Psychosis? Drugs? ISIS? All Are Possible Explanations for the Las Vegas Mass Killing, But We Can Be Sure the Second Amendment Had Nothing to Do with It

TODAY'S REAL NEWS IS ABOUT THE PROGRESSIVE ATTEMPT TO EQUATE ALL CONSERVATIVES WITH MASS MURDERERS. What they don't get is that Americans see through their ridiculous tactic. • • • DOES GUN CONFISCATION WORK? ASK AUSTRALIA. American Thinker published an article by Steve Feinstein on Saturday that was titled "Liberal Outrage Is All about Getting Votes." Feinstein said : "The Vegas shooting has brought the topic of gun control front and center once again. Within mere hours after the event took place, countless liberal politicians and celebrities were prattling on in their best sanctimoniously outraged voices about the evil of guns and the need for more gun control laws. We need to do 'something,' they said....Tom Brokaw said, 'It's time for a national dialogue on guns,' and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel opined that the 'GOP should be praying to G-d for forgiveness' for basing their national policy on the wants and needs of the NRA. There were lots of vague statements from these same liberal sources about the US having more mass shootings than other countries, with the thinly veiled implication that they are all the fault of white male conservatives." As Feinstein pointed out, Progressives and their MSM propagandists fail to mention...the Asian Virginia Tech shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, or the Moslem shooters at Fort Hood [Nidal Hasan], San Bernardino [Syed Rizwan Farook], and the Orlando nightclub [Omar Mateen]. But, Progressives never let the facts get in the way of their political narrative -- which is that white male conservatives with guns are mass murderers, and if Progressives can convince enough Americans to buy into that fake news, then maybe their socialist-marxist goal of eliminating the Second Amendment and confiscating all guns from Americans will have a chance. • Since the Las Vegas shooting, the MSM has been talking a lot about the gun buy-back programs that have supposedly been carried out in Britain and Australia. Feinstein says : "The lower proportional numbers of mass gun violence in these countries are presented by the anti-gun lobby as an evidentiary component of the value of having an unarmed civil populace. It's a risibly simplistic, unprovable causality..." • Reason.com -- the online newsletter of Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank founded in the 1970s "to advance a free society by developing, applying, and promoting libertarian principles, including individual liberty, free markets, and the rule of law" -- published in March 2106 an article that summarized the Australian gun buyback experience : "Barack Obama, noted, 'Australia...imposed very severe, tough gun laws. And they haven't had a mass shooting since.' The President invokes the country's restrictive laws so often that at the recent Guns In America town hall on CNN, host Anderson Cooper pointed out 'You've praised their policies over and over.'...Maybe it's time to tell the President and his likely successor that the policies they so admire have been largely flouted, and that Australia remains a mostly peaceful country despite a foolish and intrusive legal tantrum that is fueling the growth of a large black market served by organized crime. Clinton and Obama tout a 1996 "gun buyback" that was actually a compensated confiscation of self-loading rifles, self-loading shotguns, and pump-action shotguns in response to the Port Arthur mass shooting [a 1996 massacre in which 35 people were killed and 23 wounded that occurred mainly at the historic Port Arthur former prison colony, a popular tourist site in south-eastern Tasmania, Australia]. The Australian seizure took around 650,000 firearms out of civilian hands and tightened the rules on legal acquisition and ownership of weapons going forward. As a result, concluded one academic assessment, 'Suicide rates did not fall, though there was a shift toward less use of guns, continuing a very long-term decline. Homicides continued a modest decline; taking into account the one-time effect of the Port Arthur massacre itself, the share of murders committed with firearms declined sharply. Other violent crime, such as armed robbery, continued to increase, but again with fewer incidents that involved firearms.'....What the law couldn't do -- what prohibitions can never accomplish -- was eliminate demand for what was forbidden. And demand has an inescapable habit of generating sources of supply. If that demand can't be legally satisfied, it will be met through black market channels. In Australia, part of the supply of banned firearms comes from defiance of the original prohibition. The Sporting Shooters' Association of Australia estimates compliance with the 'buyback' at 19%. Other researchers agree. In a white paper on the results of gun control efforts around the world, Franz Csaszar, a professor of criminology at the University of Vienna, Austria, gives examples of large-scale non-compliance with the ban. He points out, 'In Australia it is estimated that only about 20% of all banned self-loading rifles have been given up to the authorities.' " Reason.com asks : "But that defiance was mostly on the part of peaceful civilians who just didn't want to bend their knees to politicians, and it was 20 years ago. What about the bad actors supposedly targeted for disarmament by the government? [In 2016] Australia's Peter Dutton, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, and Michael Keenan, Minister for Justice, held a joint press conference to announce 'We don't tolerate gun smuggling in Australia and we know Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs are engaged in it. We have been keen to send the strongest possible message from Canberra that we're not going to tolerate people smuggling in guns or smuggling in gun parts. You'd appreciate that even one smuggled gun can do an enormous amount of damage.' When politicians announce that they don't tolerate something, it's a fair bet that the something is completely out of hand. 