San Bernardino Shooter Couple --Madeleine Norton, 4th period

Terrible to behold, the mass murder at San Bernardino now has recognized the shooters involved: a radical Muslim woman named Malik and her husband Farook. Both were killed in a shootout shortly after the killings, and it has been reported that both were under the influence of ISIS but weren't working for the terrorist group (though it has also been reported that the two have been in contact with at least two other terrorist organizations).

Fox News stated earlier this week, "The Los Angeles Times, citing an anonymous federal law enforcement official, reports that Farook was in contact with members of the Al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front and the African extremist group Al-Shabaab. The official told the Times there was “some type” of contact between Farook and the terror groups, but it was unclear what kind of contact the parties had. Islamic State radio also released a statement early Saturday saying two supporters of the terror group committed the atrocity in California, according to Reuters. However, ISIS didn't claim responsibility for the attacks. The report of Farook’s potential ties to terror groups and ISIS' reported statement comes after Fox News confirmed that Malik had pledged her allegiance to ISIS hours before the attack. Those developments confirmed the suspicions of many, and left it obvious that Malik, at least, was driven by radical Islam."

I find this incredibly hard for various reasons: obviously for the loss of innocent, mentally disabled/caretaker lives; the fact that ISIS's reign of terror is spreading throughout the world in different forms, direct and indirect (such as police violence, bombings, school shootings, etc.); Islamophobia will now spread at an even greater ignorant speed, and it has become all that much harder not only for the people of Islam but woman devout to Islam themselves. So many people already use discriminative stereotypes against Muslims, and although the Qur'an stresses the importance of love and nonviolence, there's unfortunately always going to be a few bad apples.

We  can synthesize this directly with colonial America, and the influence Christians had upon Native Americans and themselves in their daily lives. Different people had different principles, but if we discriminated against our ancestors as we did the Muslims of today, things might be very different.

Article link here: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/12/05/san-bernadino-gunman-reportedly-contacted-foreign-terror-organizations/