Thank you for this excellent reporting. Unfortunately, no amount of video surveillance has been able to discover WHY this gunman fired into a concert.
It's so interesting to see the helpful casino staff helping the man load his room with guns. CLUELESS!
2
More Americans are killed by citizens who are gun-wielding nuts, by far, than are killed by foreign or domestic enemies. It's way past time for gun control. The second amendment provided for a "well regulated" citizen-based militia, not for anarchy.
2
Ego sum ergo cogito gets it totally.
Read his comments and the primary component in understanding Stephen Paddock and other limelighters is there. The USA provides the theatre and all the props and players like Paddock will continue to step on stage with deadly regularity.
Why is it that any time somebody puts together a report about an event like this - that is to say, a horrible atrocity, catastrophe, and/or tragedy - they feel obliged to supply a MUSIC track? And the music is always the same - stupid, hackneyed electronic cliche music in a style usually associated with cheesy sci-fi or mosnter movies. It not only insults the ear and the intelligence of the viewer, it insults all the poor people who were massacred, as if they were all extras in a 5th-rate exploitation flick. Music has no place in a crime report like this. Leave the music tracks out from now on! And get a new narration writer! "He tipped the bellhop. who had no idea that only 2 days later, these suitcases would be used to commit the worst shooting of the century..."
3
Glad I watched it with the sound off.
The other load of baggage was what this monster was carrying around in his head and no one knows what it contained. He’s so apparently normal on the days leading up, not nervous but meticulous. Gambling through the nights was likely a way to relax and test if luck was on his side. Imagine thinking of getting away with mass murder as lucky. Maybe he considered killing himself as the big payoff, along with being remembered as sick and evil. Imagine savoring being remembered as a monster. This one did it his way.
1
The NRA enabled this man in his lust for mass murder.
The fact that the National Rifle Association CONTINUES to defend continued access to these weapons by virtually anyone who wants them means that they are moving from being an enabler of mass murder to an accessory to mass murder.
3
IS NOBODY CONCERNED That playing these videos will motivate do-it-yourself massacre-monsters to become KKKopy-KKKats? Experts agree that there should be an effort by the media NOT to mention the names of perpetrators and avoid showing their images so as to avoid presenting videos that will trigger a copycat. That and the fact that the NRA has abandoned its founding principles. And that 25% of NRA members deny the need for gun control. They are NRA-ists, the most dangerous of domestic terrorists, causing more than 10 times the number of deaths in each of the last recent years than occurred as a result of 9/11. The NRA-ists are the Number One threat to Homeland Security. 75% of NRA members who favor gun control can save the organization from its role in triggering gun violence and deaths.
I second the shock of Castanet and wonder what is the purpose of Security Officers....to watch a customer bring in that massive number of bags and not even wonder what it might be...
1
WHY does this Irish narrator claim that this is "his (meaning Paddock's) mass shooting" several times in the video. There is not one shred of evidence that Paddock even DID the shooting. Not one piece. This is just another example of media fake news getting rolled out in a particular way for a particular agenda!
3
What??
1
How about not writing a story like it is a crime novel. Copy cat killers live for this type of attention.
It's repulsive to read these right-wing commenters attempting to assign blame to the bellhops! I thought Republicans were supposed to be the standard-bearers for responsibility and morality. There is nothing moral or responsible about supporting unfettered access to guns. It's vile and indefensible: morally, ethically, religiously, legally, logically...
1
Can you tell from this video that there is something wrong with the mental state of this quiet, law abiding citizen? The luggage? Could have been a guy working one of the many trade shows in Las Vegas. Samples, literature, lights, extension cords, packing materials. Nothing suspcious at all. Until we can look at a person and tell if they are going to snap, we need to restrict access to military weapons, to the military.
1
He was a "thrill killer" bored with life and routine. His total lack of humanity allowed him to pursue the ultimate killing/hunting thrill.
Guns and privacy cannot coexist. If you have guns, we need to know who you are -- and what guns you have. No right to privacy to cause mayhem.
15
All of this is very interesting, however there are a lot of anomalies that go unexplained. Most have to to with rate of fire, duration of fire and the actual sequence of events leading up to the shooting. What is not mentioned is that of the arsenal that was found only a handful of weapons, namely the AR-15 and AK-47 could have ever been fired. One of the dangers of using bump-stock technology is that the parts in semi-automatic firearms are not only mechanically different, fully automatic parts are physically stronger in order to withstand the higher mechanical stresses of the rate of fire they are subjected to. Fewer than 12 firearms can use bump-stock technology effectively, the others, you get 6,8 maybr 10 shots out of the weapon and gun blows up due to fact the semi-automatic chamber cannot withstand the stresses of the high rate of fire. The other is that most of the weapons outfitted with bump-stocks would not have benefited from the high rate of fire in an active shooter situation. The gun industry does not make high-capacity magazines capable of delivering the rate of fire necessary for the duration that was recorded. You spend more time re-loading the weapon than you do shooting it. Lastly, the most anomalies show up in the supposed records released regarding the weapon purchases. Only the store shown in the media is an actual store that you can physically walk up to or visit a website and purchase something. All others, unreachable.
1
Cannot say for certain, other than such men generally suffer from histrionic delusions of grandeur, that they are the protagonists in a story over which they are the supreme author. They lose all ability to emphasize with the fact that others have consciences and feelings, hopes and aspirations, thoughts and ideas. Such people people they have long ago relegated as "beneath them."
Typically, such people leave a manifesto, explaining posthumously what it was separated them from the herd and propelled them towards making this bloody statement against a society that was somehow not equal to their lofty aspirations. That Paddock left no message at all speaks even louder to his utter contempt for us. In his mind, we were so low as to not even merit his verbal umbrage. We were simply ants to be stomped on.
The lucid madness of the shooter is not different from the lucid madness of those supporting the NRA and the 2nd Amendment.
2
The FBI has still not reported on his total financial situation, where the money is, exactly which drugs he was on, why he moved so many times, and what he did (who he contacted) on his overseas trip. Why not?
1
The second amendment does not bestow upon one loan individual the right to posses the unregulated power of instant life and death over thousands of others, period.
One of the conspiracy theories about the shooting is that Paddock was doing a gun deal and was killed/setup while someone else committed the act. A few pieces of evidence to support this:
1. Nothing in the NYT video shows Paddock was planning such an attack. Yes, he brought in a lot of bags. But that on it's own does not show intent. And having so many guns and ammo could also be reason to believe he was planning on selling them. Many of Paddock's guns were left at his home. Why? What made the guns he brought special and the others not worth bringing?
2. Paddock originally tried to book a room ending in 235 but ended with one ending in 135. Rooms ending in 235 are in the wing of the hotel pointing southeast and are further away from the concert venue. Paddock's room was changed to the 100 wing without his knowledge yet he stuck with the room assigned, later booking the adjoining smaller suite ending in 134.
3. Paddock owned multiple cell phones including a "burner" type phone. Why?
4. 2 of the hotel windows were shot out even though they provide nearly the same perspective
5. The autopsy of Paddock mentions his injuries, none of which are consistent with a 65 year old firing over 1000 rounds of ammunition which should have caused some level of bruising to his shoulder.
6. The strange behavior of Jesus Campos, the Mandalay Bay security guard who was shot at down the hallway, not granting but one interview to Ellen Degeneres. Not a single serious news agency interviewed him.
3
It is outrageous and deplorable that the GOP lead Congress has not done even ONE thing as a result of this tragedy... not even to collect the low hanging fruit like banning bump stocks... a device whose ONLY purpose is to evade the intended will of existing laws. The entire GOP needs to be voted out in November for their complete disregard for the safety of Americans and their dereliction of duty across a broad range of fronts - including Russia's continued meddling in our democracy.
1
Is it reasonable for a single man occupying a suite for a few days to have 21 bags? Why didn't security take an interest in this bizarre circumstance? Have they since changed their security policies where they would now make an inquiry?
1
This raises another important question: Why is security footage so godawful? It looks like TV from before cable (for those too young to remember - grainy, ghosty and staticy). Other elevator passengers in this item had their features pixellated out, but this may not even have been necessary; they were probably unidentifiable anyway.
If the point is to identify criminals - obviously not an issue in this particular case, but certainly in general - and even in court, no less, is there no technology in 2018 that actually provides clear pictures instead of the blurs and blobs which pass for a record.
2
Gun control isn't a panacea and its effects won't be sudden: there exist too many guns out there, already. It will, however, begin to shift the national persona away from gun-obsession and the Wild West culture that continues to be portrayed as "romantic."
Violent crime continues going down and that lessening cannot be related to gun ownership which was higher, per capita, in the crime-crazed 50s, 60s, and 70s.
We regulate drugs that have legitimate medical uses but are highly dangerous. It's time to do the same for guns. There simply is NO other reasonable solution being proposed.
How politicians with children, grandchildren, wives, and other relatives can face them, after each attack, and refuse to act is shocking. It is time their family members face these men (as they mostly are) and demand they take meaningful action. This isn't a matter of bravery, it's become one of common decency and humanity.
Why did he do it? Just because. Is it really so hard to believe? That's the reason I'd do it. Oh sure, I could say it's because of people x, or youTubers getting famous eating Tide pods. But at the end of the day, it'll be just because. How did he do it is what you really need to be asking. He did it with a bunch of guns, not a kitchen knife or even a pack of throwing stars. Nope, it was a whole grip 'o guns folks. It's such an easy equation to figure out. Occam's razor.
What's the truth of the story about the upper floors of the hotel being leased to a Saudi Arab potentate? Is it true that another Saudi Prince was arrested at another casino Was all this connected to the coup in that country? Were all the reports of gunfire elsewhere merely people who were overexcited? Was Paddock arranging some sort of illegal gun deal, or doing one on behalf of some government agency? These questions clearly need to be answered and not laughed off.
