We still know next to nothing about the mass murder in Las Vegas. Was Stephen Paddock actually the perpetrator? His background and history certainly don’t suggest it. Was he actually a “soldier of ISIS” as DAESH has repeatedly claimed? That seems even more incredible.
Were there other shooters? Was he part of a conspiracy?
IMO it’s still far too early to draw any conclusions. We need to know more.
The planning that went into this attack is impressive. He clearly thought a lot about this and sought to create the conditions where the most damage could be done in the least amount of time. The use of bump stocks from an elevated position firing at a massed crowd is sickeningly efficient. The method eliminates all the usual downsides from using an automatic weapon and the positioning ensures that every bullet, at last for the first few salvos, will strike flesh.
We also need to accept the fact that despite the terabytes of data that will accumulate,
we aren’t Lamont Cranston.
Everyone rushes to conclusions. Again, simple reporting should be adequate.
Law enforcement is working methodically. We can believe, I feel assured, that every available asset is being deployed on this case. But it all takes time. Documentation every step of the way. Really grueling, painstaking review.
Odd that people will read 400-page police procedurals, then won’t let them work in real life.
Well I’ll stake my claim here and say it was alienation. My guess is that Paddock was one of an increasing number of Americans, primarily men, who’ve become alienated in our increasingly atomized society. It’s already established he disliked interacting with people and he apparently had no close friends.
But, Andy, alienation and mass murder needn’t necessarily run hand-in-hand. Is there a trigger, or multiple triggers?
Janis,
I’d guess there was a trigger but can’t venture as to what it might be.
Follow the money. Surely he didn’t MAKE money playing slot machines for two years.
Alienation and/or money. Going broke, mad at the world and going to take out as many as he could before going down. (Wife is voting for brain tumor, but she watches too many CSI shows.)
Steve
It really sounds like he had an undiagnosed mental illness, but it’s odd that he was able to contain severe aggression for so long and stay under the radar of law enforcement. There’s some suggestion that he found an outlet for aggression with victims who weren’t inclined to report- perhaps the ex-wives, girlfriend, prostitutes. And maybe the gambling was a form of self-medicating.
Even if that’s the baseline though it raises the question of what changed. The investigators say that his gun purchases accelerated starting in Oct 2016, so presumably they’ll try to find some trigger around that time.
Here’s an article by Tom Nichols that attempts an explanation of factors that contribute to these shootings:
http://thefederalist.com/2015/07/09/the-revenge-of-the-lost-boys/