I’ve held back in commenting on the Las Vegas massacre until I’d had some time to think it over. Plainly the shooter, a gun collector, wasn’t angry at the people he killed and wounded. Like them, he was very likely a conservative. Like them, he probably even liked country music.
No, they were just targets of opportunity. A huge gathering beneath his sniper’s nest in the hotel, easy pickins for a deranged maniac. You’d have to be mentally ill to want to kill and wound hundreds of innocent people you didn’t even know. Unless your motive was political, religious or social. None of which seem to apply here.
The country really is sick in many ways. The news media/entertainment industries, particularly, stoke it with their daily fixations on violence. The crazy politicos who immediately talk of seizing guns from the law-abiding as a solution to mental illness. The 59 dead (so far) just about equal the shooting dead in Chicago in one month, a place where guns are strictly regulated for the law-abiding. Criminals can get anything, including guns.
No, mental illness seems to be the issue here, but no politico and few public figures are talking about it. Even President Trump, a non-politician if there ever was one, fell back on Judaeo-Christian, debatable, “pure evil” as an explanation.
UPDATE: J.D. has a sensible explanation for Paddock’s multiple rifles I haven’t seen elsewhere: “Full auto and more than about twenty rounds would definitely lead to overheating and jamming of these sorts of weapons…A rifle, being more tightly bored relative to the projectile(s) going down it, is significantly more susceptible to heat, and distortion, and eventual rupture. That’s probably why this Vegas dipshit supplied himself with multiple weapons, planning for that eventuality.”
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 
Stanley, I think the whole thing is so fishy it stinks on ice. But I may be way off with that thought. I used to have a rule of thumb “wait about a week for the truth to start coming out in the media”.
Could take about a week for the cops to get it together and the details to leak. Used to be we were pretty careful. We could afford to be since the papers and tv were making plenty of money. No need to be sensational, like now, when profits are low and audience slim. Breitbart and Fox do it pretty well. And PJMedia. I pretty much ignore the rest of the pack.
Thought’s on Vegas:
All the photos of the interior that I have seen Have that “posed” look to them. That’s just a feeling, no evidence.
Also, why would you have a short bipod on your weapon when you shooting down at such an angle?
Why would you need (want) 19 weapons? I can understand some things, but somethings are strange.
Strange is the very definition of mental illness.
I said what I wanted to say over at my place, but it occurred to me later, if you are spray-shooting in sorta full auto down on people’s heads, why the hell do you need scoped weapons?
Rather than spray-n-pray, he’d have killed a lot more using the scopes and semi-auto mode. Might have been harder to catch him, too. Beats me. Maybe he just liked the sound of full auto.
JD,
“if you are spray-shooting in sorta full auto down on people’s heads, why the hell do you need scoped weapons?” that occurred to me also. I just put it down to the “posed” look. I beginning to think he was just a perfect fall guy for these guys. Just smart enough to think he was in on the deal right up to the point they got what they needed out of him and shot him.
Actually, how can you use a scope very well with the weapon on full auto, or with this “bump stock” thingy?
I dunno. I have never been worth a shit with a scope. I try to take too fine an aim, I guess. The peep sight was good enough to qualify me at 500 yards with the M-14, so I don’t think I need a scope. There have been times hunting squirrels, though…
I’m ok with a scope, but that’s it ok. Much more comfortable with an open V sight.