His bags must have weighed a TON, and been very unusually heavy with all that metal in them. Nobody noticed? Nobody commented? They probably did amongst themselves, but only in a chat-at-the-water-cooler sort of way.
I do not want to know anything about this man or others like him. The evil lurking in hearts, souls, minds of fellow humans sickens me. I prefer to turn away not with the purpose of ignoring or denying but to choose to fill my heart, mind and soul with as much beauty and love as possible.
1
Stop this. Stop it now. These kinds of articles only create imitators. The media share the blame for the proliferation of these crimes. Nothing is gained by this article, nothing at all.
I think the "why" has no answer, other than because he could. It is not true that mad men will always find a way to kill. If you make it so easy as this video shows in such a calmly frightening way, it will happen again and again.
All the Monday-morning-quarterbacking in the world won't change the results of Sunday's game. Nor will it get anyone any closer to knowing the details of how next Sunday's game will unfold.
(However, if for some reason there was to be no ball available next weekend, I'd imagine that it would be pretty hard to play.)
3
In my humble opinion Mr. Paddock may not have been such an unusual person. As I see it, the only thing that made him stand out, was the magnitude with which he made his final statement. These days it's not so unusual to find those who would complain about life in general. What is unusual is to find those who would complain so loudly. It has been said that many people live lives of quiet desperation. Mr. Paddock’s life was obviously one of quite loud, bellicose, and destructive desperation. What may be even more uncommon, is to find true solace in an otherwise desperate world. Kindness, compassion, respect, and good-naturedness are never too late to offer solace and healing in the place of desperation and sorrow. The greater the wound, the greater the need for healing.
8
I think his motive was to show the ease with with you can obtain and use guns to commit a horrendous crime. This does not, in any way, make him someone of significance. The weapons and ammunition he was able to purchase, even a day before, enabled him to murder 59 people and then kill himself. It was a statement by action. He spent his final days alone, did nothing to implicate others and step by step methodically pursued his plan. The video accompanying the article exposes a lack of oversight on many levels.
3
The face of evil.
2
One of my favorite books is called Everything is Obvious.
Read it and you'll understand why this all seems obvious in hindsight but predicting was completely impossible.
5
I haven't read it, but I think we all understand that the hotel overlooked clear and obvious signs of "something wrong" because they were afraid to potentially offend a high-spending, rich customer.
"It is unnerving because it ends in the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history."
SO FAR.........
I weep.
6
It's so comforting knowing that Florida will now not allow those under 21 to purchase military-style rifles. Because we all know that people over 21 (such as Stephen Paddock, 64) have the maturity and wherewithall to use their stash of guns only at the shooting range or for self-protection.
13
I am not sure what this piece adds to our knowledge other than a voyeuristic frisson. He has already been replaced in the news cycle by Nicholas Cruz and Mr. Conditt. The killings continue, and one damaged loner is replaced by another. The one thing they have in common is the ease with which they can acquire guns. There are 300 million of them in a population of 320 million. The genie is well and truly out of the bottle and my only hope is that the kids can keep up the pressure.
10
Mr. James -- Stephen Paddock was a multi-millionaire who owned 3 private planes. What law could have kept him from flying in guns on his own planes? or buying them on the black market?
The laws proposed might affect young people like Nikolas Cruz -- though Cruz himself was wealthy with an $800,000 inheritance -- but a 64 year old MILLIONAIRE?
1
Well, it only took about 6 months for this footage to be released. Was it edited down? And how did housekeeping not alert ANYONE to the growing arsenal in this man's room. They nose into EVERYTHING, people. Was someone else in the room while room service cleaned when he wasn't there??? Videos from that night still prove MULTIPLE shooters. The sounds of 2 to 3 weapons firing at the same time isn't my imagination. This STILL stinks to high heaven, folks.
6
No one has 'proved' multiple shooters. No one. So don't spread lies. That's what Fox is for.
I was struck by this guy’s loneliness. The solitary empty calories of video poker only to be interrupted by eating alone at the bar. Meanwhile, likely stuck in the loop of his own thoughts.
Somehow, this seems very American.
22
Frankly, I've been to Vegas and this is so NOT unusual -- a single man, gambling alone -- that it would have raised no suspicions by itself. (The 21 heavy suitcases should have, not the gambling alone.)
Despite doing this, Mr. Paddock had a relatively normal life for a rich man -- he had a long time girlfriend and he had two brothers and I believe even his mother was still alive. He was not the classic "loner" by any means.
1
......and why aren't all bags put thru airport-type scanners?
6
Because we still have a bill of rights. Fourth amendment applied to Stephen as much as it does to you now (assuming you're an American).
1
I know people want to believe that an assault rifle ban would have prevented this slaughter. I don't think it would have. In Norway, a country with strict gun control, a man killed 77 people -- mostly children -- in a shooting spree. Like Paddock, he was methodical in his planning and preparation. The measures necessary to prevent such carefully premeditated attacks would require invasive surveilence and greatly expanded police powers. Banning assault weapons would have just made Paddock work a little harder to get them on the black market.
On the other hand, making people actively prove mental fitness, competence and safe storage before they can own guns could have prevented a number of other mass shootings by angry, impulsive and unstable men. Someone like Paddock was not going to be deterred but rage-filled killers like Cruz are too impulsive to get around such laws. Those more haphazard murders account for the vast majority of mass shootings, and better gun regulation could limit their damage. Some of those killers might still use a knife or a vehicle, but they wouldn't be able to kill nearly so many.
4
Perhaps the much vaunted Las Vegas type security is not as perceptive or astute as we are led to believe. But . . . I'm sure they see a lot of strange behavior every day, every hour.
In his essay on the 1968 gun control act Jason Sokol makes the observation:
"On April 4, 1968, one hour before James Earl Ray aimed his rifle at the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, the Senate Judiciary Committee deadlocked on a proposal to regulate gun sales (it banned mail-order and interstate gun sales, though it exempted rifles and shotguns)."
Isn't that a coincidence? Major gun control legislation is at a tipping point of passing or not passing in Congress and all it took was an assassination of a prominent person to tip public sentiment in favor of passing. I didn't know that. What timing!
Now to the present situation. What possible motive could these so-called "mentally ill" suicidal mass murderers have for perpetrating such crimes?
Oh, I know, insane conspiracy theories. Look at the facts, I know, liberals don't do facts.
Why does America have so many seemingly irrational, unexplainable mass murders perpetrated by internet fed white males? Why are more than one third of those mass murderers former military men? Oh, you're starting to think I am crazy, but I'm not committing mass murder, and so far, there are no explanations why they happen.
It's simple investigative reporting. Why? Who benefits? How? How are ordinary civilians motivated to kill so many people?
2
Also in the hours leading up to this massacre and all the others, there are many hours of equally banal footage on C-SPAN of mendacious GOP congressmen spouting nonsense like "mental health" and "violent video games' and "too soon" and "thoughts and prayers" and urging action to pass laws prevent dogs being stowed in overhead compartments.
5
Or dems pandering "for the children" (vote for me).
With the unbridled invasion of all our privacy why not surreptitiously or otherwise examine hotel rooms when no access is allowed for days via 'do not disturb signs'? Most innocent people only really care about comps, so give them a free meal or $100 in chips for the 'invasion'.
I'm innocent and I still want to retain my civil rights, thank you very much. This isn't China.
1
So Paddock is just a gunman and the guy from Austin is a bomber. Why not call them what they were: Domestic Terrorists. To assign them banal names just plays down the increase in these types of actions.
41
#NoNotoriety should be the goals of the media when covering these crimes. Not sensational drama writing.
Being one of this monsters victims from that dreadful night, I will tell you that what no one sees is that Mandalay is at fault for numerous reasons.
1. bellhop brought up so many pieces of luggage day in and day out.
2. how did they allow him to rent/comp the room next to his suite under his girlfriends name? She must be present in order to obtain the keys, or did Mandalay allow this because he's a VIP? Oh lets turn a blind eye because VIP's can do all they want.
3. when shots rang out they send a security "guy" up to his room. Why did it take so long to alert police? When do these hotels get held accountable.
when will the FBI give US the answers we need, or is this just like the Kennedy cover up.
19
I think you answered your own question. If you or I did this -- rented an extra room in someone else's name -- didn't let housekeeping enter for a week -- brought up 21 heavy bags by the service elevator -- we'd be getting the stink eye for sure. But Paddock was a regular, a "high roller" and a VIP. They did not want to risk offending a big spending customer and perhaps have him leave for another luxury hotel.
1
Did they ever get the $100k the gunman's girlfriend took with her to the Philippines just before the massacre?
7
And he was white. Not Muslim. Not an immigrant.
12
This was a terrorist attack and should be investigated as such.
4
I don't think anyone has seriously believed this was politically or religiously motivated, like the 9/11 attack.
Almost all mass shooters are white, young men in their teens or early 20s. The Virginia Tech shooter was Asian -- and Omar Mateen, Sayed Farook and Tashfeen Malik (Pulse nightclub, San Bernardino) were Arab Muslims. Malik was an immigrant.
It's not as simplistic as you imply.
Also: a terrorist attack would have some basis in politics, religion, protest. It would be credited to some group or cause, and likely the shooter would have some manifesto. Paddock fits NONE of these descriptors.
If you cheap the term "terrorist" just to gin up fear & rage, you diminish the horror of true terrorism.
have we learned!? with a simple google search, can order a variety of different bump stocks and 100 rounds magazine.
2
Commenting on the title:
OMG. I'm a white male pushing 60. I live alone (my preference), and eat out a lot. So I frequently eat alone. I tip generously unless the service is bad. I own a pistol which I keep in my bedroom, for self defense if someone breaks into my house.
Does this mean I'm a danger, or that I'll continue quietly living this way, as I have for about 37 years, since I graduated from college?
