Stephen Paddock looking more and more like Jared Loughner
Evidence portrays someone descending into madness, though political motive is still being investigated.
Not surprisingly, the political left is claiming there is an inherent racism in not calling Stephen Paddock, who murdered 58 people with rifle fire from the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas, a terrorist.
This tweet by Glenn Greenwald pretty much sums up the claim that the darker your skin, the more likely you are to be called a terrorist:
Not many people refer to Jared Loughner, who shot Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and killed several others, as a terrorist. Not because of the color of his skin, but because his motive wasn’t political. He was a murderer, who also was borderline insane (he initially was held not competent to stand trial) and had no political motive.
We also don’t refer to serial killers as terrorists, because their motives are not political. They may be psychopaths and sociopaths, but they are different in categorization from those who kill for political reasons.
By contrast, when numerous killers and attempted killers operate under the direction of or inspired by ISIS, they have political motives and are properly called terrorists regardless of skin color. Had Paddock been operating for or inspired by ISIS, as ISIS claimed, there is no doubt he would be called a terrorist.
Based on what is currently known, the ISIS connection is unproven. Maybe that will change. There’s speculation, but no evidence, based on cruises he took that stopped in the Middle East, but that seems thin evidence unless there is more to it:
Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock had visited the Middle East during a series of cruises, police have revealed.
Investigators remain stumped as to Paddock’s motives but said he visited the contentious region on a cruise.
He also took at least 11 other cruises to other destinations over the last several years, the AP reported.
The region, where Isis and other jihadi groups have a presence in some areas, may be of interest to security services because of speculation Paddock became radicalised.
As of now, Paddock appears to be more and more like a Jared Loughner, someone with severe mental problems who acted without political motive. ABC News reports:
Law enforcement officials increasingly believe Stephen Paddock, the gunman who killed and wounded concertgoers from a perch in a high-rise casino hotel last Sunday, had severe mental illness, ABC News reports.
Sources told ABC News that Paddock has been described in hundreds of interviews as standoff-sh, disconnected, and having difficulty establishing and maintaining meaningful relationships.
Authorities have still not found a definitive motive for the massacre.
“We still do not have a clear motive or reason why,” a frustrated Clark County Undersheriff Kevin McMahill said Friday. “We have looked at literally everything.”
Investigators have chased 1,000 leads and examined Paddock’s politics, his finances, any possible radicalization and his social behavior – typical investigative avenues that have helped uncover the motive in past shootings.
There had been much speculation about a note visible in photos of the room from which Paddock shot. Perhaps it was a political statement or gave a clue to motive.
No such luck. CBS News, previewing an interview for 60 Minutes to run tonight, says it was a calculation of bullet trajectories:
A note found in the hotel room of the man who shot into a crowd from his perch in a Las Vegas high-rise included hand-written calculations about where he needed to aim to maximize his accuracy and kill as many people as possible.
In an interview airing Sunday on “60 Minutes,” three police officers who stormed Stephen Paddock’s hotel room in the Mandalay Bay hotel tell correspondent Bill Whitaker new details about the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. The officers were the first to see Paddock’s body and the arsenal of weapons and ammunition he had stockpiled.
Officer David Newton from the Las Vegas Police Department’s K-9 unit said he noticed a note on the shooter’s nightstand once officers breached the room. He said the note was located near one of the windows that Paddock had smashed with a hammer to fire onto the crowd below with high-powered semi-automatic rifles outfitted to increase their rate of fire.
“I could see on it he had written the distance, the elevation he was on, the drop of what his bullet was gonna be for the crowd,” Newton said. “So he had that written down and figured out so he would know where to shoot to hit his targets from there.”
I guess we’ll have to wait for the program to find out what else was in the note, but as of this writing there’s no indication of motive in it.
We’re also finding out more about Paddock’s personal life, including his reported frequent visits with Las Vegas prostitutes, one of whom is claiming Paddock liked to engage in violent rape fantasies. The Daily Mail reports:
A Las Vegas prostitute who was hired by murderer Stephen Paddock has spoken out about their ‘violent’ sex sessions and how he bragged about having ‘bad blood’.
The woman, who spoke anonymously, said she would spent hours drinking and gambling in Sin City with Paddock, who she described as ‘paranoid’ and ‘obsessive’.
If he hit a winning streak, he would take her back to his room for ‘really aggressive and violent sex’ including living out rape fantasies, she said.
Paddock also boasted about his bank-robber father, saying that ‘the bad streak is in my blood’ and ‘I was born bad’, according to texts seen by the Sun on Sunday.
The 27-year-old woman said Paddock, 64, would often rant about conspiracy theories including how 9/11 was orchestrated by the US government.
The escort, who said Paddock paid her $6,000-a-time for their meetings, also had texts in which he described tying her up ‘while you scream for help’.
The NY Times, which of course would love to find a “right-wing” motive if it could, describes Paddock’s apparent mental slide leading up to the shooting. Of particular importance is that Paddock was a successful businessman and gambler, which contradicts claims that the engaged in the shooting because of gambling or other debts:
Stephen Paddock was a contradiction: a gambler who took no chances. A man with houses everywhere who did not really live in any of them. Someone who liked the high life of casinos but drove a nondescript minivan and dressed casually, even sloppily, in flip-flops and sweatsuits. He did not use Facebook or Twitter, but spent the past 25 years staring at screens of video poker machines.
Mr. Paddock, a former postal worker and tax auditor, lived an intensely private, unsocial life that exploded into public view on Sunday [the day of the shooting] ….
On Friday, a law enforcement official said Mr. Paddock’s girlfriend, Marilou Danley, told investigators that he seemed to be deteriorating in recent months both mentally and physically. Perhaps his methodical and systematic mind had turned in a lethal and unpredictable new direction. To the few people who knew him well, it is the only plausible explanation….
Police have revealed other information that answers some of the questions I posted the other day.
NBC News reports, Police ‘Confident’ No One Else in Shooter’s Room Before Las Vegas Attack:
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Undersheriff Kevin McMahill said Friday in an interview that police don’t believe anyone entered the room at Mandalay Bay prior to the shooting carried out by Stephen Paddock Sunday night.