'Police admit they cannot eradicate a black market that is peddling illegal guns to criminals,' the Adelaide Advertiser conceded a few years ago. 'Motorcycle gang members and convicted criminals barred from buying guns in South Australia have no difficulty obtaining illegal firearms - including fully automatic weapons.' More recently, the country's The New Daily gained access to 'previously unpublished data for firearms offences' and reported a surge in crime 'including a massive 83% increase in firearms offences in NSW between 2005/06 and 2014/15, and an even bigger jump in Victoria over the same period. Australians may be more at risk from gun crime than ever before with the country's underground market for firearms ballooning in the past decade,' the report added. 'The national ban on semi-automatic weapons following the Port Arthur massacre had spawned criminal demand for handguns.' " For Reason.com : "Much as the Mafia and other organized criminal outfits rose to power, wealth, and prominence by supplying illegal liquor during Prohibition in the United States, outlaw motorcycle gangs in Australia appear to be building international connections and making money by supplying guns to willing buyers. It's as if Australian politicians looked at America's experience and said : what the land down under really needs is its own Al Capone..." • As American Thinker's Feinstein said, nobody approves of mass murder -- except mass murderers -- and sorrow and grief on a national and international scale follow every instance of killing on a large scale by a madman, but : "The entire liberal community -- the liberal mainstream media, politicians and celebrities -- has been quick to paint [Las Vegas] as just the latest in a string of disastrous shootings brought about by conservatives' unwarranted, blind, inhumane support of the NRA-led gun-owners' lobby. The liberal message is clear : don't vote for them! Conservatives support policies that kill your children." • What Progressives cannot say is what "do something" means. Their usual litany of corrective measures -- eliminate private ownership of fully automatic weapons; more federal, state, or local watch lists or databases; preventing those with a record of mental illness, serious criminal backgrounds or prior convictions from buying guns; preventing those with terror group affiliations, connections or records of travel to terrorist hotspots from buying guns; preventing firearm sales to those with membership in any extremist organizations -- are all already laws or regulations on the books. There were no missed red flags in Las Vegas because the shooter had no red flags that would have prevented his purchase of firearms. • So what should be done? Liberals may say "something," but, says Feinstein, their goal is to : "co-opt a national tragedy and turn it into political advantage by explicitly blaming conservatives for creating the circumstances and conditions that enabled the event to take place. Brokaw, Kimmel, Chuck Todd, Hillary, Bernie, Chris Matthews, Chris Cuomo, Whoopie, Ellen -- all the usual liberal talking heads are seemingly more concerned with pinning fault on conservatives, thus rendering them unworthy of election by any intelligent, lucid, humane individual, than they are understanding the motives and reasons for the crime itself." • This is an example of the Progressive mastery of media use to influence public opinion. Their disgusting attempt to turn a tragedy into political leverage, knowing full well that they will be supported by the mainstream media, is crass political manipulation. But, it is wearing thin with the American public. Many people are repulsed by it. But, as Lincoln said, "you can fool some of the people all of the time," and for Progressives, the means justifies the end -- VOTES -- and they are willing to fool as many Americans as possible in order to get their votes. • • • PROGDEMS AND THE MSM CONTINUE THE FAKE NEWS STORY LINE FOR THE LAS VEGAS SHOOTING. NBC News threw several potentially fake news facts into the mix this past weekend, stating : "Investigators are 'confident' that no one else entered the Las Vegas hotel suite before a gunman opened fire on a crowd of thousands of concertgoers, killing 58 people in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Undersheriff Kevin McMahill said Friday in an interview that police don't believe anyone entered the room at Mandalay Bay prior to the shooting carried out by Stephen Paddock Sunday night....Earlier, senior law enforcement sources said investigators were puzzled by a charger that did not appear to match any of Paddock’s cellphones. Police have now been able to match all of the cell phone chargers found in the room with multiple cell phones that Paddock had with him. 