If we want more gun regulations as appropriate, fine. But why is eating alone worth even mentioning?
13
Isn't this precisely how the US Congress operates when it comes to GUN violence and the grip the NRA has on them? They are it's TOOL...!
"It is unnerving because even with his every movement laid out, the grotesquely composed protagonist of this film gives away nothing."
When we measure and contrast how the US compares to rest of the developed world in their success in limiting GUN violence, we need to examine HOW do they succeed when we FAIL.
I am sure they don't allow gun shows on government property (county fairgrounds) where weapons and ammo are carted in (and out) on fork lifts, trucks and dollies without blinking an eyelash.
What do the Sheriffs and county officials that operate these facilities do in their official capacity at these sites...?
3
You should check out Brazil and Mexico. Two developed nations in our own hemisphere that rarely get examined, for some reason.
While Stephen Paddock's explicit motives are unknown, I submit that the lesson of his barbaric act is being ignored by society and especially by policy makers. Namely this:
As long as gun ownership remains as legal and feebly regulated as it is in America, it will be permissible for any law-abiding person to acquire the power of violent catastrophic destruction that is the purpose of gun design.
As long as people want guns for whatever reason, there will market demand for them that capitalistic suppliers are anxious to satisfy and anxious to increase.
As long as human behavior is influenced by subjective and emotional factors, every responsible, law-abiding gun owner will be empowered to spontaneously and unpredictably become a homicidal gun terrorist.
Taken together, these conditions mean that as long as there is gun ownership, America will face the anytime, anyplace threat of lethal gun mayhem.
Stephen Paddock went off just because he could. To demonstrate the dangerous flaws in the system.
His emphatic lesson is that the only way to stop gun violence of any kind is to change the system to eliminate gun ownership.
In the tortuous national gun debate Americans refuse to even discuss this obvious solution to the disastrous problems wrought by gun ownership. Other nations have done it. When will we?
15
I don't know about anybody else, but I simply won't comply with demands for disarmament. I don't care what laws are passed, or if the Constitution is amended. The second amendment was bought with blood, and removing it will require more of the same.
This attitude has a shelf life in our culture, you may find. You're only hurting yourself if you want to hole up with your guns. We aren't living in a Gunsmoke episode.
If the question "why?" isn't answered by viewing all the video, what's the point of exposing ourselves to it. Morbid fascination for some, inspiration for others...?
4
His mental health issues were obviously not detected, as in many cases where people suddenly wreak havoc and violence on the unsuspecting.
2
They say he had 19 or twenty rifles in his hotel room. Why so many? Could they all fit in the 21 luggage cases? Average length of a rifle is 26". I didn't really see any cases long enough. I still think it was a deal gone bad.
1
Barrels can be removed.
3
Cameras on casino properties are common place and well monitored as it relates to crimes against the casino. Unfortunately, this will need to serve as a training video for those who monitor those cameras. Clearly there is a behavior pattern here that should send up a red flag or two. Someone checking in with no luggage, or excessive luggage, someone returning to the property with luggage each time, the continued decline of housekeeping services, etc... Dare I suggest they consider the Disney Cruise strategy where they basically assign staff members to you over your stay, for example everyone on the 5th floor will have luggage handled by employee x, housekeeping by employee y, and room service by z. Regardless of what dinning room you show up in, “your” server will wait on you and anticipate some of your personal preferences on these ships. Why can’t the “getting to know you” practice be employed by these properties where stays are generally short and turnover quick. You’d think the same staff could be trained and utilized in recognizing unusual behavior patterns of their guests, like if a guy comes and goes through the valet process alone but keeps bringing luggage upstairs. It’s one thing to sleep in and take a pass on housekeeping but most people who travel enjoy and utilize the service so someone taking a consistent pass is curious and staff can be trained to watch for these patterns. Then again, there’s the issue of those pesky bump stocks, high capacity magazines etc!
3
The word for the day, folks, is CGI. The witness statements and videos we've all already seen, of the multiple sources of gunfire in the Las Vegas, are conveniently missing. The coronor's report that he was alive for hours after being arrested, conveniently missing. Just a slick narrator and CGI of Stephen Paddock rolling suitcases and playing the machines. Did the agenda-driven anti-2nd-Amendment global psyop manipulators somehow think the general public MISSED the big front page story only yesterday? of all the Hollywood stars updating their wills to control CGI of themselves posthumously? Nobody wants to be Carrie Fishered. Or JFK'd. Or Stephen Paddocked, or Mark Anthony Conditted.
Cameras EVERYWHERE in Vegas and this is it? NO!
Show me the Hallway outside his room before, during and after the shooting. No reason not to unless you are trying to hide accomplices or ineptitude by staff or police.
9
It's obvious that we need a limit on luggage. Why would anyone need 21 suitcases?
11
No one person knew he had 21 suitcases. Nor is it very suspect considering he was comped for rooms and known as a regular gambler. Nor is it really a problem to have 21 suitcases. This is America. We have privacy rights, as did he. Chalk this up to the cost of having the very same rights yourself.
Well there it is, you have focused the problem and invited us to consider the perfect solution! Since there is no amendment to our constitution to restrict suitcases, lets make a suitcase control law!
And we can MAGA by generating 'suitcase police' to monitor all entrances to hotels and motels. That is a great job-creation solution!
I gotta give it to ya--you are brilliant and you just made a triple play with your comment. Wow.
2
Why, by George, I think you've figured out an excellent solution. I'll be happy to register my luggage with local law enforcement and I will watch with glee as the terroristic acts come to a complete halt!
1
I can't believe I just read an entire article that could be completely summed up without losing any information by a single sentence: "Watching a mass murderer go about his business on security cameras for a few days before he opens fire is, like, really creepy."
21
The banality of evil!
10
I find it rather disconcerting that a great number of people are more concerned about how many suitcases he owned rather than how he acquired enough weapons and ammunition to fill them all.
71
Exactly, Shelley!!
1
Perhaps because they already know how he obtained the weapons?
I'm tired of hearing about this murderous idiot. Let's hear about the lives of the victims of his acts. The dead and their families, all the wounded and their medical issues and trauma. This is the real story. Maybe if we stop focusing on the Rambo types and start HIGHLIGHTING the ongoing issues of gun violence, we could get somewhere.
My son in the Midwest was almost killed in 2009 by a workplace shooter, armed with an AR-15 and multiple handguns plus fanny packs of ammo. He's on disability now.
38
I'm sorry about what happened to your son, but maybe a lot of us are not "Rambo types", and so we really want to understand something that seems so bizarre and frightening to us.
4
Does anyone really think that in 6 months the FBI has not been able to determine the "why" (motive)?? Come on--it's more likely that the truth would hurt the gun-control narrative: Paddock was a hateful pro-ANTIFA, anti-Trump terrorist.
4
Of course there is not one iota of evidence to support your claim Clint. In fact he was said to be rather conservative when it came to politics. So, it seems you are speculating without any factual basis.
13
Huh? You want to include some evidence for that claim? I could just as easily say he was a pro Clint scientologist, and have as much evidence for that claim as you do for your claims. That is, none.
There was very little voice from the crazy house other than ‘the guy was sick’. One of the biggest mass murders in modern history!!
Meanwhile, if one recent immigrant committed a crime, ICE, DOJ and Humpty would be making statements...or a bathrobe, misspelled tweet. That that sink in for a minute and tell me this is still a great country.
10
"They have no idea that the suitcases they are so conscientiously carrying are full of guns and ammunition."....hmmm....i guess those fellas just figured he was bringing in gold bars to lose at the tables...
4
He hauled bag after bag of guns into the hotel because:
He was planning to use all those guns.
Or:
He was a gun dealer, meeting with a customer.
The customer was an ISIS operative who killed Paddock, committeed the massacre (for which ISIS immediately took credit), then exited before cops arrived.
Once ISIS understands that its operatives have escaped, they cease all further communications about their massacre, to avoid compromising the successful escape.
Perhaps a more likely story is that Paddock was a successful gambler who made millions beating casinos' computer (not human) poker games? If you believe that nonsens, I've got a bridge (in Florida) to sell you!
2
Honestly the extent to which some people will sink to ignore the obvious.
The US obsession with guns and the unprecedented power of the NBA to influence (i.e., pay off) Republican politicians diminishes any international respect the country once enjoyed. Trump just magnifies this disrespect.
6
Yes. The NBA has way to much power...
Let’s see the deplorable conspiracy theorists keep saying now after this video evidence that this was some sort of plot by a democratic entity to control guns and the second amendment.
7
Thank you for running this article.
Thanks to Parkland (a mass shooting targeting children instead of adults) we've already started to forget about Mr. Paddock and his thousands of victims. Yes - thousands, if not tens of. The 900+ people killed and wounded have family, friends. The emergency responders who were undoubtedly traumatized by being dropped into a war zone.
We need to start talking about the shock waves that ripple through our society like high velocity rounds cause through the human body.
We are all victims. My daughter is enrolled in public pre-k here in NYC and they have lockdown drills. That's right. My five year old is being trained in how to respond should a gunman waltz into her school and try to shoot her.
She is a victim of Mr. Paddock and the NRA.
And so am I.
And so are you.
71
If a 7 year old sits at a slot, the hotel staff appears out of no where like there's a fire. With the vast amounts of cameras in casinos, and the huge numbers of employees, makes no sense that this took this long to come up with so little. Why nit report on the lack of transparency you as journalists are running into on this . Keep digging
1
We may never know the "why" but we know the "how." With high velocity guns, that's how. The solution is easy - get rid of the guns.
14
Hundreds of millions of the things, in the hands who may violently resist? That's not a recipe to reduce gun violence. And certainly not "easy".
1
To all who say that legislation banning private ownership of assault weapons would have prevented this shooting are plainly wrong. The man was highly determined and if he was unable to obtain the necessary weapons legally, he would have no problem obtaining them from the black market considering how wealthy he was.