Earlier, senior law enforcement sources said investigators were puzzled by a charger that did not appear to match any of Paddock’s cellphones. Police have now been able to match all of the cell phone chargers found in the room with multiple cell phones that Paddock had with him.
“He was the only shooter; I’m very confident of that,” McMahill said. “I’m also confident that there were no other people in the room leading up to this event.”
Additionally, the reason Paddock stopped firing appears to have been caused by the hotel security guard approaching the room, which turned Paddocks attention away from firing out the window to preparing for a siege:
https://youtu.be/oLXXkzRbpeo?t=48s
It’s not over until it’s over, but as of this writing it appears that Stephen Paddock was a Jared Loughner-type mass murderer who descended into madness, just more lethal.
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Eric Raymond, who’s very much not given to making things up or wild speculations, writes:
That assumes we ever will find out.
I have little confidence in that.
Imo this has the Left’s finger prints all over it.
Why else is there a near perfect blackout on info and details about Paddock?
The Alt Reich is claiming this was an attack on White America, because a country western concert was chosen. But, reports that Paddock scoped out Lalapalooza in Chicago and tried to book a room overlooking a hip hop concert in Vegas the previous month seems to show a disinterest in the demographics of the audience. Interestingly, of the three venues, the one he attacked had by far the smallest audience.
As in any violent crime, the longer it takes for the authorities to disclose relevant information, the more likely that information is to portray the Deep State in bad light.
It is still possible he chose that audience specifically for its composition. See my post below and one reasoned theory possible in the void of facts we have so far.
Yes. The overwhelming majority of the people attending those other festivals is white also.
But perhaps the best lines of sight or logistics. I don’t know the other site in Vegas, but there appears to be good lines of sight into Grant Park from the Chicago Hilton. The range is a little longer, 500-600 yards. Perhaps the logistics of getting his gear up into his room didn’t work.
All of the gossipy theories based on hearsa2or fake facts make this frustrating. But the Pack of real information shared with the public makes it possible.
Mark Steyn has an interesting supposition that works for now until more evidence surfaces. Basically, he considers if the was the work of someone who lived a life relying on a rational and strategic mind figuring a way to make a statement that could not be confused with other, typical motives. There may be nothing left but a protest against the ability to easily arm. If true, it is still an act of terrorism as that IS a political statement.
https://www.steynonline.com/8162/theory-of-the-case
I’d say his “motive” is exactly what he got. A re-opening of the “debate” on “common sense gun laws”. He had 23 guns in his hotel room. Most of which he didn’t even fire. Why? To show “how easy” it is for people to get scary gunz. A dozen bump fire stocks? Again “how easy”. I saw at least 1 100 round magazine. “How easy”. Thousands of rounds of ammo. “Look how easy and no GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT OF AN INDIVIDUAL BUYING THOUSANDS OF ROUNDS”. Just to stock the hotel room would have been $60,000 to $80,000, If all he wanted to do was kill people, he could have crashed his plane in the middle of the festival and killed hundreds. Maybe he figured the history books would have a paragraph about how “common sense gun laws” were enacted in the U.S. because showed “how easy” it was to get gunz before Congress finally stepped in and BANNED GUNZ.
We’re still not seeing anything particularly mad, aside from the atrocity itself.
“…Described in hundreds of interviews as standoff-sh, disconnected, and having difficulty establishing and maintaining meaningful relationships” is mild maladjustment, and not even of a rare sort. It’s a long, long way from “severe mental problems.”
Any attempt to understand this affair in terms of “terrorism” won’t help much, either, because terrorism is an essential irrational tactic. Indeed, that’s the whole point; it’s intended to put pressure on a society and its law enfocement mechanisms, and that pressure comes from the constant looming possibilty of totally futile and pointless destruction, any time, anywhere. It’s a tactic which appeals to those too weak to attack their enemies; they can attack someone else, someone (or something) weaker, and still imagine that they’re advancing their goals. Obviously enough, as a way to inspire constructive social change, it’s not terribly effective. But that doesn’t make it mad, even if it’s functionally indistinguishable from actual madness.
Terrorism is nothing more that a physical attack, or attacks, upon members of a society in order to create fear [terror], among the populous, which will bring about a specific societal or political change. Technically, an assassination to remove a person in a position of power, would not be terrorism, unless the act was designed to engender fear to cause a political or societal change.
Insanity, in this case, is simply doing something based wholly upon delusion.
The problem here is that, at this point, Paddock’s motivation is entirely unknown. To date, we have no manifesto outlining his rational for this act or to outline a broader philosophical or political mindset. We have no witnesses who have provided any clear evidence as to the man’s mental health or to his motivation. And, all human beings have some motivation behind their actions, even those which occur in the heat of the moment. Those motives do not have to be rational, but they always exist. And, in a case such as this, the motivation has to be quite clear, to the individual participating in the act. Long term planning requires it.
Now, we can safely assume that there was strong motivation involved here, as it would have been virtually impossible for Paddock to successfully avoid identification and eventual capture or death. So, if he was the only actor here, then this is a critical component to determining if he had motivation. The answer is yes. What the motivation was, is still a mystery.
Be careful not to fall into the trap of dismissing Paddock’s motivation as insanity. This is like walking around a destroyed building and saying it was magic, because no cause can be immediately identified. Motivation for this act exists. Also, it is pointless to speculate on whether Paddock was independent in this operation. There is no clear evidence that he had assistance. But, there is no clear evidence that he did not. It is very dangerous to assume that the most obvious answer is the correct one.
So, we can all have a lot of fun speculating as to paddock’s motivation, but we can’t make any real decisions as to what it was until we have as much data as possible.
“And, all human beings have some motivation behind their actions, even those which occur in the heat of the moment.
And sometimes the motivation is provided by the voices in their heads – in Paddock’s case, I suspect that the loudest voice was that of his dead father, telling him he needed to go one better than even old dad did before he checked out. Dad made the FBI’s 10 most wanted – how was sonny boy gonna top that?
