I Live in Las Vegas
I live in Las Vegas. After every major terrorist attack in every remote corner of the world, I would hear poker players and casino workers wondering aloud when such violence would eventually visit itself upon Vegas with its multiple, crowded venues lined up every weekend like sitting ducks. It was inevitable, was it not, or was the secret Vegas security protecting this billion dollar tourist economy really that infallible?
Given that fact that nothing major had threatened those sitting ducks in the sixteen years since 9/11, I quietly made the mistake of assuming that the security boys were really that good.
Then, the worst mass-shooting in US history occurred with relative ease in Las Vegas by the hand of the most bizarre breed of lone wolf. Not a man indoctrinated into pathological insanity by a demented ideology, but a crazy man without any ideology whatsoever. A sick man. A very sick man and apparently, a very angry man. Angry with himself? Angry with others? Angry with everyone and everything?
Consequently, the post-massacre debate making the media rounds this time is not about a whack-a-doodle cult serving a demented prophet, rather, the majority of the outcry is focussed on the American obsession with guns. A tiny minority is mentioning that this senseless massacre that devastated hundreds of families is about a man without any God whatsoever. A warning sign of a very different America from the one many of us grew up in that has long since ceased to exist.
Once again, I find myself among the smallest of minorities.
Given that fact that nothing major had threatened those sitting ducks in the sixteen years since 9/11, I quietly made the mistake of assuming that the security boys were really that good.
Then, the worst mass-shooting in US history occurred with relative ease in Las Vegas by the hand of the most bizarre breed of lone wolf. Not a man indoctrinated into pathological insanity by a demented ideology, but a crazy man without any ideology whatsoever. A sick man. A very sick man and apparently, a very angry man. Angry with himself? Angry with others? Angry with everyone and everything?
Consequently, the post-massacre debate making the media rounds this time is not about a whack-a-doodle cult serving a demented prophet, rather, the majority of the outcry is focussed on the American obsession with guns. A tiny minority is mentioning that this senseless massacre that devastated hundreds of families is about a man without any God whatsoever. A warning sign of a very different America from the one many of us grew up in that has long since ceased to exist.
Once again, I find myself among the smallest of minorities.
date
newest »
newest »
Hi, David, my sympathy is with all you guys in Las Vegas.
We thank all of you good GR readers for your expressions of sympathy. I am as curious as any spectator how the shooter's motives may feed the ongoing cultural debates, but his motives mean absolutely nothing to the families who have suffered such heartbreaking losses.
President Quack-quack is in town to offer his condolences. If I do anything besides shake my head or laugh at his pontificating, I will be pleasantly surprised. As most of you know, my expectations would be exactly the same if Pilloried Hillary were the President.
I suppose the political class from around the world would be criticized if they did not feed at the trough of these tragedies, but their porcine posing always strikes me as disingenuous.
David, "why???" [motives!!], is (and will be) for many of those families a source of worry, search for TRUTH...closure...,and justice.
Some won't be satisfied with some (fake?) narratives.
Perhaps, amigo, but no explanation will bring back their loved one.
That's unbearably true.Allow me a strange (psychological) experiment; suppose you were targeted by...it doesn't matter. You just know you'll die at the hands of some sinister force; more powerful than you are. You can't control it. And you've got those who love you, but you know you'll die maybe suddenly, without warning.... Would you like them to know, after your death, the nature of that force, which struck you?
Can you put yourself in the place of a victim?
The post massacre debate should clarify if he really was a lone wolf, or was helped by other shooters. The narrative we get from the media is that he had "gambling debts"... had a Filipino woman, ...many guns stored, and passed all checks. Also some media said that Antifa lit was found in his hotel room. I heard also an American psychiatrist saying he targeted "Christian, conservative Americans". Evidently young people. But what were his motives?
There's yet a lot to be uncovered.