3
Other countries have proved your thesis wrong, in that their gun laws HAVE stopped mass killings such as this one. Australia is an example.
Not JUST wealthy -- a multi-millionaire! -- but Paddock had three private planes, which he could have used to smuggle literally anything into the country.
1
The guy was a killer and he killed innocent people. No reason known. Stop trying to find a reason for his crime. He had a pretty good reputation with the casino and it's staff. I am an ex casino Floor Man from A.C, but I knew the High stakes video poker players and some of the staff at Mandalay Bay. We will never know what made Paddock a killer. He was just a murderous monster.
8
I agree that we might never know why he did it, but that does not mean we should not make an attempt to figure it out. It is bizarre that someone not associated with a terror group suddenly decided to murder as many innocent people as he could.
6
"...an apparently relaxed solo vacation..."? Really? What the Paddock videos show me is a mind-fracturing loneliness and isolation. Even if I didn't know there was an arsenal in those 21 pieces of luggage, I would still feel the same watching this pathetic person wandering alone through a giant Vegas hotel for seven days, staying up all night gambling, with only hotel staff to talk to.
Why is it that the majority of mass shooters are white males? Could it be related to the fact that white males are the most powerful demographic in the U.S.? Could it have anything to do with a sense of unfulfilled entitlement? Rage at not always getting one's way? Fury that life hasn't turned out as promised?
Just a wild guess.
https://thinkprogress.org/shootings-white-men-las-vegas-e378cfad534b/
8
I'm surprised that the corrosive effects and mercenary nature of casino gambling aren't more frequently mentioned in the examination of the motive of this man. Anyone who works at or around a casino can sing you chapter and verse on how dehumanizing the gambling addiction is, and how it can turn seemingly normal people into bitter individuals whose only thoughts are for the next crank of the handle. Certainly this had influence on turning this Mr. Paddock into the kind of remote individual that could kill so many people. This event, like many of the mass shootings, renewed the gun-control debate; it should also have started a discussion on the dangers, crime and vice enabled by the proliferation of casino gambling in this country, and how it can be better controlled.
6
Can we please shut down Alex Jones now?
9
The Times certainly has no shortage of silly and ill informed readers based on these comments. The bellhops and maids are to blame? The Second Amendment? Please.
What specific "gun reform" law would have prevented this? The answer is none.
3
Tracking large ammo purchases and multiple rifle purchases over the course of several months might set off alarms if it were permitted.
10
@Peter Ruden: unique among mass shooters, Stephen Paddock was a older man -- patient -- methodical -- he had the time AND WEALTH to accumulate that ammo over years or decades. You couldn't possibly track it accurately over all that time.
On top of that, he owned 2-3 homes and 3 private planes -- he had the money, patience, time and maturity to plan this over DECADES and probably did.
1
Absolutely banal -- an infomercial for more surveillance cameras posing as a news story? See's trivial but very visual contributions says nothing about the key issues: the killer's motivation and how this industrial scale murders can rationally be minimized. If the NYT is clueless, let's see instead substantive articles on Cambridge Analytica and other important topics and less eye candy.
2
We are at a point in human history, and human 'development', at which life becomes "unreal" to many people. This seems improbable (and is certainly undesirable), but I believe it is true, and will become "truer" with the passage of time. The combination of overpopulation, the pace and frustrations of life, and the video-ization and communication of everything (which creates and sustains a constant stream of unreal messages to the individual) is simply too much for some humans to process. Think "Future Shock" taken to its psychologic edge. Think "The Sane Society" (Erich Fromm--read it!) as an accurate reading of the negative effects of modernity.
To make these observations is not to employ them as universal explanations of behavior for which there is no other explanation--but "dystopian reactions" to modernity are not limited to dystopian science fiction, film, or Beaudrillarian sociologic imaginings and observations. Humans have proved incapable of managing their own increase, their own technologies, and their common environment. It is an unfortunate, but evident, side effect that the experience of "being alive" (always an alien and uncomfortable experience for a small minority of people) is becoming alien, uncomfortable, and devoid of meaning, for more people. There is an epidemiologic trend here, and it is likely to become more evident with the passage of time and with the further complication of contemporary life throughout the globe.
13
However meaningless and uncomfortable life has become, as Sartre said, it still has to be embraced, because its all we have. We can only make it more meaningful by how we choose to act in the world. I know a lot of philosophers think he had an exagerrated view of the impact a person can have in the world, thinking it was some kind of naive individualism, but I still think there is truth in it. And part of that acting is recognizing the humanity of ALL other persons, even the ones who appear to make life too overcrowded or frustrating, or that we simply have nothing in common with. I don't know what combination of forces led this shooter to lose this sense of human values, but if its video-ization or something else, we have to continue to have dialogue that counteracts de-humanizing tendencies, no matter how difficult it becomes to do so.
It also just might be possible that we are not all condemned by "human development" to end up acting in this sort of way. Maybe the fact that it bothers us enough to discuss it is evidence that our fate is not sealed.
3
Robert, that's a noble attempt to attribute this sickness to the universal condition that we find ourselves in. But, how do you account for the fact that the US is suffering from the most 'dystopian reactions', much more so than any other 'developed' country?
From an outsider's point of view, it's easy: your country's love of guns.
The sooner your citizens realize and take to heart that guns are a 'want' and not a 'need', the sooner your government can start regulating these killing machines the way other developed, more civilized countries do. We can hardly wait.
Yes, we care. We care that so many people die on a daily basis for no other reason than that someone had a gun and used it to kill someone else, for whatever reason. But, until your citizens actually start to care too, no action will be taken. We in the rest of the world can only shake our heads and wonder why there is so much hatred, destruction, and killing going on on a daily basis in the US of A.
Apart from the NRA and gun owners who presumably believe that they bear no responsibility for mass shootings, I can't think of anyone looking at these pictures without being revolted by the complete failure of our federal and state governments to prevent maniacs like this man from arming themselves with weapons of mass murder.
36
So you are saying legal gun owners who have never committed a crime are responsible for mass shootings? I guess all car owners are responsible for drunk drivers. And all knife owners are responsible for stabbings. So do supporters of illegal immigrants bear responsibility for the crimes they commit in this country? Because there are a lot more people killed by illegal immigrants than mass shooters. Also, if you have invented a method to identify maniacs I'm sure we'd all like to know about it. Otherwise your comments are completely pointless.
5
Yes they are, by standing in great numbers against the enactment of legislation to prohibit the private possession of military-type weapons like the AR-15.
As for the identification of maniacs, I'd begin searching for them
among people who possess large quantities of AR-15's.
6
Why do we assume that people with mental illness will, at all times, act crazy and be easy to spot? Mental illness is a on-going condition, not an event. And it exists against a backdrop of normalcy, as we see in the videos.
Paddock was unstable and angry and had easy, unlimited access to weapons of mass murder.
He did it because he could.
38
The Boston Marathon bombers could have easily killed more people with their bombs made with components anyone has unlimited access to. They were here because of our refugee policies. There are numerous cases of muslim refugees killing people with guns, knives and vehicles. We might not be able to identify every mentally ill person but we can certainly do something about letting muslims in the country that hate our guts - and yet ...
3
He should have. There were a few stories where his girlfriend described his bad reactions to various medications. For some reason, the media hasn't really explored that angle. I guess covering "guns" sells more.
Meanwhile ... there's an embittered, vengeful loaner out there, reading the news, watching his television, stockpiling his weapons, fantasizing about the day when he slaughters innocents to show us the meaninglessness of life; fantasizing about his name on the front page. "I'll show the world," he thinks. (And the news media will continue to serve his ends.)
11
That was the first thing I thought of as I read the article. Perfect food and fodder for the ugly, evil copy-cats lurking out there.
There should be an award for authors like this one, trying to make it 'entertaining', but only motivating evil.
There should be limits on the number and types of guns/ammunition someone can own at a time.
9
What about knives? Hammers? Crock Pots? Fertilizer? Cars? There are tens of millions of people in the US who own multiple guns. The fact is 99% of legal gun owners never commit a crime. More people are killed in traffic accidents. How come no one is worried about the heroin overdose epidemic in this country?
3
This is why the idea of identifying these people with guns and bombs before they commit their crimes is so ludicrous. What background check would point to this guy? It's the availability of the assault rifles--the key word here is "assault", not hunting or personal protection handgun--that must be addressed immediately. But will it? Crickets, of course, from our legislators who are in thrall to NRA money and the lowest common denominator in their "base."
14
Where did you get the term assault rifle and what makes it an assault rifle?
3
One type of protection/regulation law will stop one type of potential murderer, another type will stop another. We need a COMBINATION of checks on the system. Waiting periods (so angry people acting impulsively might cool off). Background checks (so those with criminal records or known mental illness can be stopped). Bans on military assault weapons meant only for killing humans (to stop or limit the damage of the Stephen Paddocks of the world). Age requirements (if you aren't considered adult enough to vote, drink, smoke or join the military, you aren't adult enough to buy a weapon). Licenses that require training in gun use and safety (to stop tragic accidents).
1
This was awesome. Great, compelling work the Times is capable of when it defers from politics and cultural issues. Keep it up.
2
What is apolitical and non-culturally relevant in this forensic piece? Do you think it neatly divorced from such elements of daily life?
1
I thought the same thing - no moralizing or drawing specious conclusions in this story. Such a refreshing change...
3
Part of it must be notoriety, he's certainly outdone his father now in terms of crime. But where does his lack of empathy and hatred towards society come from? Strange.
1
It could simply be he was bored with a life in which he got no recognition and wanted to be remembered after he died. He seems to have achieved that.