But it’s just speculation. No one else will ever those voices, or ever can. Which is why I believe that we will never, ever, truly know what he was thinking – he took it all to his grave.
This is the whole point. All we have is speculation and “I believes”. No one knows. And, it is too early to categorically subscribe to any one motivational theory.
Paddock had a reason for doing what he did. To accomplish what he did, he did not need to acquire the arsenal that he did. He did not need to make elaborate plans to carry out his attack. He had other, more easily obtainable or useful tools at his disposal to commit this crime. So, all of his actions have to be taken into account and explained, at least to some degree. Why did he do what he did? Why did he pick that time and venue? Why did he choose the tools that he chose? What was he trying to accomplish?
He chose to transport 23 firearms, at least 12 of them long guns, to a pair of connecting rooms in the Mandalay Bay Hotel. He chose to wait 5 days to commit this act. He chose to use firearms when he apparently had access to significant amounts of Tannerite and an airplane. He could have flown his airplane into the crowd, probably racking up a much higher death toll. He could have rented a large truck, driven it through the fence and run down nearly as many people as were shot. Put 50#-200# of Tannerite in either vehicle and detonate it [something which can be done by shooting it with any of the rifles in his possession] and the death toll is going to be enormous. But, he chose to rent rooms, in his own name, and shoot into the crowd from those rooms. He evidently planned and prepared for this act for nearly a year, as indicated by his firearms purchases. He left no easily found manifesto to explain his actions. The only thing that might be explained rather easily is why he chose the venue that he did. It was a large music festival. It was near his home. And, it was overlooked from a number of good vantage points all within the effective range of the rifles that he had chosen.
It is simply best to wait and see what other evidence turns up. As we get more data, it becomes easier to reach better conclusions.
Agreed, we can’t be sure until we have more evidence.
But I won’t be surprised if we already have all we are ever going to. He avoided people for the most part; his family, such as it is has already weighed in with nonsense, nothing more coming from them. The hookers and filipino woman have already said “yeah he bad man we not know what he do.” And he left no writings.
It’s the MH370 of murder investigations.
That whole facile “you just won’t call him a terrorist because he’s WHITE” racism angle is deeply stupid, not to mention wrong. He’s not widely being called a terrorist at this point because at this point there’s no evidence that there was any political or ideological motive to his act. Timothy McVeigh, on the other hand, was white as white can be yet he’s (rightly) named as a domestic terrorist every time his name is mentioned.
“Timothy McVeigh, on the other hand, was white as white can be yet he’s (rightly) named as a domestic terrorist every time his name is mentioned….”
That is correct: McVeigh is whitely named as a domestic terrorist.
I assume that Stephen Paddock thought of himself as an “evil genius” not a “terrorist”.
More of a “Gru” (Despicable Me) type person.
I really worry that it is something else that caused this man to do this that is bad for Democrats when people start with the “nothing to see here move on” which would be the case if he is just declared to be and completely operational insane person. Those kind of people hardly exist and I would caution people that want to put him in the Jared Loughner category. We had accounts of Loughner being well identified as having mental health problems by a psychiatrists that treated him. Be wary of anyone who says that this guy got this far into mental illness while leaving no trail of incidents or interactions with police etc. where he didn’t hold it together.
^^^ This ^^^
I personally know people who have gone much farther into mental illness than Paddock did before his rampage, including the scary I think they’re going to hurt someone kind of mental illness.
If someone has enough money, and is cushioned by a lifetime of habit of avoiding the law and having no close friends, you’d be amazed how far they can go.
Example: I know of a guy in his 50’s in dallas who just a month ago went off over his ex-wife and shot up the inside of his house (a nice one in nice neighborhood) with over 300 rounds from an AR-15. At the time, he claimed he saw people in his house; of course, they were invisible people, and no one else was home at the time, so no injuries, but the neighbors called and he got a trip to the psych ward. He’s got money and good lawyers, so he got released within 24 hours, no charges filed, he keeps all of his guns, and it all gets written off to “bad prescription drug interactions”.
If he shoots up a shopping mall or a schoolyard in the next few weeks, I won’t be surprised, and neither will the DPD. But he’s still walking around free as a bird today.
His “descent into madness” just so happened to coincide with Trump winning the election. Hmmmmm…… Not buying it.
I have no idea about what motivated this, not even the slightest hint.
I am waiting for AP or CNN to interview me.
You’re doing it wrong, though, you have to send out the white ally ready to cry racist bat signal.
This guy was an ex-postal worker, a real estate investor, a multi millionaire-gambler. Hmmmm-ok. (there are gaping gaps here)
From what source did he buy a hundred grand worth of weapons and ammo?
Was it a one-time purchase, from one source, or was it stealthily accumulated over time, from several sources?
How was he able to get the weapons into his room, all 22 of them, plus a thousand or so rounds of ammunition, without arousing hotel security’s suspicion? (wanna bet, they’ve got security cameras in all the elevators and hallways?)
What about room service? He must have told them to stay away, possibly for several days. This did not cause concerns with Security? (security is a BIG DEAL in the casino-hotels, for obvious reasons.)
What of the woman, who, prior to the massacre, told some of the crowd that “you all will die” (or words to that effect); are efforts being made to ID her and to find her?
The crowd he attacked, was fairly conservative. It is reported the shooter previously considered other “venues”for his deed, crowds that tended to be liberal, which, if true, seems to eliminate politics as motive. If true, yes.
It is also reported that this guy went to great length to stay
anonymous, to show no motive for his horrendous act. Does not make quite sense, does it?
All these questions need answers. I think the last question is the one that is central to this case.
“How was he able to get the weapons into his room, all 22 of them, plus a thousand or so rounds of ammunition, without arousing hotel security’s suspicion? (wanna bet, they’ve got security cameras in all the elevators and hallways?)”
He got them into his room using the sophisticated counter-surveillance device known as the suitcase. He parked in the hotel/casino parking garage. He could have gone directly from the garage to his floor without even going through the lobby. Unless those security cameras in the elevators and hallways have x-ray vision there is no way anyone would have known what was in them.
