quote:

if Paddock had enough anxiety to look for help, he was troubled

This simply isn't true / doesn't necessarily mean anything useful at all.

A significant portion of the folks who are prescribed and regularly take anti anxiety and/or anti depression Rx are average husbands and housewives and working folks who have minor problems far-far-removed from "dangerous" or "dangerously troubled" and instead utilize the wonders of modern medicine - even in their imperfect ways - to smooth out what is otherwise a pain in the ass on a daily basis. Of all the folks I know who take any such thing, most are dual income households with kids who use that bit of Rx to help be consistent in their regularly productive lives, most of whom you'd never guess were the sort who are "depressed" or suffering from "anxiety attacks".

I don't take either, fwiw, don't need them, though I do take adderall for adult ADD. And I've had countless conversations with many different people about what they take and why, and have been consistently surprised by how many "normal" people take them.

Which is a world different from what you suggest.

quote:

Originally posted by justjoe:
What puzzles me about this discussion-- of possible ISIS involvement-- is that all I'm saying (and some others)-- is that this looks like it could be a carefully planned terrorist attack. Could it NOT be? Sure. I would not ridicule that possibility. I don't understand, under the circumstances, why the possibility of ISIS-connected terrorism is ridiculed. Again, not argumentative. I just don't understand that.

When any of these events happens I take the position that it is islam until proven otherwise.

Could it have been one lone nutjob who just went off? Yep. But I'll not turn my back on the possibility of those animals being behind it.

Turned on the TV a short while ago to watch something on NetFlix, and as usual the spousal unit had left it on a local station. Since it takes a few moments for the TV to finish “booting up” before I can switch to HDMI inputs, I got stuck listening to a soundbite from a reporter/ commentator / idiot discussing the “high-powered SNIPER rifles” found in the hotel room!

I do believe that’s the first time I can remember an AR-15 being referred to as a “sniper rifle”!

quote:

Originally posted by bronicabill:
Turned on the TV a short while ago to watch something on NetFlix, and as usual the spousal unit had left it on a local station. Since it takes a few moments for the TV to finish “booting up” before I can switch to HDMI inputs, I got stuck listening to a soundbite from a reporter/ commentator / idiot discussing the “high-powered SNIPER rifles” found in the hotel room!

I do believe that’s the first time I can remember an AR-15 being referred to as a “sniper rifle”!

Yep ... I actually laughed out loud when an ABC reporter referred to the shooter as using/having "heavy artillery."

quote:

Originally posted by Ozarkwoods:
I at this point in time I will not lock into just one shooter or multiple shooters. As an investigator tunnel vision is not your friend.

But video is. Enough time has elapsed that I would venture to say that ALL video from the hotel has been sifted through at the time of the event.

If there had been anyone leaving the room, evidence of other rooms being involved, anything, we'd be hearing noise of the FBI serving search warrants here or there. Or BOLO's for more "persons of interest". That hasn't happened.

This type of investigation is the super bowl for those involved. It isn't just one guy working this. It is hundreds of state, local, and federal investigators.

You can't throw a dead cat in Vegas without hitting a video camera.

I haven't watched a bit of this on the news until this morning. But I had to turn the stupid off after about 52 seconds when I heard a comment about a "bump stock turning a gun into an automatic weapon". Just about spewed my Honey Nut Cheerios all over the TV. And that was from Fox News' Brian Kilmeade, who I THOUGHT had an IQ greater than a turnip.

I laugh every time I hear the media refer to an AR-15 as a High Caliber weapon. That doesn't leave much in the low caliber category...

The tactics, choice of target(s), degree of preparation/sophistication, loner-ness, last minute international money transfer(s), and a romantic connection to a foreign national from a Muslim infested area, these are all consistent with (in a correlation sense only at this juncture) the radicalized jihad terrorist model, by an enemy known to do this very thing, on multiple occasions, who also asserts (and re-asserts) responsibility for exactly this.

Again, I hope it's not, that these are purely circumstantial factors, and I've no doubt the authorities are chasing down these answers now, but it does matter if it were an actual outside influenced attack vs just some wacko who hates country music or didn't enough hugs or had a brain tumor, in terms of how real (or not) that sort of terroristic threat is, how good (or not) we're doing at battling such enemies, and so on.

I'm simply curious, now, awaiting details, if they're ever released or known. As many have said, it could all be meaningless. But it certainly pays to find out. And they will.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: 46and2,

quote:

Originally posted by bpnkrtn:
Yep ... I actually laughed out loud when an ABC reporter refereed to the shooter as using/having "heavy artillery."

Yeah, David Muir on Monday evening's broadcast. I did the same, then said to my wife "Honey! Look! The guy had ``Heavy Artillery!``." She just shook her head.

quote:

Originally posted by erj_pilot:
I haven't watched a bit of this on the news until this morning. But I had to turn the stupid off after about 52 seconds when I heard a comment about a "bump stock turning a gun into an automatic weapon". Just about spewed my Honey Nut Cheerios all over the TV. And that was from Fox News' Brian Kilmeade, who I THOUGHT had an IQ greater than a turnip.

If we, who are people of the gun, focus on the news media's mistakes, we are going to miss the larger points that law makers will impose on our right to keep and bear arms. This guy, Joe Average, is going to do more harm to us than a handful of obvious nut bags or islamic jihadists. Our next door neighbors, and their elected officials who are ignorant don't care if the killer used an AR-15 instead of a high powered sniper rifle, or that a bump fire appliance doesn't make a semiautomatic into an automatic weapon. Calling the commentator stupid, ignores his impact, and the threat to gun ownership that this killer has unleashed.