13
Terror much? Doesn't matter that he didn't have an explicit ideological frame or wasn't obviously working with a group, he methodically planned to sow terror/death , he's white and so we get a deep dive into his life, yet again, like the Austin bomber. We have a terror /gun /violence problem in the US. We live in a truly dangerous, capitalist free fire zone and we need to admit this and deal with it
9
When one’s tool is a hammer, all problems are nails. Unimportant personnel get in the way. This guy bequeathed peculiarly American lessons about wealth and sanity, guns and control, murder and suicide.
6
So...is Mandalay bay going to 'clean house' by firing the bellhops?
1
Are you saying the bell hops are ‘accomplices’? The room service staff who left the carts? The housekeepers who respected the ‘do not disturb’ sign? Well...in that case, change the hotel policies. Run all the suitcases through x-ray machines. Leave no carts for guests. Enter all rooms twice daily for inspection. Use common sense in a place where guns are easy to get, alcohol flows freely, and emotions can run high as guys and gals lose their shirts and the farm.
2
Well ... people have no problem putting their bags through x-ray when they get on a plane so why not when they check into a hotel? Of course, it only limits one type of shooting.
He did it for exactly the reasons of what you are writing and publishing.
He did it for the publicity. He did it for the notoriety. You may reinterpret that,, mentally not balanced and it is a cry of anguish,, a cry of "Look at me",, a cry of. "I'll show them".
Regardless,, these are all attempts at publicity or notoriety. His religion? His politics? He is manipulating you from beyond the grave. It's a prepay system.
And what do you, the writers do? You give him every inch column he ever wanted. You give him the stature he felt he lacked. You absolutely guarantee the next attack,,,, because the next guy wants the press too.
It is not guns,, that is just the instrument, it is the press giving him exactly, exactly, what he wanted. And you do.
5
Without the weapons and accessories capable of inflicting this level of carnage, he wouldn't have had any chance of this level of publicity or notoriety. Journalists and the news media are doing their jobs: reporting on events that affect our lives to a level that corresponds to how much those events affect our lives. Stop trying to blame EVERYTHING but GUNS.
3
I can never make sense of this argument. He's dead - he's not around to enjoy whatever it is you think he supposedly gained from this. I do agree the coverage risks giving ideas to other troubled people, would-be copycats. But I can't understand arguments that the killer "got what he wanted" in terms of publicity or notoriety or stature.
There is a line between providing news and information to the public and providing information on how to commit a horrific crime, as you have shown here. I'm disgusted that you would publish these 'instructions' on how to commit this heinous act.
1
People are asking why no-one queried that a single man should had 6/7 bits of luggage. That misses the point that the staff carrying his luggage would had no idea whether he was a single man or not. You drop your family at the hotel entrance so that they can have a coffee while you take the car to be parked and the luggage to be taken up to the large suite you've booked. You have seven cases because there are two of you plus two kids. Absolutely unexceptional. And if, and it's very unlikely in a hotel with three thousand rooms, someone for some reason happens to remember what one unexceptional customer did last time and recognises you doing the same thing two days later it's still unexceptional. Rich families do lots of shopping. Plans change. Now you've all decided to play tennis tomorrow which means another lot of bags from home.
Short of installing the sort of AI surveillance system that keeps track of the movements of three thousand guests in real time and having a policy of searching guests' belongings if someone decided they have more luggage than required the hotel could have done no more than it did. The only way to stop this happening is to pick up on the one red flag that ought to be a trigger for some sort of action- the number of guns and amount of ammunition the guy had managed to buy.
126
Wrong analysis!
The hotel was negligent in failing to check the room on a daily basis for cleaning and, also, to determine the existence of illegal activities upon the premises owned by the hotel for the protection of others. A duty of care was owed, and ostensibly breached by the failure of the hotel management and ownership to check the rooms on a regular basis. If the hotel guest refused permission to enter the suite, a red flag arises, triggering a need for further investigation. The analysis does not begin and end with multiple trips into the suite; it continues during the occupancy of the suite. No brainer.
4
That would be like saying if he rented your house you were negligent for not checking in to the house on a daily basis. The hotel has no responsibility to do that. The hotel is there to provide a service to you. If you don't want it you opt out.
3
"Short of installing the sort of AI surveillance system that keeps track of the movements of three thousand guests in real time and having a policy of searching guests' belongings if someone decided they have more luggage than required the hotel could have done no more than it did. The only way to stop this happening is to pick up on the one red flag that ought to be a trigger for some sort of action- the number of guns and amount of ammunition the guy had managed to buy."
THIS!!!!!
3
Chilling to watch this. Thank you, NYT, for putting it together. It answers some questions about the "how." But, as you said, the biggest question, the "why?" remains unknown, and we are left to try to interpret what he was thinking as we watch his eyes in various clips. They are calculating, hard and empty.
20
Suzanne, Your choice of words is exceptional. Americans live calculating, hard and empty lives in a calculating, hard and empty country. Last night I watched "No Country For Old Men," and that epitomized, especially from the villain's standpoint, the attributes of evil in America.
One person can easily become an effective killing machine in America. The first thing we think about when we are crossed is deadly revenge. It is as simple as road rage. Our "social media" has constructed a high tech late 20th and early 21st Century mind set of viciousness. This began with Facebook which is finally being looked into as a savage culprit in our nation and across the world.
Even "The New Yorker" pointed out this week that the linen sale at Porthault's store in Paris is more civilized than the one in its New York store. We cannot even purchase sheets and towels and the like with civility and politeness and good behavior in America. This country did not get off on a good footing and 240-some-odd years later, it may as well have regressed for 240 some-odd-years.
6
I see this video and think of how inextricably linked all our lives are and that where our paths cross, there can be extreme violence motivated by so many unknown factors.
This guy shows up in Las Vegas with guns after a mundane and seemingly uneventful life as a prosperous businessman. He enjoys his stay at the Mandalay Bay, using its amenities, while preparing for a shooting.
He sets up his tripods, his bump stocks, zeroes his sights and waits.
Then he kills 58 people before he shoots himself. He shows up in an instant and is gone leaving only 58 dead people and hundreds of others wounded.
Every effort that we can expend to bring him to account is useless. For someone who doesn't believe in religion, he isn't even punished in the afterlife but experiences the same state that even the best among us will when we die.
Random flash of rage and gunpowder that we can't be explained or made easier to swallow.
I don't know why he did it but I imagine it had to do with rage at life: growing old, no longer finding joy in the things he liked to do, jealousy at those who could have a good time at a concert.
These are things many of us will feel at one time or another, perhaps mitigated by children or deeply loved spouses, religion, or political/social causes.
By all accounts, Paddock had none of these things and just decided to lash out with the last bit of life he had no doubt thinking all the while that even his killings will ultimately be meaning in the grand scheme.
3
Well put. I would add one thing to your list of possible motivations; his father, who lived a double life, outwardly a family man, but in fact a bank robber and a dangerous one at that, was sent to jail when he was a young teen... A suspicion I have as I have wrestled with this very mysterious incident is that around the time his father was caught and jailed (thus resulting in him effectively losing his father), the first mass shooting happened in America, on August 1st 1966 at UT Austin... Paddock would have been at an impressionable age that time (he was born in April 1953 making him 13 and the UT Austin shooting had be a huge story at the time; nothing like it had happened before....
Could he have gotten the idea at that point that he would get revenge for his father being taken away from him (or for his father letting him down) by someday imitating Charles Whitman? I think it is noteworthy that Stephen Paddock too chose to shoot from a tower (not common to most mass shootings, and no mere opportunistic move, he had scoped out other elevated vantage points over the last few months) -- and had this stewing inside him all these years and realized as he was getting older that if was going to go through with it he had to act soon? It seems he left no record and did not share so we will likely never know...
4
Interesting theories, but all this stuff about "he had empty eyes" or "he was mad his father went to jail 55 years ago" -- are nothing but speculation. It's intriguing, but investigators actually looked into a lot of this and interviewed his relatives and girlfriend, and found no such connections.
1
Mr. Paddock made a huge investment in luggage.
After all these decades why are the images from video security cameras so poor? The average citizenry can take better video footage from their cell phones. High technology has failed us regarding video security and surveillance.
43
Of course there are types of security cameras that take much better quality video -- but that high quality takes up a ton of storage space. For a hotel like this, with hundreds of cameras operating 24 hours a day, the cost to store such enormous amounts of data is prohibitive. It's not that this "high technology" isn't there..
1
Mr. Reggie,
As noted in the article the video had to be blurred so as to protect the identity of the other hotel guests and employees. I could hazard a guess that it is rather clear when it is being viewed by the law enforcement agencies.
Just a thought.
Suzette
The failure, if any, may belong to hotel architects who prefer ease of selling cheaper designs, and building developers whose pay requires approval of their budget, nothing new. Compare the costs of installing left-over-cameras and wiring to "high technology." Discuss high technology in context. The quality did not fail the footage for this article.
Since people like Paddock will continually arise from the muck, understanding why these people do these things is trivial compared to what we must as Americans face: the meaning of the second amendment.
To me, the logic of the second amendment is clear. As a precondition to our "right to bear arms", we must be a member of a "well regulated militia", and a militia is not reasonably private. We have the National Guard for people who want to own guns.
It can be age stratified and modified if people want a military career. As a social organization, nutters such as Paddock would be outed and dealt with.
16
Yes. We have a regulated arms force (which is also not without issues, but not to this extent). There is no reason that a private citizen should have access ti the kinds of fire-power this person did. As a mother and grand-mother, what breaks my heart is seeing those school-children, arms raised. They, and their families, their teachers, will be scarred for life.First step: "gun control". I might guess there was childhood trauma involved. (Just a hypothesis, no facts).
1
Slipping Glimpser: the Supreme Court is the final arbiter on what the Constitution does or does not mean -- not you -- and they have ruled several times that the Second Amendment does indeed mean that ordinary citizens have the right to own firearms.