He could have and no doubt did break those firearms down. It’s especially easy with an AR to break it down into an upper and lower receiver assembly. Depending on how large his suitcases were he could have done it using a luggage cart in three, maybe as few as two trips, over the course of a couple of days. Given the amount of traffic and shift changes no one would have noticed.
What about room service? He must have told them to stay away, possibly for several days. This did not cause concerns with Security? (security is a BIG DEAL in the casino-hotels, for obvious reasons.)
I think you mean maid service. Records show he had ordered room service. In fact, that’s one reason investigators suspect he had engaged a prostitute; on at least one occasion he ordered room service for two.
It’s also why he had a room service cart with the trays and dishes, napkins, etc., in which to hide his own surveillance camera the night of the shooting.
There’s no reason to believe he prevented the maid service from entering the suite/two adjoining rooms for any great length of time. All he had to do was put a few suitcases in one closet, a few in another, and the cleaning staff would have been none the wiser.
Even if you put up the “Do Not Disturb” sign and leave it up, you have to leave it up for several days before anyone gets curious. And even then the cleaning staff isn’t allowed to enter by themselves. They have to be accompanied by security. And it’s extremely rare that they would do so.
This part really is no great mystery.
Don’t kid yourself. Mandalay Bay knew he had 50 or so military weapons in his room. The ones that were left were the ones that were found. They allowed it because they knew they would get $30,000 or more in the money laundering.
You think Steve Paddock would not check with Mandalay Bay before taking all those guns up to his room?
Wow! A whole $30K. If he did this gun running thingy at the Mandalay Bay once a month that would add up to $360k a year.
That’s, like, totally worth risking the gaming license of a multi-hundred million dollar per annum business.
Not. They’ll legally take $360k off of some rich compulsive gambler in a night.
I saw one guy, with more money than sense, put down $20k at each spot on a blackjack table. He had the whole table to himself, obviously; a courtesy casinos offer to rich suckers. Apparently he was trying to impress his high-priced escort. I, don’t know why. He had already paid for her once. I didn’t see why he needed to pay for her services again, several times over.
There were seven spots. In a matter of minutes he had lost two hands. That was $280k gone. So he wandered off looking for somewhere else to throw away his money. And the night was still young.
That’s insane. Of course they had no idea, and no, he wouldn’t check with them, why on earth would he? And what military weapons are you talking about? I haven’t seen any references to military weapons.
He could have easily checked in with five or six suitcases without arousing any suspicion. After all he was going to be there for close to a week. And then had the porter help him with his luggage. How is the hotel employee supposed to know what’s inside a locked suitcase. ARs aren’t particularly heavy.
Then a couple of more trips on his own between the garage and his room and he’d have everything out of his Chrysler Pacifica and in his hotel room. Apparently some of his rifles were in 7.62 NATO/.308 but breaking down European designs such as an FN FAL isn’t much harder than breaking down an AR; all you need is a screw driver to separate the upper and lower receivers. Or in the case of an M-14/M1A separating the barreled action from the stock and putting the components into an ordinary looking suitcase isn’t at all challenging. 23 rifles and thousands of rounds of ammo in fifteen or sixteen suitcases, no problem. I just would have waited until perhaps the day before the rampage before making the last trip. Let the cleaning ladies in for one last cleaning, then put up the Do Not Disturb sign and get set up. They would never have bothered him on the day-of.
agreed – kind of funny that few are pointing out that Vegas’ entire reputation as an “entertainment” hub depends in large part on everyone who works there NOT noticing what is going on in people’s hotel rooms.
If a guest in Vegas has a bit of money to throw around, they can do every illegal act in the book in those rooms and, barring them burning the place down, everyone is paid to look the other way.
It is pretty easy. He was a gun runner. The 20 guns he had left in his room were the ones ISIS didn’t take. There were at least 5 active shootings (according to the police scanner) at nearby hotels (not across town). Most of the shooters were shooting at the concert. There were two shooters in Paddock’s room, but I suppose Paddock was dead at the time they were shooting. In fact, they must have killed him at least an hour before, because they had to take the guns and ammo and disperse.
If you match the acoustics to the tapes, some of the guns fired were 243mm SAW guns. They usually fire at 10 times per second. Others were military weapons that fired at 14 times per second. These were not mundane assault rifles. No self respecting gun runner is going to sell a garden variety assault rifle.
He wired $127,000 to the Philippines because his girlfriend was buying the next batch of guns.
Casinos make 9 times more money on money laundering then on gambling. Almost every “high roller” is someone laundering money. Macau, Vegas, and others are economies built on money laundering.
Suppose he get $200,000 from a gun sale. He buys that much in chips. He loses $37,000 or so and cashes in $120,000 in chips. He pays his girlfriends and secretaries with chips. He gives a few chips to family members.
ISIS videos their shootings. They usually give warning to the concert goers. They like to shoot up concerts. And, they take credit. They also buy guns from the gun runners. They put their attacks on the Internet, and they have never lied about their involvement, though they lie about everything else. All of these things happened.
Steve Paddock even made an ISIS video. But I think he just did it for business reasons. It was the safe thing to do. It should be obvious from that video that ISIS was one of his clients.
@InEssence: Where are you getting all of this?
Which part? The part of casinos making most of their money on money laundering was a repetition in two places. One was a written analysis from some security company about the stolen Swift numbers in Malaysia. The other was a documentary (I think YouTube) about Macau. They both used the “9 times” number.
The best part is that the Chinese are not allowed to gamble themselves when they are in Thailand, so they bet on which gamblers will win. That is how most of the $80 million was laundered by a couple of Chinese dudes. They bought chips and bet on which gamblers would win. They would lose some to the house, and cash in their chips. It took them a few months to launder the money. The laundered money went to North Korea. The Chinese dudes were executed.
I was thinking more of these ones:
“The 20 guns he had left in his room were the ones ISIS didn’t take.”
