Although not on the horrific scale of his despicable hate crime in Orlando this weekend, Omar Mateen had form in taking someone hostage and abusing them. His ex-wife now tells us she was “literally rescued” by her parents after four months of marriage, in which Mateen beat her, abused her and would not let her speak to her family. She described him as mentally unstable and traumatised. He had a gun licence and a history of steroid abuse, and her family had warned him that if he tried to contact her they would go to the authorities. “The cops were called in on him” more than once, her father said.

On Sky News last night, I realised how far some will go to ignore homophobia | Owen Jones Read more

This is worth noting when investigators try to piece together what makes someone such as Mateen tick. He was apparently on the FBI radar after separate reports of “extremist behaviour”, but though he was interviewed by the FBI in 2013 and 2014 his connections to terrorism were thought to be insubstantial. Indeed, it may turn out that this was the case, and that Islamic State is merely being opportunistic, claiming responsibility for murder wherever it can, when it has simply detonated another delusional hate-filled loser.

But we know enough by now surely to understand that there are links here that should have been made, and were not. A man who threatens to kill his wife is dangerous. This is not some acceptable form of violence unrelated to other forms of violence.

Man Haron Monis, the gunman who in 2014 laid siege to a Sydney cafe where two people were killed, had been of interest to security agencies but was not on any government watchlist. This man was on bail as an alleged accessory to the murder of his former wife, who had been stabbed and burned to death – there were more than 40 counts of sexual assault against him.

Domestic violence, sexual assault: unfortunately, somehow, we’ve come to see these as everyday terror. But surely they indicate the potential for other kinds of terror, as much as watching idiot jihadi videos. When men are known to have kept their wives as prisoners and assaulted them daily, that must be significant information for “the authorities”. And if not, why not?

You can’t get rid of hate. But you can take away people’s ability to act on it | Lucia Graves Read more

Not all perpetrators of domestic violence go on to become mass murderers, of course. Their crimes often remain “private”. The attack at the Pulse nightclub was absolutely and clearly a homophobic attack, which should never be forgotten – that was what drove Mateen to kill, and we must stand in solidarity with LGBT people everywhere. This attack was fuelled by a specific hatred; according to former colleagues, Mateen’s hatred included “blacks, women, lesbians, Jews” and he often talked about killing people.

In the minefield of current identity politics, I would just like some links to be made between violence against women and other kinds of violence, for there is a fairly fixed point here about who does these terrible, terrible things: men. (In 2014, Time magazine reported that in more than 98% of mass shootings or massacres in the US the perpetrator was a man.) I know many men reject absolutely this kind of masculinity, but yet again we have seen its murderous outcome, from a man terrified by a kiss.