1
As to the final question of "why"? It seems that when the perpetrator of a massacre of innocent people is deemed, in layman's terms anyway, "sane", there are three possibilities. A deep misanthropy, coupled with the willingness and ability to act on it, which in our gun loving culture is clearly not that hard. A religious/political motive, driven by the usual delusions of achieving utopia, if only your particular belief system can be implemented, no matter the method. And third, revenge, taken for an accumulation of perceived persecutions. Of course these can all overlap and often do. Much stronger background checks and gun laws, along with a much better mental healthcare system are the only protections against this kind of violence.
11
JEB, I agree completely. To this I would add better child protection services. "See something, say something". We can't enter people's homes, but states can require, and hire (and not fire) at least a once weekly newborn and infant home visit, where not just the baby, but the caregivers and home environment is observed.
We need our lawmakers on Capitol Hill, who refuse to consider -- much less vote for -- any meaningful new legislation on gun control to be scrutinized and held accountable at the ballot box for their inaction.
7
I'm not faulting the bellhops, but who brings 21 suitcases to his hotel room? No one noticed this or thought it was strange? We desperately need gun control, but some good old fashioned common sense might help, too.
26
What most people think is strange is rather "normal" in vegas. The whole point of the place is that it is not normal. And we have tons of gun control. When we finally learn that (a) there are no laws that will stop criminals and (b) there is no way that the government can defend us without taking away everyone of rights then we can finally get somewhere.
2
No amount of "gun control" could stop a psychopath. If he was somehow magically not able to get guns, he would have used one of his planes to crash into the crowd- same number of injuries & probably more fatalities.
1
Which gun control measures would have prevented this?
1
21 bags over the course of seven days...." Maybe that's why no one noticed or questioned it.
10
That's a great number of bags. The hotel staff assisted him so often that I'm honestly surprised that no one went, "Huh, why does this lone weirdo have so many bags? He's just one guy."
2
Do you think there's only maybe three bellhops in that whole hotel?
"He's just one guy" ... unloading the bags. His wife or entire family could be joining him later, or tomorrow. Or he could have some obscure hobby or collection of things that he likes to travel with. He could be in town to do a lot of shopping. The bags could contain books, or scientific equipment, or all kinds of food if he followed a special diet, or merchandise he was in town to sell, or practically anything. The bellhops are not really interested in how much luggage you have or what's in it. They've seen everything. Of course one or more of them might have wondered if it could be weapons, but what are the odds? And what could they do about it even if they wondered? Their job is to be helpful and mind their own business. Hotels can't randomly demand to see what people have in their suitcases, based on no evidence of any wrongdoing or evil intent. Customers would be irate.
1
Another law-abiding citizen, playing with his guns. Until he wasn't.
30
And the NRA cheering.
There are over 300M legally owned guns in this country ... far fewer of them are used to kill people than are killed by drunk drivers every year. But I guess you just don't care about the people killed by drunk drivers.
2
My guess is that this insane person, who acted out as a mass-murder, might have snapped because he was angry and humiliated about loosing money gambling: And his anger and humiliation fed into the anger and humiliation and shame and embarrassment he had to have felt as a little boy who had to live with the knowledge that people around him in his neighborhood new he was the son of a criminal. Thus, finally, his years of hiding behind sufficiently successful gambling and wealth in Las Vegas failed him so that he acted out is fantasy identifications with his psychological representations of his father; I guess ?
1
Lenny, that was an early theory. However, they keep records and Paddock was not losing at all -- he was a skilled, professional gambler and won a good deal of the time, and he knew what he was doing. He was VERY wealthy -- a multi-millionaire -- and not in any kind of debt at all.
1
This is so chilling. So awful the hotel staff, esp. cleaning staff who entered his suite long after he had brought in nearly two dozen suitcases, suspected, and as far as we know, reported nothing.
I don't think the cleaning staff are allowed to open and explore the luggage in a guest's room.
6
Perhaps this was simply a thrill killing for him. Gamblers are thrill seekers. They like the rush of adrenalin that taking chances gives them. Maybe this creep wanted one last big thrill. Something that would put his name in the news and the record books.
3
This surveillance video is chilling now after the fact -the fact that he gunned down 58 innocent people, execution style, who in no way had harmed, derided or insulted him who were just having a good time. It shows how a psychopathic, murderous brain hides behind a facade of being an ordinary man, so ordinary that he is easily overlooked, seen but not remembered to hiding in plain sight. This video seems only horrifying now only in retrospect. But as 20/20 one wonders why there were no red flags when he carried multiple bags multiple times to the same room. But that is only 20/20. As to why? The only answer would be simply psychopathy. And only the psychopath knows why and he is dead.
1
Very sorry to see this "how to " video posted. A perfect blueprint for crazies to follow. I see no redeeming value in publishing this very detailed account of how the massacre was staged but do see much potential future harm. Does your readership really need to know the info published here? Exactly what is the value???
1
To warn hotels to watch for people with tons of luggage--obviously.
3
But there are plenty of people who travel with tons of luggage. There's just no sense in this. We seem to always be fighting the next war. The next guy has got an even cleverer idea for the next mass slaughter, while hotels fret pointlessly about what's in guests' suitcases? Ridiculous.
Why is the NY Times putting this information out? Why glorify what this person? Why give other individuals that harbor a desire to mass murder "the inside scoop?" This feels very wrong to me and seems like a way to perpetuate similar actions of unstable people that want to do the same thing. Please, please, please remove this article from the web site.
There are a lot of people out there dabbling in conspiracy fantasies, one being “how come there’s no video footage being released?” Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Also, this will no doubt cause hotel operators to revise policies regarding baggage and room checks, among other things. So, I don’t see this as a “how to” video.
4
The electorate must demand real and significant gun law reform and must insist that any person running for political office on any level must stand first and foremost upon that platform. The media has a role to play in keeping the public focused on that goal and in moving public opinion toward that direction. The electorate must demand real and significant gun law reform and must not be distracted by the machinations of the powerful influences who feel otherwise. This is the only way to effect change and if we accomplish this achievable goal many other progressive issues will follow.
8
Yes! finally someone I agree with. We do have way too many gun laws and they need to be reformed! Lets go back to the laws we had in 1967 when the U.T. tower sniper received immediate return fire from MANY civilians with scoped sniper rifles. And an armed civilian partnered with a cop (because the civilian had a better weapon than the cop - he had a rifle) to go up the tower and get the guy. If only 1% of the crowd had had rifles with them, the return fire would have shut down the madalay bay shooter toot sweet quickly. Hard to shoot people when they are shooting back.
2
Mr. Doh, respectfully asking the following; if there were a thousand people at the concert that night, listening to loud amplified music how would your ten stalwarts with their sniper scoped rifles know which direction the shots were coming from? News reports have the crowd panicking not knowing the source of the fire. Next, what in the world makes you believe your gunmen are any better at fixing on a target than trained soldiers? The Doh militia would have blown out every window on the Madalay tower before they ever found their man. Lastly, If I was a law enforcement agent coming upon that specific scene the first person I'd shoot was some guy with a rifle.
In your hypothetical fantasy, the crowd of gun-toting concert goers would have magically identified the source of the gunfire (far harder than you would think), then collectively returned fire at a hotel room in a crowded building, high up?
What would really happen is that people would panic and send bullets spraying everywhere. Even if some mythical so-called "Good Guy" discerned the correct hotel room, they would miss and pepper the building with stray fire.
The only way to prevent this (at least until technology changes) is to place serious limitations on the quality and quantity of civilian firearms. Which we should do, tout suite.
A pretty sensational front page story written to trigger our fears. How about some deeper investigations or more world news?
9
Um, they do that, too. Why is everyone a critic?
6
Great reporting and great work on the assembly of the security video footage that I know can be a tedious and painstaking process both in obtaining the raw material and then combing through it for the right pieces. In my work for a Southern California law enforcement agency focused on arson, I spend more and more time building timelines such as this one to document fires-both criminal and accidental. I would say it has now become my single most important investigative tool/technique as sources grow with more and more businesses, homeowners and property owners installing security video systems. To a public wary and concerned about too much surveillance in public spaces, I say please understand this is beginning to take a huge bit out of crimes and insuring those who commit crimes are swiftly and throughly brought to justice. It also eliminates lengthy court case costs with plea deals once defendants view a “final cut” of footage their lawyer obtained in discovery, but had no idea could be assembled in such a telling manner. When the recent Austin bombing incidents started, I knew video would be a key to solving the case-and it was.
117
Unfortunately it is a lot easier to back track movements than to predict them! Assault style guns and large capacity magazines must be made illegal. There are no other options. A pool of 35,000 FBI agents can't possibly turn over every leaf when the failure starts at a local level.
6
Well-placed videos in Britain are common and have done a good job of helping to keep the public safe as well as to solve crimes.
Reading this makes me feel like we'll never really understand why this keeps happening unless we can capture more of these killers alive and interrogate them closely and repeatedly.
And maybe even that won't be enough in the end either, but someone as deliberate as Stephen Paddock has to have SOME rational thought process, and therefore some reason for doing this, doesn't he?
9
Thanks to the New York Times for keeping this story alive at least. Nobody seems all that willing to resolve lingering questions like why Mr. Paddock needed such an arsenal, what's the upshot with the Filipina girlfriend, why he poked out two windows, etc. It would appear the most likely answer is to do whatever it takes to keep the Las Vegas money mill going and forget as much as possible.
6
Stephen Paddock's motive is unknown, but clearly, the slaughter was well planned in advance. And he set up those cameras so he could see who was approaching his room. Do we know whether he planned to escape, or was he planning to commit suicide or get killed in a shoot-out with police?
If a violence-prone person wants to end his own life and go out with a media splash, his sick motive may be mainly to commit a final sensational act of ego gratification, and less so hatred of those he slaughters. If that was Paddock's motive, he succeeded in spades.