'He was the only shooter; I'm very confident of that,' McMahill said. 'I'm also confident that there were no other people in the room leading up to this event.' " But, a Friday press conference, McMahill said : 'What I cannot confirm to you today, and what we continue to investigate is, whether anybody else may have known about this incident before he carried it out.' " NBC later wrote : "McMahill said they also found approximately 50 pounds of tannerite and ammonium nitrate -- materials that can be used to make explosive devices [à la the Oklahome City federal building bombing] -- in the gunman's car, but it did not appear that Paddock had assembled the material into an improvised explosive device." And, additionally, NBC, said : "Law enforcement are also examining Paddock's finances. IRS records show that Paddock was a successful gambler, earning at least $5 million in 2015. Some of that could be from other investments, but most of it was from gambling, officials say. McMahill said investigators have not found any connection between Paddock and ISIS, the terror group that claimed responsibility for the attack, a claim it made without offering any proof. The terror group’s claim has been widely discounted. Investigators have not determined a motive, he said, and have been looking at 'everything,' including Paddock's personal life, finances, or any political affiliations in searching for a motive behind the attack. 'We have been down each and every single one of these paths, trying to determine 'why,' McMahill said, adding that the investigation will continue and would focus on facts and not rumors or assumptions. In the past, terror attacks or mass murder incidents -- motive was made very clear. Very clear in most of those cases by a note that was left, by a social media post, by a telephone call that was made, by investigators mining computer data,' McMahill said. 'Today, in our investigation, we don't have any of that uncovered,' McMahill said. 'I wish we did.' " • • • RUMORS AND FACTS. Blabber Buzz and InfoWars state that the Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock "maintained deep ties to ISIS," and suggest new evidence as a clearer picture of what actually happened comes into focus : Paddock had been radicalized, either for real or as part of a cover as he had the hallmarks of an intelligence agency cutout who went rogue; Paddock worked for a major aerospace company which had connections with Skunkworks – and he held multiple pilot licenses; someone was reportedly shooting at fuel tanks near the concert area, seeming to suggest that Paddock was not the only shooter; Paddock was spending millions of dollars a year as an “apartment complex manager” while traveling the world and was a frequent guest at casinos -- and, interestingly, casinos are one of the few legal places where someone can still launder money. You exchange money for chips, no questions asked, and even if you lose 20% or 30% from gambling, the casino gives you the rest of your money back when you turn in your chips -- was Paddock laundering money for ISIS?; there were over 20 firearms transported to Paddock’s room in a casino which is under constant surveillance, even in the hotel rooms themselves, but the MSM was quick to claim Paddock was a “lone operator” the morning after the shooting, despite the report of hotel IT systems allegedly showing that someone used the room key while Paddock was absent; other evidence, according to InfoWars, suggests that Paddock was possibly a gun runner for an intelligence agency, which would explain all the guns and the other oddities surrounding the shooting. • And, InfoWars says a former Trump campaign official leaked to its reporter information from high-level sources that Paddock had made an ISIS propaganda tape. Infowars says it cannot confirm and so does not outright endorse the veracity of the official’s claim, but says there is other evidence which similarly emphasizes Paddock’s ties to ISIS -- an FBI source allegedly told Infowars that photos taken in the Middle East and Antifa literature were found in Paddock’s hotel room, and only afterward, officials revealed that Paddock's girlfriend had visited Dubai. Further, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo has hinted the shooter may have been “radicalized” and wasn’t acting alone. And, there is the recurring rumor that an unidentified couple told concert goers they were “all going to f***ing die” if they didn’t leave the concert area -- were the couple part of the group behind the shooting, but whno got cold feet and were trying to warn others of the impending massacre? • Finally, ISIS featured a photo of the Mandalay Bay hotel drenched in blood on the cover of its latest newsletter -- and the terrorist group also claimed Paddock was radicalized six months before. Beyond all the rumors and leaked information, there is this very interesting fact -- ISIS says it was involved in the Las Vegas shooting, What we know about ISIS, both in the US and Europe, is that it never says it was involved in a terrorist attack unless it has proof. Even New York Times correspondent Rukmini Callimachi admitted that “ISIS has rarely claimed attacks that were not by either their members or sympathizers.” • • • THEORIES. American Thinker's 'Henry Percy' -- that's the nom de guerre of a writer in Arizona -- offers some suggestions about the actual shooting from the Mandarin Bay Hotel : " I offer my analysis, for what it's worth, of the first four strings