Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Crawford, a longtime employee of the gunman, said she knew Paddock “better than a wife would,” and had an “emotional breakdown” after Paddock was identified as the gunman in the attack on the Route 91 Harvest festival outside the Mandalay Bay hotel that also injured nearly 500 people.
“I just pray that they can solve the problem — that he had an alternate personality, or had a brain tumor,” Crawford said.
Another mass shooter suspect with a troubled past.
"...one of Ian David Long’s high school coaches said she saw serious signs of trouble and aggressive behavior in the months before he graduated from Newbury Park High School a decade ago."
Crawford, a longtime employee of the gunman, said she knew Paddock “better than a wife would,” and had an “emotional breakdown” after Paddock was identified as the gunman in the attack on the Route 91 Harvest festival outside the Mandalay Bay hotel that also injured nearly 500 people.
“I just pray that they can solve the problem — that he had an alternate personality, or had a brain tumor,” Crawford said.
Info on Wikipedia paints a different picture. First of all, I'd consider the fact that his father was a bank robber wanted by the FBI, and reported as "psychopathic" to be highly significant.
Secondly, according to Wiki, the shooter was not "wealthy", exactly. He had been wealthy, but had lost much of his money more recently, prior to the shooting. Thirdly, it was found that he'd been planning several mass shootings, and had visited several sites around the US, to case their potential for a mass-shooting event. He even set himself up in a hotel overlooking a big public festival in Chicago, once, but for whatever reason, chose not to act out his murderous plan.
Quote:
He reportedly kept to himself and was a heavy drinker. Paddock had lost a significant amount of his wealth over the previous two years, but had paid off all gambling debts before the shooting.
Paddock may have considered attacking other events. He had researched large-scale venues in cities such as Boston since at least May 2017, and had reserved a room overlooking the August 2017 Lollapalooza festival in Chicago, but did not use it. According to his girlfriend, she and Paddock were at the Mandalay Bay during an earlier stay a month before the attack when he repeatedly cased out Las Vegas Village from different windows in their room. From September 17, Paddock stayed at The Ogden in Downtown Las Vegas, which overlooked the open-air Life Is Beautiful festival that ran from September 22 to September 24. His internet search terms from mid-September included "swat weapons", "ballistics chart 308", "SWAT Las Vegas", and "do police use explosives".
The terrible tragedy that happened in Las Vegas has people searching for the answer of why did he do it?
In my mind, we cannot answer that question, and I'm not sure how close we are. When one points at a terrorist with proven ties to a group like ISIS, many times that's how the question gets answered. But that's more of a cause than an answer. It's the individual's brain that dictates the why. The understanding of mental illness has a long way to go, and I'm pretty sure those in the field know that. The brain is complex. We don't understand how signals really work, and what could cause a person to process their world in such a manner to carry out such an act.
Are we years, decades, or more from really beginning to target an understanding of the brain at a deeper level? Or will it even happen in our lifetime?
What good would knowing more about the brain do, in a case like this? Unless someone shows prior signs of obsession, depression, or other mental illness, they wouldn't be on anyone's radar. Would you suggest that all citizens submit to a mental health screening periodically, at benchmark ages throughout their lives, to try to identify potential risks to public safety?
The only way to prevent some of this kind of thing, is to do outreach to kids in abusive families, via the social worker system, to get them help. But that's a tricky issue. The system doesn't work well, as it is. Another way to prevent some of the incidents, as in the recent NYC synagogue shooting, is to expand the definition of "terrorist", which the FBI now claims it has done, and monitor online activity, to identify anti-Semitic and White Supremacist individuals and groups, that show they may be a risk, by whatever criteria are now in use by the NSA.
Of course, one more potential preventive measure, is to make guns, or certain types of guns, illegal to obtain. But although Congress introduced a bill after the Las Vegas shooting, to prevent sales of the type of weaponry the shooter used, Congress never followed through. There wasn't even a vote on it. They passed the buck to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Another mass shooter suspect with a troubled past.