5
Theatrics. They take us for fools. Oh. I forgot, most of us are. Nobody on that highly trained, highly monitored hotel staff noticed all of the super heavy boxes being brought into the one room? Theatrics.
28
Just a thought: That hotel is a part of a convention center space. I've exhibited there myself and it's not at all unusual to see people bringing heavy cases back to their rooms. Many leave the Do Not Disturb signs up specifically because those cases may be filled with merchandise. It's a convenient way to store items until the show begins. In this case, so tragically, this was not the case.
146
Twenty one bags over the course of a week. I guess you think that someone would notice a person coming and going with baggage in a hotel...hardly. Perhaps you should pay attention the next time you go to a 3000 room hotel in Vegas.
9
Certain kinds of salesmen have multiple bags of samples, so this would not necessarily be something hotel staff would notice. We should keep talking about why people "need" these weapons and the real meaning of the 2nd amendment.
14
....."laughs with hotel staff"......, of course, because he was "a killer out of fun". Is it so difficult to notice that? A specimen of a killer Americans apparently tend to not to notice.
Why is it so difficult to say: yes, this type exists in or country instead to reason "he must be mentally instable". These killers enjoy their crimes, they laugh about their victims they are gunning down or blowing off with bombs. It is their greatest satisfaction.
10
The calculation involved in these murders is significant, and in a sick way, impressive. It's hard to know how much of this was part of that plan. Did he become well-known at that casino just to establish a pattern of innocuous behavior? It seems possible.
1
The surveillance footage doesn't merely fail to answer the why question, it makes the why question all the more inscrutable.
14
All the phone recordings and photos were seized, Phones were then returned, completely erased..... Sound recording that were download prior to being seized, computer analysis reviled the shots came from multiple directions, with different weapons firing at different rates, as Los Vegas police radio chatter confirmed.
Whatever happened on that horrible day, the truth is not being shared with the public.
5
@ Constitution First "All the phone recordings and photos were seized,"
All? How could whoever was seizing the phones (some branch of law enforcement?) find everyone there who had a phone, find the phone, and then take the phone, especially if the owner didn't want to give it up?
Are you suggesting people were compelled to return and surrender their phones? By whom?
Who would have a complete list of attendees? Ticket sales wouldn't provide a complete list. If a person buys a tickets for more than himself/herself, how would "they" determine who the other ticket holders were?
The uninjured had no reason to return unless they wanted to testify.
Perhaps the phones that were dropped when the owners were running away were erased, which is what I would want to happen if my phone were lost.
Provide us with a source and some more information.
4
Please don't make this out to be another JFK conspiracy theory. There was no grassy knoll here, no CIA mafia connections, no Sirhan Sirhan, no government involvement to take your guns away. Paddock was a psychopath and antisocial, a lone gunman, going financially broke. As for why he did it, only one person truly knows, fortunately he shot himself.
3
And security didn’t consider his movements as odd?
9
It's Las Vegas. Now if he was card counting ...
6
The Mandalay Hotel has 3,309 rooms. Do you really think that their hotel security keeps tabs on the coming and goings of every single one of its customers? If the only unusual thing about his behaviour was the fact that he was coming and going frequently and bringing more luggage when he did, there is no way that any hotel level security could pick that up among the movements of three thousand other guests from video footage in real time.
I don't see why they would.
We live in a permissive society. We confuse freedom with license, circus and clowns with information, information with knowledge. In spite of the profusion of information, much of it the fake variety, we are becoming more and more credulous about dubious 'news' if emotionally emphasized, witness Trump's demagoguery, and conspiratorial theories, confused as true entertainment (TV reality), totally sold to the N.R.A., and with crazy proposals to arm teachers so the gun lobby may sell even more arms. And here comes a guy in Las Vegas, one more episode of what can be allowed in these United States by a deadly status quo in the unrestricted selling of weapons, and the ease of mowing down people in the most efficient way by the most sophisticated guns, and resulting in a huge show of camaraderie and sorrow, and prayers galore...and yet doing zero changes so it won't happen again. Paying attention to the killer while remaining passive about the need to reform our irrational 'love for guns' is absolute stupidity. Insanity is defines as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. What I'm trying to say is, let's stop our hypocrisy by emphasizing the qualities or prowess and resources of a criminal mind...and sit down, and not get up, until we have the will and courage to tackle our idiotic dogma of our 'sacred' right to buy guns at will and compensate our glaring insecurities and immaturity. Too many guns, too easy to buy; that's the basic problem.
51
It is a scared right, second only to freedom of speech in our Bill of Rights, and for good reason, Manfred.
"It is harder to maintain the balance of freedom than it is to endure the weight of tyranny." -Bolivar
2
Is it, really? Having lived through a despotic period, a military coup where the government functioned with their boots and the bayonet, I beg to differ from your 'Bolivar' statement'. This, with due respect, as Bolivia got it's name from him.
1
Horrible. That hotel is going to have to pay up for their gross negligence -- as has been pointed out, over 900 claims. Those weapons create terrible wounds. It was all preventable by what a reasonable person would do -- check out the suite.
10
Absolute ridiculous. How about instead of mandating that hotels be required to count and inspect our luggage whenever we check into a room, we do what every civilized country in the world has done- implement gun control?
8
Please are you now advocating all suitcases should be checked when checking in at a hotel? As if you wouldn't be crying tears if it did happen. When a drunk driver hits a another, I don't see people suing the carmaker now do they.
I agree; the video confirms numerous trips in which he brought back LOADS of luggage. Twenty-one suitcases? The staff did not notice a single man brining 21 large suitcases into his suite? Did not report it to management?
Even if "guns" did not occur to them, I'd suspect some other kind of illegal transaction -- guns, laundered cash, etc. Nobody travels with 21 heavy suitcases.
1
As sick as Paddock was, we have to ask why his possible accomplice, the girlfriend Marilou Danley, is still not being investigated. Didn’t she visit him at the casino he was holed up in for weeks? Didn’t she see what he was hiding? One wonders.
16
Was he sick? I have seen no statements that effect.
2
He was at the resort for 7 days and he had sent her on a trip to the Philippines to visit family.
1
She was investigated by the FBI. They didn't find anything linking her to the shooting.
2
A guest has 21 bags delivered to his suite, and that didn't raise an eyebrow? The bags must have had some weight. I think it's time for hotels to educate their staff to point out suspicious behavior. Did the tips cloud judgement?
22
Some wealthy people travel with a lot of luggage. He might have moved out of his house after a fight with the wife - who could know?
11
I really think this is hindsight speaking. But then it might have occurred to someone to just ASK him why he had so many bags?
4
The Mandalay is a huge resort with lots of staffers. It is quite possible that different staffers handled the luggage. In fact, as careful a planner as he was, he probably made sure to move luggage at different times of day when different people were on duty.
4
I would tell you why, but then you might think I'm also sick enough to do that!
... If I try to read his mind, he would be thinking the best way he can improve the world before he dies is to destroy one small part of the U.S. military/religious/industrial/entertainment complex.
The U.S. needs to donate half of its battleships & related resources to the NEA for materials, and give some artists some grants for what to do with them; donate the other half to teachers, to build some really cool educational sites and projects. (Maybe some to train some naval plumbers and training for cadets - remembering battleships being disabled by toilet misuse)
What I can't figure out is how didn't he know that we inevitably hit the wrong targets when we try to do it this way?
Barlow's 25 Principles of Adult Behavior would have told him: Never be too sure of yourself (#10), never assume bad motives (#3), give up blood sports(#11), respect the needs of others (#14), remember love forgives everything (#21), endure (#25). Maybe #25 (Don't trouble yourself with matters you truly cannot change). He might have been going for #23 (live memorably).
1
And no history of mental health problems. NRA, response please.
82
I cant do any sort of NRA response since I dont know much about the NRA, but I can offer this thought:
How would it be possible to stop a multimillionaire from doing something like this?
If an extremely wealthy person takes the time and effort that this man did...I cant really come up with a way to stop him from carrying out his plan. His activities were rather bland for a rich patron, our culture has learned to expect far stranger behaviour from our elites.
The US has a large population of rich elite citizens, who tend to want many specialized (often strange) perks.
Money gets what it wants, and places like Vegas are built on catering to the rich.
2
We ask why would anyone do such a thing. It’s because that how we evolved, how we are designed for the faithful. We are hunter predators, meant to kill. The human man has killed everything and anything, including its own. Why do young men join the marines, the seals. For honor, duty and country, or just the insatiable desire to kill. We are a very primitive and violent species, incapable of peaceful coexistence. What makes this idiot any different? He just could not control his moral compass, his pre frontal cortex got overwhelmed by his primal desire to kill. But let’s not forget the readily available weapons of war available at your local retailer, that sure helped. Party on.
18
Its it really a primal desire to kill OTHER PERSONS? Why would that be? To eat them? Have YOU felt this primal desire?
I feel anger towards people sometimes, and if I were attacked, I'm pretty sure I would want to strike back and make sure the attacker was unable to try and hurt me again. But marines have to be TRAINED to kill other human beings. Maybe they want to join to release some violent energies, but does that add to a desire to murder?
And while you're thinking about this, think about all the millions upon millions of people who do NOT act out each day and try to kill and mame others? Or all of those who try to help other living creatures. Wehy would we even have concepts of "war" or "murder" if we didn't think of those situations as extraordinary?
1
It has to be more complex than that.
BTW: my dad, my uncle, my husband, my son and two nephew are or have served in the US military and not one of them ever killed ANYBODY or even fired a weapon. You are grossly exaggerating here.
Mr. Paddock is a highly unusual shooter -- perhaps one of the kind. He was a senior citizen, just months shy of Medicare. He was very wealthy -- a mutli-millionaire with 2 houses and 3 private planes. He was not some autistic kid who was bullied. He could have gone anywhere, done anything in life. Short of dementia or a brain tumor -- which have been ruled out -- nobody knows or can know. He has taken his mystery to his grave.