of fire with the caveat that none of us in the public has access to all the evidence, much less the skills to do a thorough job." Percy first noted that there were four strings of shots caught on video. He added : "Several newscasters have talked about the shooter's tripods. The photos from Paddock's suite clearly show bipods on the guns. I have never, ever seen someone shooting from a tripod. How much confidence would a motorcyclist have in a review of a new bike that repeatedly and erroneously refers to the machine as a trike? That is why I am critical of so many of these 'experts.' " Although many of the shooting videos are spliced, Percy says he used an unspliced video for his analysis : "because it seems to be continuously shot with the same phone (2.14 total runtime). I count four strings : 0.0 thru 0.9 (does not start at beginning of string; in this video, the first string lasts from 0.05 to 0.15) / 0.46 thru 0.56 / 1.13 thru 1.23 (slight pause in string) / 1.42 thru 1.52." Percy assumes 600 rounds per minute, "a good figure for the AR platform," so that each of these strings represents 100 rounds, thus Paddock "must have been using 100-round drum magazines, for you can hear no pauses in the video long enough for a magazine change. The few pictures available of his room show ARs with 30-round magazines. He may have used those later, but the above videos do not have short strings." Since initial reports said the shooting went on for over four minutes, "some assert that he could have fired only 360 rounds in those four minutes, therefore he could not have killed and wounded so many. Apparently, it lasted much longer : 'The gunshots lasted for 10 to 15 minutes. It didn't stop,' said witness Rachel de Kerf. Gunfire started at 10:08 and 'by 10:20 p.m., there are some indications the shooting has stopped, although it is not clear.' I am skeptical that he could shoot such long, smooth strings with bump-fire stocks. In the time I have spent at ranges, I have never heard anyone get off even a 30-round string with bump fire without many hiccups, much less 100 rounds. But I am not an expert on such accessories, nor have I done extensive testing of them." Percy's analysis adds possible factual detail to a small area of a rumor-filled discussion about the Las Vegas shooting. Percy says he "tried to draw only narrow conclusions from the limited evidence available. Wildly extrapolating from incomplete data helps no one." • A possible explanation for Paddock's behavior -- as of Sunday morning, the FBI was asking the public for any information that could point to the reasons for Paddock's shooting spree -- was given by John Ringo, a well-known science fiction writer, who posted this explanation on Facebook on Sunday. Ringo says he "may be the only person in the 'pundit' world who can put what we know about the Las Vegas shooter in perspective" because he has dealt with something similar before : 'My personal take, at this point, is 'homicidal psychotic break, rationale currently unknown, possible pharmacological.' " Ringo then tells a story and shows why everything about this makes a terrible sort of sense to him : "The story is about my lovely and extremely loving wife, Miriam, and her descent to homicidal psychotic break due to a nasty drug interaction. My wife has had the same doctor since she was a child. Old 'country' doctor who is the only person who has ever been able to handle Miriam's many oddities. A limited list : My wife : Was once listed as one of the top five Adult ADHD in the US and the only one who was clinically functional [Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) affects children and teens and can continue into adulthood. ADHD is the most commonly diagnosed mental disorder of children. Children with ADHD may be hyperactive and unable control their impulses. Or they may have trouble paying attention.] Has supremely bizarre drug interactions and thereby hangs this tale. Miriam is a 'limited case pharmacological phenotype.' What does that mean? You know where on the warning label it says : 'in rare cases may cause you to grow two heads and fly to the moon'? Miriam is 'rare cases.' Every single time she tries a new prescription drug, she is 'rare cases.' This involves the 'in rare cases' effect of a drug called Cymbalta. Notably, as Cymbalta NOW states 'in rare cases may cause homicidal or suicidal psychotic break. Should not be prescribed to teenagers.'....Miriam was prescribed Cymbalta for 'depression' by her doctor in the early fall of 2007....there as a shooting (by a teenager) that December in Nebraska in a mall. And I do recall Miriam's uncharacteristic comment. 'He only managed to kill five people in a crowded mall at Christmas time with a pistol and three magazines? He really needed to learn how to shoot.' My wife is extremely loving and extremely Christian. Her normal response would have been 'That's terrible. God bless their souls and I hope he finds peace!' 