October had just started, darlings, so when news stories began airing about a shooting in Las Vegas, I was disgusted that such a deed--another!!!!!!!!--had been committed, and I did not give it much thought. By the next day, when it was being called the deadliest mass shooting in U.S, history, I began to take a look.
The perp, Stephen Paddock, is such a contradiction. Yes, he looks like a loser, but he had a girl friend,(though how nuts is she, remains to be seen!) and he was successful in business--real estate, a business with his brother, Eric, and retired with enough to basically live the lifestyle of a professional gambler. Though, if it turned to addiction, he would have been up the creek.
Of course, this will never happen, because he shot himself, leaving behind a legacy of tragedy and puzzlement. The tragedy is the number of lives he took, and the survivors, forever traumatized. How does one get over such a thing?
He had an interest in guns. He was a Right Winger, on the gun control issue. I believe he was living in Florida, which says a lot, right there. And it has been said he had planned this out for months, even sending his girl friend to the Philippines, so she would be away when it happened, and could not intervene to stop him.
What gets me is everyone claiming he had never done anything like this before. Well, certainly nothing as grandiose, to land in the history books, but I maintain that if police probe into this guy's background, somewhere they will find evidence that he has done this before. Animals, unsolved, unfound bodies in his living area, this guy had plenty of "target practice" to pull off what he did, from such a distance away from the event. Thirty two stories up, four hundred feet away from the concert? I couldn't do that if I tried. But then I would not.
Psychos are not always itinerant drifters, losers at life, who feel this is the only way to make a statement. Paddock, the undisputed winner of this week's Raving Queen Bitch Of The Week Award, and looking good now for the year, had lived the American Dream, and it did not make him happy.
What made the scumbag happy was destroying the American Deam of others. It was said he had planned attacking Boston or Chicago, before Vegas, and had planned to survive and escape. He took the easy out. He should have stayed alive, to live with himself about ruining the lives of all these people.
You were some bitch, Steve!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I second everything you said.
ReplyDeleteThe more they look into this guy, the more they're discovering it really was as simple as "he snapped". To me, that is somehow more terrifying than if he'd been full-on murderous his entire life. There's no evidence so far of animal killings, or much gun practice outside of ranges.
ReplyDeleteThe whole family is a bit off. Father a homicidal bank robber who killed over relative pittances ($2,500? Seriously?) Mother, demented enough to marry and breed with the creep without a second thought. One brother certifiable from the day he was born, just like Dad. Another brother who means well but seems a bit simple-minded. And of course our shooter himself: a ne'er do well who drifted from job to job all his life, never making friends or finding a career, until at near 50 y/o he somehow miraculously stumbled on a get-rich-quick real estate idea that made him ten million dollars in ten years (there's a book I want to buy: I'd love to know how an anti-social douchebag with no people skills or the first clue about real estate figured out how to do this).
Its easy on the surface to read more into this asshole than whats really there. Him being obviously misanthropic, and borderline abusive to his Filipino girlfriend, and his gambling obsession are a distraction: its easy to pretend those things are unusual or flags that should have been noticed. But the truth is, 40% of American males could fit this description: its fast becoming the default malaise pattern of unemployable men with no hope of replacing obsolete or non-existent careers.
No, the blame for this horror falls directly on Congress and The Senate for not enforcing the common-sense gun laws that have already been on the books for years. How in FUCK did this guy manage to purchase 47 semi-automatic assult rifles? I don't care if you're Mother Teresa, that is not supposed to be possible. There's supposed to be a cross-referenced national database of gun purchases tied to background checks, limiting the number of assault weapons amassed by one person.For that matter, the damned thing were outlawed completely for fifteen years until the wusses in Congress allowed the ban to expire a few years ago.
THAT is why this tragedy happened. There are thousands, if not millions, of disaffected pissed off males who are thisclose to snapping into a mass murderous rage.Very few add 2 + 2 and think of acquiring an assault weapon arsenal to carry out the urge. But enough do that it should be a no-brainer to ENFORCE THE GODDAMNED LAWS and stop these acquisitions cold. Nobody "needs" an AK47: the fuckwits in Oklahoma who insist they "enjoy playing with them at the range, don't take my guns, second amendment, waahhh" need to be pistol-whipped into a coma. That kind of "fun" never existed until 25 years ago when such weapons first filtered down to civilians (because craven mfrs were annoyed with lower military profits during peace time). Enough already with the bullshit: play war games on your xBox, assholes. Civilians can justify rifles and revolver handguns, but nothing else. If grandma isn't legally allowed to own live grenades or a Howitzer, she doesn't need what amounts to an easily-modified submachine gun.
Enforce the bans, enforce the quantity limits- including "collector" abuse (fuck you guys too: nobody needs to "collect" 300 modern automatic handguns- its self-indulgent masturbatory BS). And BTW, knuckleheads: stockpiling because you think you might outwit a political military coup is moronic. If such a coup ever occurred, they wouldn't waste time in ground combat against a resistance: they'd blow your house to shit using a drone. Stop being idiots, please.
ReplyDeleteVictoria,
Thank you for your support.
ReplyDeleteDarling,
You are right. Already the NRA is closing
ranks to stop any kind of gun control.