October 2, 2017

Scott Adams speculates about the Las Vegas shooter.

On Periscope.

"It feels like the most likely motive is that he was a little deranged, but it was an anti-Trump statement."

AND: Here's speculation from David French (at National Review):
[A] person who’s “not a gun guy” [according to brother] has either expended untold thousands of dollars to legally purchase fully-automatic weapons, somehow found them on the black market, or purchased and substantially modified multiple semi-automatic weapons — and did so with enough competence to create a sustained rate of fire. This same person also spent substantial sums purchasing just the right hotel room to maximize casualties. I cannot think of a single other mass shooter who went to this level of expense and planning in the entire history of the United States.

And there was no real warning? His family was unaware? His brother also reported that the shooter had no meaningful political or religious affiliations. “He just hung out.” At the same time, however, there are reports that a woman told a group of concert-goers, “You’re all going to die tonight.”

223 comments:

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HT said...

His "friends" would still have his comments on their pages, though, right? Twitter, etc...There's gotta be stuff up there that someone has, just not us.

Ken Mitchell said...

Adams isn't that stupid; not only are there many thousands of dollars in the purchase of any fully-automatic "NFA" weapon (National Firearms Act of 1939), but there is also a background check to get an FFLIII (Class III Federal Firearms License) AND a horrendous stack of paperwork. The idea that somebody would purchase SEVERAL of these is ludicrous.

This is a terrorist attack. We haven't discovered the connection(s) yet, but somebody knows something. My fear is that the government will pretend to know nothing about it, because they were negligent in allowing this to happen. Perhaps a "Son of Gunwalker"

OLDFART said...

It is not surprising that the usual mistake of the left progressive gun grabber is once again discussed. Since the depression era it has been illegal to purchase or possess a fully automatic weapon.

Also other clueless commenters have said that a silencer would gave made the noise from the rifle fire inaudible to potential victims. That is false, silencer only suppress the gunshot report towards the rear, the full report is audible in front of the weapon.

Ken Mitchell said...

Blogger TreeJoe said...
"I'm curious to find out more about the weapons used. Based solely upon listening to the tapes and the fact he was firing with decent accuracy at 400 yards,"

Objection; assumes facts not in evidence. "Spray and Pray" shooting with a full auto weapon isn't normally very accurate, but with 20,000 people jammed up below you doesn't require much skill to hit 600+ people. I'm presuming that the killer was only interested in the body count, but here's an interesting side note; over a dozen California law enforcement officers were wounded. Seems there was a police conference nearby, and many cops - presumably from many departments, but the Sacramento radio news reports only mentioned California cops - were in attendance at the concert. Is it possible that the killer knew that, and has a grudge with cops in general?

Michael said...

Silencers are mandatory on game rifles in Scotland. Protects the ears. They do not "silence" the report but muffle it. Happily the suppression is sufficient to not scare a herd, often allowing a second shot at a stag that could be over the burn.

Michael said...

This guy was shooting for over an hour. 18 minutes after the shooting began the police were "investigating a shooting" at the location. The Daily Mail reports.About 10pm: Paddock smashes out two windows on the 32nd floor with a hammer-like implement and opens fire with his arsenal of at least 19 weapons - including fully automatic weapons.
10.08pm: First phone call to police that shots had been fired at the festival outside the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip.
10.38pm: Police in Las Vegas say that they are 'investigating reports of an active shooter' near to the Mandalay Bay.
11.08pm: Las Vegas police confirm they have shut down a portion of The Strip
11.20pm: SWAT teams storm the 32nd floor room that Stephen Paddock was firing from. They gained entry using flashbangs designed to stun the shooter. Officers entered the room and found he had taken his own life. Seventy-two minutes elapsed from the first 911 call to Paddock being found dead.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4940808/Moment-police-blew-door-Las-Vegas-shooter-s-hotel-room.html#ixzz4uP7LKGC9

Guildofcannonballs said...

7.62 x .39 or 7.62 x .51?

Tim said...

Honestly, I have seen so much ignorant conjecture today, it makes me sad. Some people have posited that there were multiple shooters from the sounds they hear on the videos.
No.
If you know anything about gunshot sounds, and in particular, this type of gun, here is what you are hearing:
First, the lower-pitched Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop. of the report of the gun.
Then a higher pitched thap-thap-thap-thap-thap.
This sound is the bullets striking. Unfortunately in this case they were striking people. That is the sound of a bullet hitting flesh. So many people packed close together, well, fish in a barrel is probably apt.
then in the distance the echo, which is distinctive from the others.
The officials have not published what the automatic weapons were so far. I am guessing a full-auto AR10 modified, or an illegal M-16. I really hope they catch who sold him these arms and tear them apart.

