The 9/11 attacks, the moon landings, the holocaust — they’ve all been subjected to doubt and suspicion by a small but loud portion of people. Conspiracy theories can be laughable at times, but when it comes to the subject of innocents being massacred, it’s downright vulgar and offensive. 

Maybe someone should inform Goh Meng Seng just that. The 46-year-old veteran opposition politician and founder of the People’s Power Party (PPP) made the inappropriate choice of commenting on the recent Orlando nightclub shooting, airing his doubts about the very authenticity of the slaughter. Never mind the 49 people who were killed, never mind the 53 who were wounded, never mind the thousands more across the world who are grieving over the  attack against the LGBT community 

We’ll just let you decide for yourself what you want to feel after reading his diatribe.

Goh doubts the veracity of Singaporean sympathy towards massacres

“Orlando shooting is an unfortunate incident but it isn’t the only unfortunate event which homicide or mass killings of innocents have been made in human history.

However we didn’t see any big group of Singaporeans gather at Hong Lim Park for any mass killings of innocent people in the world for the past decades. Not even the 1989 Tianan massacred brought Singaporeans to any huge gathering “to show solidarity”, though there were numerous people lining up at the Bank of China to send wreaths. But there after, there was no vigils or anything like that held for the past 27 years in remembrance of the 1989 Tianan massacred which thousands, not just 50 or 100 odd innocent people were killed mercilessly.

There were other massacred happening since then, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, African countries…. but no Singaporeans has shown any concern big enough to go to Hong Lim Park to protest or vigil or to “show solidarity”. Well, I attended one for the Israeli attacks on Palestinians but the attendance was just very small.

Well, is it just because the victims of Orlando shooting are LGBT and thus, there were more sympathy? Or are Singapore LGBT more vocal and concern about their own community’s plight?” 

Goh states that the shooting is not a specific attack against LGBT community

“I am not against LGBT and in fact, as I have said in NUS-Yale Forum, I have knowingly supported LGBT candidates. But my question is, while LGBT is assertive in their rights and wanting others to support their movement like Pinkdot or rights, it seems to me that they are more concerned (or just only concern) about their own community’s issues and plight.

I am concerned about indiscriminate killings of innocents, just anybody, LGBT included. But before anybody jump into conclusion that this Orlando shooting is just about “anti-LGBT”, one should look at it as stupid people doing stupid things which kills lots of people.”

Goh suggests that it might not be possible that the shooting was carried out by a single gunman

“There are some facts we need to look at. The shooting was reportedly started OUTSIDE the nightclub first, between law enforcers and the criminal. It makes hell of a difference here.

And according to this report, the killing inside the club was still happening 30 minutes AFTER the shoot out started.

How many crazy are involved? It was said one. But is it possible? For the Swat team and policemen to miss all shots on one single man and this man went in and shot over 100 people.. some dead, some wounded.”

Goh does the math on the the gunman’s usage of assault rifle. Again, he suggests that its questionable that a single gunman could cause that much damage.

“If he was carrying an assault riffle, how many rounds were he using? 180 rounds? He was having a more than 30 minutes shooting. At least 250 rounds? If one magazine holds 30 rounds, he would have to carry at least 8 magazines!

Now, most Singaporean guys have been trained to use an assault riffle. Do you know how heavy it is to carry 6 magazines of 5.56 rounds? A full battle order comes with 6 magazines and it was pretty difficult to carry it without your SBO! Now, this guy, was supposed to carry EIGHT magazines!

Now if he wasn’t carrying a 30 rounds magazines but a 20 rounds magazines, he would be stuffing himself up with at least 12 magazines… changing magazines in rapid succession. 

No one actually took the opportunity to take him down while he was changing magazines? He needs to change at least 6 magazines of 20 rounds, or at least 4 magazines of 30 rounds!”

The fact that Goh used an article by Bearing Arms should explain why he has doubts. Bearing Arms is a pro-gun website, and the article referenced is defending the right to own AR-15 assault rifles. 

“Blaming the gun or even a broad family of firearms when many different firearms could have been used is incredibly dishonest,” Bearing Arms writer Bob Owens wrote. “Then again, that’s what we’ve come to expect from this nation’s news media and politicians, isn’t it?”

Clearly the article is skewered towards making light of the shooting — the writer’s strongly arguing against the (logical) act of increasing gun control. 

Where did Goh obtain the conclusion that the heinous massacre in Orlando could be a con? Whatever it is, it’s a forlorn line of reasoning, especially just days after the massacre. What’s scary is that there are others who have believe the same thing: 

“For a single gun man to take down over 100 people… without a SBO (Standard Battle Order), is something unimaginable to me,” Goh concludes. Perhaps it should actually be unimaginable that anyone could ever skeptical of something as tragic as the Orlando shooting.