(citation needed)
“There were at least 5 active shootings (according to the police scanner) at nearby hotels (not across town). Most of the shooters were shooting at the concert.”
(citation needed)
“There were two shooters in Paddock’s room, but I suppose Paddock was dead at the time they were shooting.”
(citation needed)
“Steve Paddock even made an ISIS video.”
(citation needed)
Amy, I can only tell you where I heard them. I don’t keep a list of the links in case I need them. These things are more for opinions than technical proofs.
In any event, the door was close when the security guard was shot. The door was open when the police arrived. I suppose that the two guys shooting ran away and left the guns. Chalk it up to speculation.
The shots from each window were 4.5 seconds apart. That is not one shooter. The windows are 40ft apart.
The active shootings are from the police radio. You can listen to it, but you have to know the codes.
I want to see the ISIS video. I heard he made one, but it is not on YouTube. Perhaps it is on the ISIS site, but I have never been there. I fear that if I snoop around on it, that the FBI will come which is ironic because I figure the FBI is an accomplice to the shooting.
I have about 30 facts on this shooting. Some of them are pretty crazy such as his girl friend being married to two men and having two SSNs. The only scenario that brings all 30 facts into align is gun-runner. Nothing else gets more than 10. I didn’t come up with gun-runner. Multiple others suggested it.
“…The door was open when the police arrived. I suppose that the two guys shooting ran away and left the guns. Chalk it up to speculation…”
Chalk it up to you not knowing anything about what you’re talking about. At all.
http://news10.com/2017/10/02/audio-police-breach-stephen-paddocks-mandalay-bay-hotel-room-10-rifles-found/
Had the door already been open the LVPD wouldn’t have used an explosive charge to blow it open.
It’s the first tape. You can hear the SWAT officer telling everyone to get back, then he says “breach, breach, breach” and you can hear the explosion.
The door was open, but they set the breech off, anyway. Maybe it is procedure. For example, there could be a trap.
We all know where he’s getting it from. From a body part at the opposite end of the body from the cranium.
1) All of these weapons have proven so far to have been bought legally.
2) Several were equipped with bump stocks to simulate automatic weapons fire. The kind of hardware gunrunners would buy from insurgent groups such as Abbu Sayyaf, the MNLF, or the communist NPA and smuggle into the US (and it can and does happen; search on former kali Senator Leland Yee for more details) don’t need accessories to simulate full auto. They are full auto since they’ve been “liberated” from police or military arsenals, or smuggled in from neighboring Indonesia, etc. They are full auto.
Anybody who knows anything about the Philippines knows you couldn’t buy a civilian sporting semi-auto AR-15. You’d have to “settle” for a former Armed Forces of the Philippines select fire M-16/M-4. And in a way you would be settling. While the “armalite” as it’s known in the Philippines is admitted to be very accurate and reliable when well-maintained, that’s the problem. It has to be well maintained. And since all these weapons are highly illegal are you really going to want to attract attention to the fact you’re hiding an illegal weapon in the forest near your hut by ordering maintenance products from the Brownells or Midway website?
No, you’re going to get a an AK-47/AK-74/AKM that will be reliable as long as you wipe it down with used transmission fluid every year or so.
Amy, he’s either making things up or he’s hallucinating.
“The 240, 242, 243, 245, and 249 (there might be others) are all about the same gun.”
There is an M240 in US service but it’s completely unrelated to the M249 although both were developed by the Belgian arms company Fabrique Nationale (FN). Actually, there are several variants of the M240 in US service depending on application. It is marketed to the rest of the world as the FN MAG. MAG is the acronym for the French term “light automatic machine gun.
It is a 1950s design and is essentially the action from the M1918 Browning BAR turned upside down and adapted to belt feed.
The M249 as it is designated in US service is based upon the FN Minimi. That’s the name under which it is marketed to the rest of the world. It’s based upon a design that was developed in house, and does not owe anything of significance to the older John M. Browning designs, and put into production in the 1970s.
There is no “240 series.”
The door was not open when the police arrived. The police had to blow the door to get in. Paddock was previously firing through the door when the unarmed guard showed up initially, but it remained locked. When they went in (after blowing the door) Paddock was already dead by suicide.
Do tell about the the “243mm (!?!?) SAW guns.” You sound like a weapons expert with considerable experience in gun running and money laundering (SARC off).
Oh, by the by, 243mm works out to be just over 9.5″. The largest weapons we used short of the 12-14″ battleship naval rifles in WWII were 8″/55 cal naval rifles on heavy cruisers. They used 2x45lb silk bags of powder firing a 260lb projectile. So Mandalay Bay would have had to install an ammunition elevator to get all that up to his room, and provide him with both a magazine crew and a gun crew.
The largest gun mount the Navy uses today is the 127mm or 5″/54 caliber MK45. That, at least, uses fixed ammunition but not sure I’d want a squad automatic weapon version of one.
I tried to post a photo, but I guess it is not allowed? In any event, go to Google images and look at the pictures of them. All the guns from 243 to 249 are about the same AFAIK. I knew some of the guns used sounded like war movie guns, but the 243’s were identified by acoustical foot print. The match was exact.
I think a 243 or two were still in the room with Paddock. And no, ain’t no way they come even close to being legal. Not for anyone.
BTW, if you are going to be this lazy (not looking up the image of the gun), I’m going to ignore you.
Why would I attempt to look up something that never existed? There is not and never has been any such thing as a “243mm SAW gun.”
There is not even any such thing as an M243 SAW or Squad Automatic Weapon. This is clearly not a typo as you keep writing as if Paddock had both “243s” and “249s” in his hotel room. There is such a thing as a M249 SAW, now designated the M249 Light Machine Gun (LMG). The M249 replaced the M60 in Army and USMC service back in the early ’80s.
Again, there was never a SAW or LMG that used the numbers 243 in any part of its designation.
Just for sh*ts and grins I searched using the terms you originally used; “243mm SAW gun.” All I got were circular saws at sites like Home Depot.
The 240, 242, 243, 245, and 249 (there might be others) are all about the same gun. If you know the 249, you have the general idea. Please keep in mind that the USA isn’t the only country on earth. Gun runners get the stuff whereever they can.
