You know what is the worst thing about today — the first full day after a horrible mass shooting in the United States?
[UPDATE – Extremely graphic NSFW disturbing video can be seen here — view at your on risk]The worst thing is that there is nothing to say that hasn’t been said previously in other horrible mass shootings.
We bicker about “thoughts and prayers” versus action. We question the motives of the shooter. We praise the first responders. We look to our Congresspeople for solutions. We’re told that “the time isn’t right” for solutions… again. And no solutions come, except for some mumblings about mental illness reform, which does nothing. The debate goes quickly from mass shootings to the second amendment rights of gun owners. It’s the same debate. And in the end, nothing changes.
It’s the same song. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Why does this happen? Steve Israel knows:
First, just like everything else in Washington, the gun lobby has become more polarized. The National Rifle Association, once a supporter of sensible gun-safety measures, is now forced to oppose them because of competing organizations. More moderation means less market share. The gun lobby is in a race to see who can become more brazen, more extreme.
Second, congressional redistricting has pulled Republicans so far to the right that anything less than total subservience to the gun lobby is viewed as supporting gun confiscation. The gun lobby score is a litmus test with zero margin for error.
Third, the problem is you, the reader. You’ve become inoculated. You’ll read this essay and others like it, and turn the page or click another link. You’ll watch or listen to the news and shake your head, then flip to another channel or another app. This horrific event will recede into our collective memory.
That’s what the gun lobbyists are counting on. They want you to forget. To accept the deaths of at least 58 children, parents, brothers, sisters, friends as the new normal. To turn this page with one hand, and use the other hand to vote for members of Congress who will rise in another moment of silence this week. And next week. And the foreseeable future.
Yup.
We don’t know a whole lot more than we did about the shooter. Focus gas turned to Marilou Danley, the Las Vegas shooter’s live-in girlfriend who left the country before Stephen Paddock gunned down 59 people outside the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. Paddock wired $100,000 to an account in Danley’s home country of the Philippines last week. She’s out of the country, but police are going to talk to her when she returns. With no evidence, right wing conspiracy theorists are convinced she as an ISIS connection and converted Paddock to Islam.
Also, via The New York Post:
The shooter had at least one lens set up to tape himself as he unleashed hell on thousands of unsuspecting concertgoers several hundred yards below his ritzy casino suite, according to ABC News.
Apparently knowing cops would eventually catch up to him, he also wired cameras in the hallway outside his room so he could see when the heat was getting close, the Daily Mail reported.
There have been reports, though not really confirmed, that he was actually a wealthy man, perhaps a real investor. As said above, he wired his girlfriend $100,000 a week ago. But he also reportedly rented a series of condos over another outdoor concert that he had apparently considered attacking before choosing this country music concert. Those certainly suggest a decent amount of liquid assets, though if you knew you were about to end your life a middle-class person could likely sell things and come up with that amount of cash.
The Washington Post says “He liked to bet big, wagering tens of thousands of dollars in a sitting. He owned homes in four states but preferred staying in casino hotels, sometimes for weeks at a time, as he worked the gambling machines.” Card counters and professional card players can win over time at casinos. But most people don’t. And it doesn’t sound like Paddock did the kind of gambling where you can win, over time.
There’s also this new AP story which seems to suggest he hadn’t been employed in almost thirty years. According to this timeline, he worked for the post office from 1976 to 1978. He graduated college in 1977. He worked as an IRS agent from 1978 to 1984. He then worked for a defense auditing job for a year and a half. The AP also says he “worked for a defense contractor in the late 1980s.”
Maybe like father, like son?