Kelly said...

A 64 year old multimillionaire mass shooter. Brain tumor perhaps? How did he keep his murderous side concealed for so long?

Darrell said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Big Mike said...

The officials have not published what the automatic weapons were so far.

Breaking news -- it seems that they've found two semi-automatic rifles equipped with bump stocks in his hotel. They're legal, though this NRA member wonders why that should be the case. Here's video showing bump stocks in action.

Bad Lieutenant said...

I was very impressed by the Professional Russian and his bump fire stock. That seemed to work extremely well. I didn't look at videos of the attack in Las Vegas but is this a reasonable source of the observed volume of Fire? You could make this in a 3D printer, if not a woodshop so I don't see the point of banning them it's a really neat thing, wish I had one.

Earnest Prole said...

wish I had one

Don't we all, but perhaps we should wait until the bodies are cold before we say so.

Achilles said...

Details are coming out!

But not about what weapons he used. Wading through the stories written by complete fools about the weapons used... reporters are dumb. So far only .308 and .223 listed though.

72 minutes??? This lasted for 72 minutes? WTF? Nobody on the floor heard someone shooting a few thousand rounds off in the next room? Good lord.

I thought he was bad when it lasted 7-10 minutes. 72... This is a tragedy but it could have been far far worse.

Achilles said...

Big Mike said...
The officials have not published what the automatic weapons were so far.

Breaking news -- it seems that they've found two semi-automatic rifles equipped with bump stocks in his hotel. They're legal, though this NRA member wonders why that should be the case. Here's video showing bump stocks in action.

I watched the bump-stock video. Nifty. I would probably never use one though unless there was a way to lock it into semi-auto mode.

He would have killed more people using semi-auto. It is fortunate he was bad.

tim in vermont said...

I have not belonged to the NRA since Boy Scouts, but I generally support their positions, freedom and all. But I don't really see the need for this kind of firepower to be available to civilians. If a gun can be modified cheaply and easily to be this deadly, then perhaps more regulation is in order.

Snark said...

Motive is so not obvious at this point that you have to speculate that there might be something organic involved, like a brain tumour. I hope they do an autopsy.

What a nightmare for all who died and for all who will suffer. Random. Unjust.

tim in vermont said...

But Dylan Roof spoke for all Republicans. AmIRite?

tim in vermont said...

Funny how situational ethics are for Democrats.

tim in vermont said...

The Tennessee church murderer though, he didn't speak for Democrats! No siree! Nor did the Maddow fanboi who tried to murder a bunch of Republican Congressmen! After all, just because Democratic leadership and people like Maddow called them out as "mass murderers" over policy differences on health care, doesn't mean that they had any responsibility for one of their supporters to take the obvious next step!

It's pretty clear that Country music fans are held in extremely low regard based on there retrograde politics, white skin, and propensity to support Trump, but those in control of the media, but let's just forget about that and not change our rhetoric at all!

tim in vermont said...

TTR comes on here all the time and calls Republicans "mass murderers" over differences in health care policy. If you had a chance to kill Hitler, wouldn't you do it? Well a lot of people think that this guy was doing the Lord's work.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Don't we all, but perhaps we should wait until the bodies are cold before we say so.


Too soon, you mean?

Since evidently you can recreate this effect with no implements but merely technique, I don't know if it's useful to get sentimental about the device.

It's not as if the lack would have stopped him or necessarily even slowed him (aimed fire would have cause more deaths). One reason so many people are dead is because in Las Vegas it apparently takes an hour to get police to the scene of a mass shooting at the biggest hotel on the strip. Once police responded, it was all over in about 12 minutes. I guess I'm not surprised that the hotel security itself isn't prepared to kick down a door.

Bad Lieutenant said...

No surprise, Crooked Hillary is already posturing about "silencers". Maybe she got some sort of advance information that the shooter was using some sort of sound suppression device - but given that they are not an NFA device (often requiring a year of ATF processing),that one was used seems at this point, to be highly unlikely.


P.S. A suppressor would have greatly slowed the killer's fire. Suppressors, even high end ones, can't sustain high cyclic rates. You'd melt a silencer far faster than you'd melt a heavy barrel.

No silencer was used. She said IF. She took an actual tragedy and paraded her pink-elephant Horribles of If, to leech off the tragedy in order to serve her own pet cause du jour.

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