I didn’t run the tests, but the acoustics guy said it was a “243” saw. And yes, he used the word “millimeter”, and I just repeated it. But I doubt that any of that changes anything. Who is to say that he is inaccurate?
I think you will agree that a SAW 240 series gun is not legal.
Author John Ringo has a theory has to why the ding dong might have flipped: a pharmacological reaction. Ringo’s wife started on the anti-depressant cymbalta and in a space of several months went from a gentle woman to a serial killer in training. She had mapped out a plan to kill a series of child molesters and not get caught.
Weird but makes sense: https://www.facebook.com/notes/john-ringo/a-theory-on-las-vegas/10155111388257055/
Is there any evidence Paddock was on any psychotropic drugs in the SSRI/SSNRI class?
So far all I’ve seen is that he had one script for one month’s worth of Valium back in June. Completely different class of drug, and no evidence of long term use.
I think people are really reaching on that one.
FYI, on an earlier thread you criticized me for cutting and pasting this entire article. Not that I was offended by your comment. I was actually sort of flattered you thought I was cutting and pasting.
Actually, I was working from memory. I had remembered what I had read, but not where I had read it or who had written it. I couldn’t find it in my history files.
Kudos to brightlights for providing the link that I couldn’t.
Someone had posted the actual link on the very same thread that you then posted your “remembrance” on. I had read the text at their link, then later saw your uncanny recital. What a blessing to have a memory such as yours.
If I really had an uncanny memory I would have remembered where I had read it, or who had written it, or at least recognized the link when I saw it.
Nope. I was drawing a complete blank on those details and all I could remember was the content. For the most part.
The benzodiazepine family have a nasty paradoxical side effect in some people where the opposite of what its suppose to happens. Instead of calming, you rage. And if you’re taking it for rage it might actually make it worse.
Have they announced what meds, besides Valium he was on?
If people hesitate to believe the narrative being pushed by the FBI, it is the FBIs fault. From Hasan to Mateen to Hodgkinson, they have worked hard to pound the square peg of reality into the nice FBI approved round hole of Washington bureaucratic PC.
Even in this case, they have pushed a narrative forward rather than let us decide who this guy is or isn’t by telling the truth. Their press conferences are full of half truths, conflation and avoidance.
Now like one of your earlier posters, I had ascribed to the theory that Paddock, sans being crazy or an ISIS terrorist, may be been targeting the gun control debate by literally being Diane Feinstein best friend. He ran down the entire list of anti-gun/pro gun arguments and destroyed the pro gun side. Heck he even put Tannerite and aluminum nitrate in his truck, even though they do not go together. It was like he wanted the “explosives found in vehicle” headline.
What is causing a good deal of the problem is the lies or avoidance in the press conferences. First there was no second person in the room, the room service for two was a mistake, him talking to another person in front of the room service employee was him just trying to “throw them off” (of what??).
I watched two press conferences, the last one the Sheriff did and the Undersheriff. The Sheriff read the FBI approved statement but you could tell he was uncomfortable, in fact I could have sworn he was blinking Morse Code with his eyes saying “They are making me say these things HELP!” The Undersheriff was aggressive in his stance that he was going to confront the rumors, until the “rumor” of the room key being used the same time the van was gone came up. Then it was this weak “Uh, I wasn’t aware of that.” At the same time they were running down the woman Paddock was with. The woman they denied existed.
Now to the real police issues. I was a detective for a generation. My colleagues and I talked about this case. One subscribes to him losing his mind. The others, including me, think Paddock was not crazy. He was intelligent, planning, detailed and committed to something. And something triggered him.
The authorities conflated a key piece of evidence by saying Paddock hoarded guns for two decades. That is not true. Because they also say he bought 30 in twelve months out of forty something. So as a detective looking for a trigger you start looking what happened a year ago that might have driven this excellerated gun buying. Something that happened a year ago…hmmm….anyone? Anyone? Bueller, Bueller?
I agree with the criminal psychiatrist on FOX who stated that young mass killers do it for attention and fame. Older ones tend to do it to make a statement or effect change- like James Hodgkinson shooting Republicans. He targeted them by stalking them for months. He had Scalise’s face on his computer and according to Mo Brooks he shot past Brooks at Scalise.
The FBI refused to call it domestic terrorism just an assault. Virginia disagreed calling it targeted domestic terrorism .
Now we have the FBI letting it out second hand that the hooker said Paddock was paranoid and conspiratorial, fitting the crazy white guy narrative. I would rather talk to her. Because if she picked that up in a couple of days but the girlfriend came in and said she didn’t see anything wrong and he was nice and good to her, then she’s lying.
Mass killers always have a reason, even if it one we cannot fathom. It is the motive that drives them to the extremes. We may find out Paddock needed a tin foil hat, but so did James Hodgkinson and he knew what he was doing to.
“..Now we have the FBI letting it out second hand that the hooker said Paddock was paranoid and conspiratorial, fitting the crazy white guy narrative. I would rather talk to her. Because if she picked that up in a couple of days but the girlfriend came in and said she didn’t see anything wrong and he was nice and good to her, then she’s lying…”
No, the girlfriend isn’t lying. She is no doubt in denial. Pollack was infamous in at least one hotel/casino Starbucks for being verbally abusive toward her. He was domineering and would berate her in public, before staff and other customers. She would shrink into her seat and just say “OK” in response to whatever abuse came out of her mouth.
As far as prostitutes go I have plenty of experience with them. No, not what you think. I spent 20 years in the Navy and hookers are just fixtures in the social scene. In fact you are pretty safe in concluding that every woman you’re going to meet in every bar, karaoke lounge, or disco from Pohang in South Korea to Mombasa in Kenya is a hooker.
The mayor of Mombasa confirmed this suspicion when he sent a nasty letter to our battle group commander after the ships left port (I didn’t join my unit until after the battle group returned back to the states). Everybody was worried about AIDS so when they got off the ship they got hotel rooms and just sat around the pool drinking Tusker lagers. The mayor was furious; the bar owners and hoteliers had at great expense imported prostitutes from all over East Africa and it was a complete bust for them and the girls.