2
"...To shoot and kill 58 people..." In describing this horrific event, why do we usually forget the 851 people who were also wounded in the attack? For some reason we never seem to want to express the full proportion of the casualties in describing these attacks, the true number of lives that are touched. Also we should remember that when high velocity ammunition is used, as it always is with an AR rifle, the wounds can be quite grievous, much more so than with conventional ammunition. Does a weapon that can cut down 900 people in just a couple of minutes, in the hands of such a "normal" looking guy, really need to be on our streets, available for a few dollars to whoever wants one? Yet since this shooting as well as the several that have already followed (with no end in sight) our national leaders have done nothing more than utter some vague lip service about praying. Does that seem like an intelligent response, or an acceptable state of affairs for a nation like ours?
315
the price for your 2nd Amendment right
7
This guy was crazy. You can't legislate sanity. Horrible event, but if he had used an assortment of major caliber (look that up, 5.56 is not a major caliber) semi-auto hunting rifles the same shots would have passed through multiple people with each trigger pull. Lot's of even more horrific wounds. He could have propositioned bombs and aimed his fire to force people towards those bombs before they detonated. I spent 24 years in uniform defending this republic, and ALL of its amendments. I'm not disarming myself or any other law-abiding citizen to make you feel happy. The world is a dangerous place, and whether you live to be 20 or 90, life is fatal.
3
@Paul65: Disarming is not about making one person "happy," as you so dismissively and contemptuously put it. It is about making over 300 million Americans safer as they go about their daily lives in peace, and without the fear that some nutcase with an easily obtained high-powered weapon is going to kill or maim them. Survival is not about being "happy."
This is literally a matter of life and death, and your kind of trivialization of others' realistic concerns is one of the major problems the entire country has to deal with in its quest to honor the most important part of the Constitution, the reasons why we have any sort of a country at all: "..to ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."
Arming individuals does not provide for the "common defense," as the word "common," (meaning everyone) is toyally ignored. Rather, arming individuals disturbs domestic tranquility, ignores the general welfare, and robs everyone of the liberty to go about their lives without fear of men toting arsenals of guns.
6
This is the most haunting video I have seen in a long, long time. This man knew what he was going to do. He was waiting for that concert. He was amassing an arsenal the likes I can't comprehend. He murdered 58 people and injured hundreds more. He knew what he was going to do and he knew he wasn't going to tell us why. COWARD!!!
29
The most dangerous creature on the Planet, an enraged white male.
A true Public Health Hazard.
178
Really? Black men commit nearly half of the murders every year in the United States, despite only accounting for only 13% of the population. I know facts sometimes get in the way of being witty, but you should be aware of them regardless.
6
Well, not exactly the most dangerous "on the planet." (Hint: The USA is not the planet.) Have a look at the news coming out of Nigeria, or Somalia. Enraged men don't have to be white to be so dangerous. What they do need is a gun, preferably one designed for war.
6
I'd take that a step further: the most dangerous creature on the planet is an enraged *anyone* with easy access to assault weapons.
In Westport CT, the son of a man who has two arsenals of guns just like those used in mass shootings (said the police chief) was arrested for threatening a mass shooting at the high school. No, the boy is not white. He's just a boy who had the horrific misfortune of being born into the family with a gun-crazy madman for a father.
4
Have any of the "experts" considered the possibility that he decided to demonstrate the idiocy of gun laws in this country?
45
Do you mean the idiocy of EXISTING gun laws, or the idiocy of trying to CREATE new gun laws?
Because I seem to remember the assault weapons ban being allowed to EXPIRE.
7
So he was working on behalf of the NRA to prove that gun laws don’t work?
It would be nice if Congress was as “methodical” in preventing the next predictable mass slaughter by banning military assault weapons for civilians in the U.S.
223
Our leaders are paid to look the other way. Excellent ROI for the NRA and their backers, the gun industry.
10
More effective to ban anti-depressant drugs which are just as common in these cases as guns.
3
No military in the world uses any of the firearms used by Stephen Paddock. Your facts are inaccurate.
3
My jaw dropped and I spontaneously exclaimed shock as I watched this security video footage -- too many bags of luggage, a huge hotel room -- what were the hotel employees assigned to security and reservations doing!!!?
69
O, come on!
You really want to live in a society where check-on clerks routinely count and inspect your luggage whenever you check into a hotel?!?
28
What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. They have been trained/conditioned to look away, it's what hotel management prefers.
7
It was beyond the scope of their imaginations and I for one, understand that. It is very hard to look out for what you can't possibly fathom.
3
The dude was fractured. His mind was occupying two different worlds up until he made the final decision to go for the unthinkable. It will be interesting to see how he stacks up against the Austin bomber.
4
This kind of reminds me of letting app. 20 terrorists board planes before 9/11.
We search little old ladies at the airport and other places but let this guy do something like this?
To say the least there is a flaw in the system.
You don't want to have guests go thru strip searches and metal detectors every time they come and go from a hotel, but any minimum amount of security should have caught this guy.
20
Caught him doing WHAT? Is there some threshold of "too much luggage" that is supposed to set off bellhops?
12
No. No. I am not in favour of bending over and, " Spread 'em" for every private cop and airport security wanna be.
6
ANY security should have noticed a single man checking into a huge suite with 21+ heavy suitcases, which required him to make 3-4 deliveries by car and required assistance to take up to the room.
Sorry, that is not remotely normal and should have raised suspicions.
1
Maybe I was asleep in class that day but I thought mass murderers names were kept from the public as a way to not encourage others to follow suit. Is this the result of our fascination with fame or instant information because of the competition to steal headlines from other news outlets?
3
No. Names,, religion,, group affiliations, reasons why,, all are fair game today. I am entirely with you. We make our own problems,, we should never give a name or reason for any off it. Yes, it will cause the next, and the next,, and the,,,,etc. A very good case could be made that the papers want to sell papers,, so they make sure to get all the juicy gossip out there.
1
As a trained psychoanalyst, I feel qualified to say that "why" has become the most overrated question we can pose when exploring the human capacity for criminal mischief, which ranges from graffitti to mass murder. The Kardashianization of human interaction (the unabashed desire for a broad audience's recognition of our brand) means the drive for fame should itself be a recognizable motive at this point. So now what are we to do with this information?
118
Is it that simple? Lots of people would like to famous, but they don't go out and kill masses of strangers, and then themselves.
3
I don't disagree with what you say - fame is a motivator (among other variables), but how do you know this to be the case in this particular instance? I am sorry, but I want more evidence than "I am a trained psychoanalyst" . . . that, as you know as a trained professional, is not evidence of anything . . .
1
Moment of fame is one theory. Anger gets first place in the myths. Looks like the answer to your question is 'not a thing', because there are other appealing solutions such as changing laws that affect other people.
21 suitcases in total. All delivered to a single room by employees of this hotel. Yet, none of the employees when they unloaded any of the aforementioned suitcases found it odd that anyone would need so many, let alone a single person?
Lack of attention to detail!
16
Let’s say someone did notice. Then what? Call the police because a guest has lots of luggage? What are the police going to do about that?
53
It's a hotel connected to a convention center. Exhibitors bring heavy cases to their rooms all the time. It isn't an excuse, but it explains why the staff may not have thought it strange.
6
No, you don't call the police, you alert your supervisor. I think he chatted bell hops up to divert their attention to his baggage.
Attempting to parse all these stories for the "why" is ultimately futile, and therefore misdirecting. The one commonality is easy access to weaponry that has but one function - to kill large numbers of people efficiently.
142
How do we know its futile to seek an explanation? I agree that its too easy to access assault rifles, but to just dismiss these people as, what? Insane? Angry? Depressed? Maybe we should NOT dismiss the quest for an answer as futile!
2
Born and raised in Boston -- recently took my eldest from here in Atlanta back home and made sure we visited the Old North Bridge. Ease of access to weaponry is what separates freemen from subjects. Our Founding Fathers intended individual citizens to have access to weapons on par with that of their government forces in order to ensure a government that would not overstep its legitimate authority. The greatest evil ever envisioned or created by mankind was not the weapon, but a bureaucracy that was capable of sending millions of people off to concentration camps (in many countries) while civil servants blindly stamped and filed the paperwork.
1
Come on! The original purpose of the Second Amendment was not to have equal or greater force to the government. In 1788 the government had basically NO MEANS to coerce rebellious citizens. The impetus for even having a Continental Congress in 1787 was to devise a form of government that was STRONGER, not weaker, than the previous, precisely BECAUSE there was no way at the time to coerce rebellious spirits into even obeying STATE laws. (See Shay's Rebellion in any reputable History textbook). And the fact of the matter is that the Second Amendment was designed with more thought to protecting American citizens from hostile Indian tribes and foreign invaders than against some plan of any state or federal government of the time to attack the people.
And anyway, does anyone really believe that today any amount of weapons can protect citizens from a "tyrannical government"? If they do, then why do they keep voting for the same politicians who want military budgets designed to make that same government the most powerful one on earth by such an overwhelming margin?
2
Stephen Padddock, along with the Parkland gunman, the Austin bomber, and the myriad other American massacre shooters all have one thing in common that gives the lie to a central argumentative fallacy of the NRA. They were all law-abiding citizens, exercising their “2nd Amendment right to bear arms,” until they no longer were—law abiding, that is.
388
Guns don't kill people, gun owners do.
11
@Steve Griffith: uh....there is no Constitutional right to build nor blow up bombs.
3
If they were law abiding they would not have committed their acts of murder.
The NRA did not write the Constitution. If you object to the idea of innocent til proven guilty and the principle that a person cannot be prosecuted for a crime until they actually commit the crime then you have a problem with the American system of justice, not the NRA.
6