If citizens who are unsure of their feelings about gun ownership think that anyone can become a mass murderer, they will influence their representatives to take guns away from everyone, just in case. If the killer had been a felon, or an islamic terrorist, or a gang-banger or any other identifiable dangerous character, we would not be facing the kind of anti-gun backlash, that we will be experiencing after the bodies are buried and the crime scene tape is down.

I'd like to suggest that instead of pointing out just how smart we are, and how misinformed in detail the media commentators are, we get focused on the heart of the issue.

Murder is against the law, and the killer violated that law. He represents a tiny fraction of the legal owners of firearms, and demonstrated his danger to others, by the threats that he made to his significant other. If you (the neighbors) see others, who engage in domestic violence, or demonstrated instability then say something to take action. That puts the average citizen in a position of action, and control. They can then say to themselves, hey if anyone had reported this guy, then this would not have happened. That moves the focus from the firearms, to the individual's motivation and character. In my humble opinion, that will help us keep the groundswell from sweeping through our cherished rights to keep and bear arms.

Oh, and one more thing. . . Sen Thune - would you STFU about suggesting that the victims should have done something different, or "made themselves small" when they were under attack by this maniac. That just pisses everyone off.

quote:

"Honey! Look! The guy had ``Heavy Artillery!``." She just shook her head.

Well.... it was heavy enough that he couldn't carry it all up in one trip, right?
Heavy!

quote:

heavy artillery

Even we would question how that wouldn't raise some alarm on the luggage cart....

https://www.yahoo.com/news/las...urces-162657792.html

Authorities said 12 of the rifles Paddock brought to the hotel room were equipped with so-called bump stocks — an aftermarket shoulder stock that uses a specific trigger positioning and a gun’s reciprocating energy to simulate automatic weapon fire

quote:

Originally posted by 46and2:

quote:

if Paddock had enough anxiety to look for help, he was troubled

This simply isn't true / doesn't necessarily mean anything useful at all.

A significant portion of the folks who are prescribed and regularly take anti anxiety and/or anti depression Rx are average husbands and housewives and working folks who have minor problems far-far-removed from "dangerous" or "dangerously troubled" and instead utilize the wonders of modern medicine - even in their imperfect ways - to smooth out what is otherwise a pain in the ass on a daily basis. Of all the folks I know who take any such thing, most are dual income households with kids who use that bit of Rx to help be consistent in their regularly productive lives, most of whom you'd never guess were the sort who are "depressed" or suffering from "anxiety attacks".

I don't take either, fwiw, don't need them, though I do take adderall for adult ADD. And I've had countless conversations with many different people about what they take and why, and have been consistently surprised by how many "normal" people take them.

Which is a world different from what you suggest.

Better living through chemistry!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Ripley:

Any anti-depressant can be a big problem for some. They can be a catalyst to some already troubled people. If Paddock had enough anxiety to look for help, he was troubled. You'll find a lot of troubled folks here, pick a drug, someone here is struggling with it --

Valium is not an antidepressant.

We get worked up over clips vs magazines, "assault rifles" vs semi-auto, etc. Definitions and classifications matter.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by bpnkrtn:
Yep ... I actually laughed out loud when an ABC reporter refereed to the shooter as using/having "heavy artillery."

Yeah, David Muir on Monday evening's broadcast. I did the same, then said to my wife "Honey! Look! The guy had ``Heavy Artillery!``." She just shook her head.

Some Liberal anti gun nuts I know in Tucson think a Glock 17 is "heavy artillery".

The amount of Valium and the like prescribed each year in this country is staggeringly large, which is to say, very, very common. If it were a meaningful danger, we'd see more of it.

A quick Google shows:

quote:

Between 1969 and 1982, Valium was the most prescribed drug in the US, and sales peaked in 1978 with more than 2.3 billion pills sold that year.

quote:

from a 2010 Forbes article:
Doctors write nearly 50 million prescriptions for Xanax or alprazolam (the cheap, generic equivalent) every year–that’s more than one Xanax prescription every second

Etc.

Since Valium was put on the market, billions have been sold and taken just in this country. That's billions of pills, with a capital B, by millions of Americans... One kook who took Valium and also killed people means squat, in and of itself.

Some of the simpler people at work feel that we civilians just don't need so many guns and if limited to just 1 or 2 this wouldn't have happened.

Good lord I broke my rule of not having a discussion with them, trying to use common sense. Would have been easier on my mind to just bash my head into the wall.

quote:

Originally posted by Augen:
Some of the simpler people at work feel that we civilians just don't need so many guns and if limited to just 1 or 2 this wouldn't have happened.

Good lord I broke my rule of not having a discussion with them, trying to use common sense. Would have been easier on my mind to just bash my head into the wall.

People at work know I'm a gun nut. They've asked me the "need so many" question as well.

My answer is simple. If I were going to do what he did, I wouldn't take 1923841230971230947 guns into my room like he did. All it would do is increase he odds that I caught someone's attention before my act.

I'd take two. A primary and a backup incase my primary jammed. Three if I was uber paranoid that Murphy's Law was feeling frisky that day.

Any law we pass would certainly allow a person to own 2 or 3 guns. Everyone agrees with that. So what's the point of limiting how many a person can own?

That he had so many in the room didn't make him any less deadly. Focusing on the number in the room or in his home seems to be a distraction that would only work on the simple minded.

quote:

Originally posted by MNSIG:

quote:

Originally posted by Ripley:

Any anti-depressant can be a big problem for some. They can be a catalyst to some already troubled people. If Paddock had enough anxiety to look for help, he was troubled. You'll find a lot of troubled folks here, pick a drug, someone here is struggling with it --

Valium is not an antidepressant.

We get worked up over clips vs magazines, "assault rifles" vs semi-auto, etc. Definitions and classifications matter.

Very much so, when it comes to meds.