'I could have done better' metaphorically was...not Miriam. I'll admit I didn't really notice it at the time. Nor did I notice that over the course of the next several months (not sure when it started) we started to have a lot of 'off-brand' bleach around the house. Miriam is a lovely wife but cleaning is not her thing. But she also purchases in a very random manner. (Note the ADHD thing.) This did seem to be alot of bleach, though. I mentioned it a couple of times in jest. (We finally ran through all the bleach she bought in 2007-8 about a year ago. That much bleach.) I didn't realize there were twenty-nine more gallon bottles in the trunk of her car. I do recall during a rather bad time (possibly around below) she said that 'when she was gone' (and it had the feeling of 'soon') I wouldn't have to worry about the cats because 'they would be coming with her.' Miriam occasionally says odd things but that stood out. I'm more than aware of various forms of murder suicide and it was...discomforting. But...Miriam sometimes says odd things....Then at a certain point I got a call from my loving wife...saying she was coming home from work, early, and we needed to go to Parkridge....one of the hospitals in the area but the specific one she mentioned was the psychiatric hospital. I asked her on the drive over what was wrong. She didn't want to talk about it. For various 'privacy' reasons I wasn't well informed at the time. But I'll fill in the blanks for you in ways they weren't filled in for me. She finally realized something was VERY wrong and checked herself in. Miriam had had a 'homicidal psychotic break' due to a side effect of Cymbalta. In most cases this is light and happens during the first couple of months or first month. NOW doctors are told to evaluate regularly in the first few months. THEN there was no warning. And NOBODY goes nine months. Except someone with ENORMOUS coping skills who has had to deal with madness that drove others insane on a daily basis her whole life. (By the way, the teenager in the mall above? Guess what anti-depressant he was on? One guess and it rhymes with 'Sin Malta'. He’d been on it a few months, prescribed right around the same time as Miriam.)....The specific issue was she had 'an uncontrollable desire to do harm to those who do harm to others.' Notably, she'd built up a list of persons on the Megan's (sexual predators) List and had developed very carefully constructed kill plans for each. She was tracking them and targeting them carefully. She has an extensive background in forensics and was probably going to get away with it....to be very clear, my wife had shifted, subtly and without warning, from sweet, Christian, Miriam to serial killer. And I do mean without ANY REAL WARNING. I didn't know exactly what was going on at the time. I was approached by one of the staff after a few hours sitting in a hard chair out front....I had to sign to get her out pledging I would maintain '24 hour monitoring.'...Issues with this went on and on for months as it slowly leached from her system. But let me relate it to Las Vegas. Most people think of 'homicidal break' as someone suddenly 'grabbing a letter opener and carving their way out of Cost Accountancy and into forensic history.'...That's not, generally, how it works. How much planning and preparation a person does depends upon how rapid the onset is (months in Miriam's case) and how good they are at planning and preparation. (Both Miriam and Paddock were planners. He was an accountant and multi-millionaire.) So look at the story above and break it down : Relatively normal person, perhaps a bit odd, has minor changes in behavior that no-one in their close circle really notices. He/she is a methodical person with an agenda. Other people who've done mass kills simply did not do it right. He/she is going to do it right. He knows they hold concerts by the Mandalay. That's the perfect venue for the most kills. Suddenly they're a mass killer for no apparent reason....My guess is it will be doctors who figure it out. And if they do they'll find he either was having a bad drug reaction (in which case nobody will admit nothin’ just as they’ve never admitted it was Cymbalta that caused the Westroads Mall Shooting) or neurological degeneration of some sort. (A tumor caused the University of Texas ‘Bell Tower’ shooting.) If pharmacological, the drug doesn't even have to be a definitively 'psychotropic' drug. Many drugs these days from heart medicine to anti-malarials have some psychotropic effect....most of these recent 'crazy' mass kills, going all the way back to the 'postal worker' epidemic (overdosage of Prozac) and Columbine (both kids were hopped to their gills on prescription anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs), have had SOMETHING to do with psychotropic drugs....And nobody seems to be willing to speak truth to power on the subject....Homicidal break does not always happen quickly. Sometimes it creeps in like the fog on cats feet. It is only at the last that the cackle of madness is heard. By then it is too late. May God rest all their souls and let them find peace." • • • DEAR READERS, John Ringo asked that his post be passed along, which is why I have used so much of it. • The facts about the Las Vegas shooting are as unknown as the potential side effects of prescription drugs or ISIS's Zvengali-like creeping into the souls of people who seemed rather ordinary before ISIS arrived. We do not know anything. Local police and federal investigators are either silent about what they actually know or are as befuddled as we are. What is certain is that the Las Vegas mass murder had nothing to do with gun control laws or their enforcement. Drugs? ISIS? Psychosis? They are all on the table. Let's hope that if and when the real facts are spread out, Progressives and the ever-eager mainstream media will begin to take mass murders seriously and not just use them as excuses for their Progressive anti-gun anti-Second Amendment agenda.