Even in a sophisticated modern dictatorship like Singapore, all the women you’re going to meet if you go to the usual Sailor places are going to be hookers. There’s a shopping mall on Orchard Rd. and when the retail shops close down the discos and bars open up. We affectionately called it “Four floors of wh&res.” When I’m in Bangkok I DO NOT want to hang out in some dreary bar where bored German tourists are watching naked chicks from some Chang Mai hill tribe shoot darts out of their “ahem” and pop balloons. So I’d hang out at the King’s X where they have board games under the bar including my favorite Jenga. If it’s not too busy the bartender or one of the waitresses will play it with you.
Just tip big because time is money and if the girls are hanging out with you instead of using their time more productively, IYKWIMAITYD, they still have to feed their illegitimate kids (after two nights of singing karaoke with a working girl in Hat Yai she started bringing in family pictures because I guess we had become friends).
And much as I learned to like prostitutes they’re the last people I’d trust to give anyone a mental health evaluation. So I’m going to take this Vegas hooker’s diagnosis that Paddock was paranoid with a large portion of the contents of a salt mine.
Paddock seems to be an industrial-grade a-hole with violent rape fantasies and a mean SOB but he was no Laughner or, for that matter, Colorado theater shooter James Holmes.
Laughner had been barred from Pima County Community College because of his mental health issues. His parents knew something was wrong with him but they thought he was on drugs. On the advice of the campus police Laughner’s dad took away his shotgun, the only firearm he suspected Jared had until he found out his son had bought a Glock after the shooting in Tucson.
Holmes hadn’t been barred from his medical school’s campus yet, but mental health professionals had notified campus police that they believed he was dangerous. Like Laughner family and friends knew he had issues, but they didn’t know what exactly those issues were or how serious they were. Even casual acquaintances knew they had issues. Neither one of them could find work because they both sounded off warning bells with potential employers. Holmes had applied to join a shooting club and the club rejected him because, as the manager of the club put it, his “bizarre” behavior.
Paddock was nothing like this. Unless you’re going to count the hookers he hired as business associates, his business associates thought he was perfectly normal. Paddock had friends who thought he was not only normal and well adjusted but thought he was a genius.
Paddock certainly wasn’t criminally insane, and unlike Laughner and Holmes it’s too late to evaluate him. Unless he has some sort of physical condition like the Texas Tower shooter (he had a brain tumor) the idea that he was descending into madness assumes facts not in evidence.
Did the physician who prescribed him Valium in June notice anything unusual about his mental condition? Apparently not.
Unless the autopsy reveals something unusual I’m going to have to dismiss any law enforcement claim that he was deranged and conclude they found something about his motives, intentions, and likely his affiliations that they don’t want to make public.
Yes! Thumbs down! That’s more like it, you petulant idiots.
I like that. I’ve been there twice, and on the surface it looks just like a free country, but if you pay attention you notice what lies below the surface. Listen to what people are not saying; some of them can not say things very loudly. Watch them try out their increasing freedom by telling harmless little political jokes that their parents would never have dared to tell. Read the signs and posters. The slogans painted in schoolyards. There’s a “Speakers’ Corner”, but every time I passed it it was empty; reading the prominently posted set of rules for using it explained why. Lovely place, lovely people, but perhaps their next big engineering project should be to put a dome over the whole thing and air condition it. But I wouldn’t want to live where one has to watch what one says.
But I wouldn’t want to live where one has to watch what one says.
California.
D.C.
NYC.
most any college campus in the US.
I live in NYC, in a “liberal” neighborhood even by NYC standards, and I say exactly what I like, with absolutely no fear of suffering any legal consequences for it.
It’s time to remove the barriers to mental health treatment in this country. There is such a stigma behind it that many avoid treatment because of how knowledge of the treatment will negatively impact their lives.
John Ringo, the sci-fi writer, has a post on drug interaction based on an experience with his wife (Glenn Reynolds posted it too). At this point it remains a theory but a plausible on. Paddock was like mentally ill, but this attack was carefully thought out. More Unibomber than Jared Loughner.
John Ringo’s Wife was on Cymbalta, a powerful SSNRI, for months. Is there any evidence Paddock was on any psychotropic drugs in the SSRI/SSNRI class?
So far all I’ve seen is that he had one script for one month’s worth of Valium back in June. Completely different class of drug, and no evidence of long term use.
I think people are really reaching on that one.
We do not know the facts. The police are being rather mum on all of this. The point is Paddock was profoundly evil, but completely disciplined in his execution. Not your typical mad man.
Could he had suffered a personality shift, was he running drugs and the gambling was a cover for that, was there drug interaction with some unknown psychotropic drug–we wait to find out.
“The point is Paddock was profoundly evil, but completely disciplined in his execution. Not your typical mad man.”
This made me guffaw.
I’m reminded of the comment of a friend of mine concerning the movie “Willow”; “The dragon wasn’t very realistic”.
A good ol’ psychopath CAN be VERY cunning and disciplined. There’s NOTHING “typical” about them. They exist in the world of ATYPICAL. You might as well try to define what a “realistic” dragon would be.
“He also took at least 11 other cruises to other destinations over the last several years, the AP reported.”
Damn you, Norway!!!
Yahoo news reports:
“… As authorities search for a motive, Paddock’s finances have become a significant focal point — most notably, 200-plus casino or wire transactions by Paddock that were flagged for review by FinCEN, the U.S. government’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which collects data to identify potential money laundering or covert terrorism financing. The FBI is also reviewing transactions by Danley that were flagged by FinCEN. According to a source familiar with the probe, the various transactions date back to 2014 and are being vigorously investigated. The sources said one transaction that has drawn significant attention is a $100,000 transfer to the Philippines by either Paddock or Danley prior to Sunday’s shooting. Danley was in the Philippines when Paddock opened fire on the crowd in Las Vegas.
