People who thought they knew Paddock said they were completely unaware of his gun collection. Authorities say he purchased 33 of his firearms, most of them rifles, over the past year.Either not a gun nut, or he was already planning this crime when he started buying guns last October.
Probably not a gun nut; one commenter pointed out that careful aimed fire likely would have killed more people.
John Ringo, the mil-sci-fi author, has a theory worth contemplating.
ReplyDeleteSome News sources say he began "Stockpiling" arms in 1982, which in truth is probably when he purchased his first pistol. What will tell us whether he was a "Gun nut" or not is how often he practiced, where and with what guns. Oswald practiced with his Carcano quite often as did other shooters. But this guy may have never fired the majority of the rifles until the night of the attack. What seems to have been the plan was to set up each gun to empty one magazine as quickly as possible, drop the gun, and then pick-up and use the next. No magazine swap issues including accidentally trying to put the wrong magazine in the wrong gun.
ReplyDeleteAnd, in truth, I do believe he some how expected to escape. The idea again being he would leave the guns (all of them behind) as so much trash. I wonder if he had a plane at Las Vegas airport, and I wonder do we have an extradition treaty with the Philippines?
I'm not sure how you "carefully aim fire" with a bump stock, or even just normal semi-auto fire as fast as you can pull the trigger, particularly at that range. Seems more likely his goal was to put as many rounds down range as possible before the crowd dispersed.
ReplyDeleteMaybe a bit of OCD?
ReplyDeleteThat link Anthony gave above, to John Ringo's theory, may well be one of the answers we've been looking for.
ReplyDeleteIn that link John Ringo discusses his wife's uncharacteristic planning to kill certain sex offenders. She was on a psychotropic drug which changed her thinking, and it was only that she sought treatment that averted a tragedy.
It appears that the shooter was on diazepam (Valium) which is known to have side effects including aggressive behavior and psychotic episodes:
http://therightscoop.com/breaking-las-vegas-shooter-was-on-powerful-anti-anxiety-meds/
Two comments..
ReplyDeleteFirst, valium causes aggressive behavior? If so, that's a paradoxical reaction, since valium is a sedative - it calms people down. It can reduce inhibitions, so if he was on the edge, it might have allowed him to go over, but he was probably headed there anyway in that case.
About aimed fire... for the first 10 seconds, it might have been helpful. After that, people were in panicked motion, and would have been hard to hit. And, the range was 400 yards, which compounds the problem when people are moving.
Aggressive behavior and psychotic episodes.
ReplyDeleteAnd doctors were prescribing Valium to housewives like it was aspirin back in the seventies? Could this explain some portion of the high divorce rate? (and other things then?)