, like thousands of others throughout history can trace itself back to the Abrahamic religions.

The problem is when society becomes abused, exploited, submitted, invaded, and murdered by a foreign force who's only aim is to take it's riches, it resorts to unquestionable authority and that happens to be religion. What the West has done to the Middle East and Africa has inspired terrorist attacks against the West and when you compare the casualties of both sides (example, 3,000 Americans died and in turn America murdered 2 million Iraqis) the West's suffering is minuscule compare to what the East has suffered.

[Flobalob]

Just some factual stuff:

The attacks were conducted by three or four teams of IS attackers wearing explosive suicide vests and carrying Kalishnikov AK47 assault rifles. They indiscriminately hit bars and restaurants, the Bataclan concert hall and the Stade de France, where France were playing Germany in a packed stadium of 80,000 people, including President Francois Hollande. Here, one suicide bomber attempted to enter the stadium but was unable to get in thanks to heightened security due to Hollande's presence inside, prompting him to detonate his vest in the entrance, causing negligible damage. A further two instead detonated theirs inside a bar near the stadium.

The worst hit of the targets was the 1500-seater Bataclan hall, where four gunmen entered, taking around 100 people hostage, talking of Hollande, Syria and Iraq and unloading several magazines each into the crowd. They then began executing hostages, forcing French GIGN/RAID (equivalent of SWAT) police into assaulting the theatre. One gunman was shot dead by police, whilst the other three detonated suicide vests, killing themselves but (fortunately) missing the crowd.

Three fake Syrian and Egyptian passports were found near the bodies of the attackers. These were traced back to having been used by refugees to pass through Greece, meaning several (if not all) of the attackers used this as a guise to enter the country. This is why France has decided to close its borders.

And my opinion:

I've long been an advocate of stemming the flow of refugees. Neither society nor economy can handle the strain, and it adds a whole new threat level. Last night's events pretty much just proved that and I'm glad the UK government is not allowing the refugees in.

Buuut for me it is also an argument for staying out of the EU, another thing I've long been an advocate of, because being part of the EU allows free movement between citizens in EU countries, making it so, so easy for this type of attack to occur.

Closing your borders in response to this is not nearly a racist move. Shut your borders and you shut a large avenue in for terrorists. You make their life a lot harder. To suggest that France orchestrated the attack against itself is also complete lunacy; a significant terrorist attack on the capital city of a country causes major economic and political damage, weakens public support for the government, can spark riots and protests and does pretty much everything you don't want when you're trying to run a country. Also, if you've seen Hollande's address he is visibly shaken and looks as if he is about to cry. But most importantly, France don't need an excuse to close their borders. It's their country and they can do what they want, much like the UK has.

It's also not an argument for pro-gun laws because it has nothing to do with that. Fair enough, organised terrorists are going to get weapons one way or another, but gun restrictions don't necessarily stop terrorists (although it makes their job harder), they stop mentally unstable conspiracy theorists, racists, serial killers and psychopaths from deciding one day "you know what? XXX has just really pissed me off. I have a gun, I'm going to go use it!".

But what people need to accept is that whilst many terrorists may be Muslim, not all Muslims are terrorists. "Blowing up the Middle East" is not an appropriate response because let's be honest, that's genocide.

We need to start treating them as Jihadists and not Muslims.