A call to the FBI’s field office requesting comment was not returned. Danley returned to the U.S. on Tuesday night and is cooperating with the investigation, authorities said.
The FBI has not ruled out terrorism as a potential motive for Paddock’s shooting rampage, but a source familiar with the probe told Yahoo that there has been no evidence developed linking him to extremism…”
https://www.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/las-vegas-investigation-focuses-paddocks-finances-travel-sources-162657792.html
I’m not going go into all the reasons why it’s preposterous that Paddock and his girlfriend had a “mom and pop” gun running operation. But like the FBI I can’t rule out that this shooting was terrorism-related. Unlike the FBI, if I uncovered evidence that it was terrorism-related I would definitely tell you. There are quite a few circumstances where I can imagine that the FBI wouldn’t.
As a matter of fact, if evidence starts to turn up that points to an IS link we’ll be entering the same phase of this theatrical production that we enter when it turns out that some Muslim posted a video manifesto to his facebook page professing his allegiance to IS, complete with the black flag of IS hanging on his bedroom wall in the background. And then went off to run down as many infidels in his car as possible before emerging with a butcher knife shouting “Allahu Akbar” and trying to hack up a few more before the police gun him down.
The “We may never know why” phase.
Steve Wynn said in the years he went to his casino, none of the staff saw him ever drink alcohol (compare that to that shot of him taking a shot). Wynn said that he was remarkable for being unremarkable. A moderate gambler (by his standards) who paid his bills on time. Wynn said he would have sent staff to the room to check a DND after 12 hours (primarily to make sure the guest was ok).
I am not sure what to make of this, other than there is more to this than has been revealed.
Jered Loughner was not a psychopath. He was nuts, but that is NOT the same thing. Far from it.
You’ve perhaps known a few psychopaths. I certainly have. They often exist in a completely “non-dangerous” form you’ll see in various organizations. They would never, ever do anything that overtly broke the law, though they DO break the law very commonly. They simply are not going to expose themselves by doing anything physically dangerous.
Read “Snakes In Suits”.
A true psychopath (a very hard thing to accurately diagnose, BTW) is often a very high-achiever, and is often seen as a wonderful person by those who know them.
There is definitely a 243 machine gun.
If there is a M243 it has as much in common with either the FN MAG-derived M240 and M249 as the M242.
The M242 is also known as the Bushmaster 25mm chain gun, a crew served cannon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=J3cAu2hAdJQ
“M242 Bushmaster Chain Gun Live Fire And Training”
So much for the idea that there is something to the idea that there is a “240 series” that are all “basically the same gun.”
I’m a day late to this.
You beat me to it. Thanks.
InEssence is more clueless than a 12 year old playing Call of Duty and is a Full of $#!+ as the diaper of a baby with diarrhea.
Why he thinks he can get away with such on this venue, of all places, astounds me.
I worked on military weapons both Active Duty Army and Federal Civil Service for the Army over the course of 25 years.
* …If there is a M243 it has as much in common with either the FN MAG-derived M240 and THE MINIMI-DERIVED M249 as the M242.
Yes, there’s a M243
It’s an effing toy for miniature modellers.
Google, Bing etc are you friend.
Where you find a SAW, you find links, since it’s belt-fed.
Show us the links, nutter.
Prescription drugs. Big Pharma likes to quash their drug peddling side-effects like Hollywood likes to quash their sexual abuses.
I think his intention was not terrorism beyond terrorizing 22,000 people. His intention was to kill, kill, kill. Plain and simple. Well, not so simple.
A couple more points. First, he calculated the trajectory of a falling bullet but I don’t think he calculated the physical physical strain of firing that many shots that quickly. While he was a tall and large man, he was not fit. The combination of the strain of firing, the flying casings, the heat and smoke of the shots, and the burning of the guns had to be daunting for a soldier let alone a 64 year old man.
Second, while everyone is concentrating on the lack of a motive, there has to be more evidence in this case than in the Hillary email scandal. He was monitored by cameras for several days or weeks in Vegas 24/7 with the exception of when he was in his room. He may have had no social footprint as reported incessantly, but he had multiple phones, cameras, cars, homes and computers. None of which he attempted to destroy like Hillary, the San Bernardino terrorists or Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s IT guys. This WILL be the biggest investigation since JFK.
Paddock was nothing at all like Loughner, who was INCOMPETENT. What an absurd comparison. Paddock had some evil motive that is yet to be positively identified. He was highly competent in acting upon whatever hatred motivated him. There is no hint at all that his motivation was NOT political.
On the other hand, there is substantial evidence that he was ISIS: namely that ISIS says so and they have not yet been found to be lying about such claims. (The one supposed example to the contrary is very much in question.)
Substantial evidence vs. no evidence and LI is going with no evidence? Sheesh.
ISIS lies constantly. They’ve taken “credit” for things the Taliban has done.
Most of what they put out is pure propaganda. Wake the fluck up!
The latest news:
1. Paddock checked into the Mandalay Bay on Sept 25, not Sept 28 as previously reported. How can the police have discovered this a week into the investigation? Something stinks!!
2. The Mandalay Bay security guard was shot at 9:58, BEFORE the attack on the concert attendees. If 200 rounds were fired down the hotel corridor, were these part of the 9:58 attack? Security guard radioed to his command post BEFORE the attack on the concert. So why didn’t the security command post notify Metro promptly (if there was in fact a delay)? Why did Metro take so long to find Paddock’s room in relation to the new time of the attack on the guard?
3. If the guard was shot before Paddock opened fire on the concert, shouldn’t there have been steps taken before the massacre?
4. How could Metro have gotten this information so badly wrong?
This is getting very strange. Might the conspiracy nuts be right? Even a broken clock ….
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-vegas-shooting-20171009-story.html
Seriously? WTF Kevin?
Funny how leftists see racism where I see common sense.
Sure, white people can absolutely be terrorists. But when you see a mass shooting by a white man, it usually is either a mentally disturbed man or a teenager/college student who wants to commit suicide in a blaze of glory.
That’s just paying attention to the odds. Which is appropriate for the venue of the crime.