"...one of Ian David Long’s high school coaches said she saw serious signs of trouble and aggressive behavior in the months before he graduated from Newbury Park High School a decade ago."
Millions of kids have troubled pasts. They turn into adults.
I can't speak for everyone, but given the sampling of people I know and grew up with, stories of drama are everywhere. It's actually the rare bird who didn't either get in trouble, experience domestic or other abuse, have substance abuse or similar problems, etc. etc.
Our culture approves of Rambo. This guy had a gun in the parking lot of his high school. He said he wanted to join the Marines to kill people..and, yes, that is what the Marines teach.
It's somewhat amazing that the Marines - with all their access to testing - did not flag the guy as unbalanced. Not that it would have mattered - they'd probably have kicked him out and he'd still be crazy and still buy a gun and kill people.
Aggressive behavior, as I said, is looked upon with fondness by a large part of our Population.
Of course, one more potential preventive measure, is to make guns, or certain types of guns, illegal to obtain. But although Congress introduced a bill after the Las Vegas shooting, to prevent sales of the type of weaponry the shooter used, Congress never followed through. There wasn't even a vote on it. They passed the buck to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
And the NRA and all their politicians celebrated.
In a sense, Mitch McConnell and Ryan have blood on their hands. They have made the decision to sacrifice kids and innocents for....really NO reason.
There are so many ways they could make it harder. I struggle to imagine the condition of the people in there being shot with a cannonball (45). The guy had expanded capacity magazines.
Would it have made a difference if he had a 6 shot 9mm with standard bullets? Probably. Most handgun victims don't die.
In most cases it's not a matter of making everything illegal - it's just to have more hoops when people want things out of the ordinary. If I go to the doc with an aching back he will give me some codeine. But if I ask him for extended released oxycontin I should get it (on demand) without a lot of proof as to my injuries.
Same thing goes with guns. In our state the Police Chief will actually interview you, especially if you want something which isn't normal. Even then you are limited - you can't buy 100 guns and rifles as you can many other places. Yet our gun violence rate is 1/2 or even 1/3 that of states where you can.
I doubt the Fed. Gov. will ever do much. The NRA owns the Republican Party. Things may change in a generation or two, but for now states represent a bigger hope.
Another mass shooter suspect with a troubled past.
"...one of Ian David Long’s high school coaches said she saw serious signs of trouble and aggressive behavior in the months before he graduated from Newbury Park High School a decade ago."
I believe that people with "serious signs of trouble and aggressive behavior" need to be watched and not ignored. It's great that 10 years later his coach says something. Would have been a lot better if she had said something back in the day.
I believe that people with "serious signs of trouble and aggressive behavior" need to be watched and not ignored. It's great that 10 years later his coach says something. Would have been a lot better if she had said something back in the day.
And which millions of people are we going to get to watch over these millions of people? And what are they going to watch for and then do?
Remember, they don't become a criminal until the bullet leaves the gun toward the wrong individuals...
No one is going to save us from ourselves. Little Green Men won't come down and fix things. We have been given the reason and logic and tools to change our society - but only if we desire it. A vast percentage of the population does not want to change it in many of those ways.
As some have claimed in other threads - this is price we have to pay for THEIR 2nd Amendment rights. Freedom is not free. To these people that means OTHERS, usually innocents and often children, have to die for their unlimited gun rights.
I believe that people with "serious signs of trouble and aggressive behavior" need to be watched and not ignored. It's great that 10 years later his coach says something. Would have been a lot better if she had said something back in the day.
Apparently some of the coaches did.
The coaches were particularly concerned about how he acted around women and young girls.
“If there was a female that he'd like, he'd say crass things to them. If they rejected him, he had a big issue,” Cluke said. On campus, Cluke said she saw Long “grope girls’ breasts or grab them in the behind.”
Cluke said she told her father, a staff member at the high school, and did her best to monitor Long herself. She felt that other staff members in positions of authority ignored Long’s behavior.
“They chalk it up to being a teenage boy,” she said. “He needed help back then, and nobody even thought to seek any help for him.”
-from the same L.A. Times article
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
