Shooting in Las Vegas – 50 dead and 200+ injured.
Killer named als 64 Year old Stephen Paddock from Mesquite, Nevada at border with Arizona. Lived previously in Reno Nevada. A reckoning to devisiveness in America of last decades. Thx to the likes of president Trump.
Mesquite is a prevalent white community with solely a Mexican minority of 27%. Appears to be a segregated community of elderly senior white citizens, mean average age far above median for Nevada.
Mesquite: Race and Ethnicity
https:/statisticalatlas.com/place/Nevada/Mesquite/Race-and-Ethnicity
Knowing nothing other than age, sex, and residence, this guy would have fit right in with any similar retirement community that dot AZ, CA, and NV. Probably not much different from those in other states, but I’m only familiar with those in the west. I jokingly refer to the Del Webb Sun Cities as the more bucks than brains old folks homes.
Mesquite, NV is further from the beaten track than most (and the comparable house prices reflect that by being about a third less costly), but they all start off that way. Get a large swath of cheap land, build big ass houses (1,500 – 4,000 sf with 2 or 3 garages), old people with bucks move in, and all the supporting facilities, stores and medical operations (hip and knee replacements are big sellers), quickly follow. These old couples “need” 2,500 sf and three garages for all their toys.
They may be overwhelmingly white, but they are not segregated. Not so many AAs, but overt racism towards residents is so low that it can appear to be non-existent. Asian Americans seem to like these retirement communities.
Politically, generalizing from what I know first hand, these are GOP and Trump voters. At least by 65% to 35%, but wouldn’t be surprised if it were closer to 90% to 10%. Hillary didn’t have a chance with the women in these communities.
Big, shiny new pick-up trucks and SUVs are parked in one of those garages in most of the houses. Sport shooting is a popular activity. That and gun ownership rates seem to be higher than that in non-retirement suburbia. A handgun plus a couple of rifles isn’t odd. From their perch, the NRA way — safety comes when everyone owns guns — is logical and rational because violent outsiders rarely mess with them.
This Mesquite/LV mass killer will be dismissed as mentally ill, but just sane enough not to perpetrate his crime in their well-armed community. (The suicide and murder suicide rate with a gun or by other means is extremely low.)
WRT to the profile of this mass killer, this guy is off the charts. Primarily too old. If he didn’t have serious financial distress, that would put him even further off the charts. An extreme outlier today, but who knows about tomorrow.
Guy is a millionaire, living the American dream?
One hitch his daddy … in same geographical area, once gained fame or infamy:
10 MOST WANTED BY FBI —-
Benjamin Hoskins Paddock
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/10/vegas-shooters-father-was-on-fbi-most-wanted-list.html
We’ll have to wait for more verifiable information. Will surmise that at some point he had accumulated enough to be considered wealthy, but the reality and what he led others to believe may have been quite different. And it’s entirely possible that in the past few years, he ran through most of what he had.
So far doubt that his bank robber father figures into this in any way. The criminal intents have little in common with each other and crossover from one type of crime to another is rare. Plus, criminal proclivities that develop in a home don’t hang around for 64 years before being expressed.
This one isn’t fitting into any of the known boxes for a criminal mass shooting. The motivation may have been no more than because he could do it once he had all the pieces together.
Defence: insanity. Between the links I read the siblings’ father was psychopatic. Wasn’t this description also used in a press conference by the Las Vegas chief of police.
With no criminal record, nor military obsession or trauma … I plead insanity … collectiing massive amounts of guns and ammo, even explosive materials.
To plan and execute a mass slaughter of innocent persons you are not related to, is simply cowardly and insane.
Isn’t that what some in the US military do everyday?
Of course some will plead insanity — it’s the legal term for not right in the head at the time the crime was committed. It’s not a medical or psych term.
An Overview
While psychopathy fits the father — evidence of charm and con-artist — not as easy a fit for this guy. Schizoid PD would be closer. He was not mentally disorganized.
I have been meaning to write something on this subject since the Las Vegas massacre. You beat me to it. You (and Oui) write:
It is what many members of every military organization do…not every day, but quite regularly throughout the whole of human history.
Is it “insane?”
I guess that depends on your definition of the word.
Is following orders insane?
Is giving My Lai-like orders insane? If so, why aren’t the higher officers in that massacre ensconced in padded cells instead of domestically retired or peacefully (Finally!!!) dead?
Is situational morality/situational ethics in play here? I suppose so. If people are willing pawns of a murderous government and support that government’s depredations even if they themselves take no active part in them, are they then guilty too? (See Hiroshima/Nagasaki/Dresden for the historical U.S. answer, please. My Lai, too.) What if they are truly not capable of understanding what is happening…are not being given the facts and/or are not smart enough to figure them out for themselves. What then? How far down the line does the guilt really go?
Damned if I know.
Paddock dizzed out trying to answer those sorts of questions, I think. Lost it entirely. Or maybe he just went broke. We’re probably not going to find out, because the mass media are going to walk a very thin line on this one, a line dictated to them from above. Way above.
He hasn’t been alone, that’s for sure. From whistleblowers right on down to jes’ plain folks…which Paddock seemed to be until suddenly he wasn’t… more and more people are being forced to deal with these questions.
My own questions about Paddock are the following. And about his girlfriend, as well. If reports are true and he had 17 guns in his room…where did he get them all; how did he transport them all to his hotel room and what the fuck is Marilou Danley expecting when she says what a surprise this all is?
What?
She didn’t notice? 17 guns? He didn’t act a little…different???
Please!!!
AG
P.S. We are hearing almost nothing about Danley. Why? Is she the real smoking gun in this murderous tale?
Could be…
P.S. Now Marilou Danley wasn’t in Vegas when the shooting started. From NBC:
A “recent flame,” eh?
I’m smelling some smoke.
Will we get the real story?
I doubt it.
Probably more like several “real stories.”
That’s the way they run it now…
Watch.
AG
P.P.S.Here’s the story so far on Danley. Sparse, but…interesting.
Think this shooting is being marked by the rest of the worlds leaders with condolences sent in 180 character tweets. He’s not getting anything to put in his library/scrap book. Just possible record disrespect from the world.
Finally a rational report instead of all the breathless repetitions of the LV shooter’s gambling – Stephen Paddock and the World of Video Poker
A professional gambler (at least one that earns a living from it) doesn’t do slots, even if the machine says poker.
Still waiting for a complete report on the guy’s financial position and an accounting for how he made all those millions, including the deductions for his big spending habits that appear to go back a long way.