[Red State] In a blog post on his website, former Fox News host, Bill O’Reilly, shared his thoughts on last night’s tragedy in Las Vegas at the hands of a shooter.
"Once again, the big downside of American freedom is on gruesome display. A psychotic gunman in Las Vegas has committed the worst mass murder in U. S. history," O’Reilly wrote.
He’s not wrong. With the rights bestowed on American’s in the 2nd Amendment comes a certain risk and responsibility.
We have yet to learn full details, but the automatic gunfire coming from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel last night indicates that the shooter almost assuredly gained his weapons illegally or modified them illegally.
In that regard, O’Reilly states that those intent on killing "will find a way."
"This is the price of freedom. Violent nuts are allowed to roam free until they do damage, no matter how threatening they are."
He also gave little hope to the idea that much will change or advocates on both the anti-gun and pro-2A sides will become any less divided.
"If a man has decided that he is going to bite off your nose no matter what happens to him in the process, the chances are he will succeed in doing it. He may be severely beaten up, too, but that will not stop him from carrying out his objective. That is the real fighter."
BRUCE LEE, The Warrior Within: The Philosophies of Bruce Lee
No doubt the Daily Beast thought Robertson's comments to be the humorous rant of an aging religious fanatic. A deeper, more compelling argument might find the "disrespect" for human life as the cause. Too obvious perhaps, but possibly at the root of Robertson's comments. Something to ponder.
#1
It's the reaping of the unending sowing of hate and envy by the ruling class who just got their butt handed to them in November. Welcome to Bleeding Kansas.
[NewYorker] "Was it a jihadist or just a guy?” So the seventeen-year-old girl asks, on hearing the news, landing at once on the central black-comedy question as the annals of American mass murder expand this morning. If the author of the at least fifty dead and more wounded—the word “wounded,” of course, fails to capture the extent of the maiming, just as the blank word “dead” fails to capture the dawning of grief for so many families—was someone who had, even once, communicated with or been radicalized by isis, no matter how remote or long-distance that radicalization, or if he was merely a Muslim from a Muslim country, then a massive act of terrorism would have been committed and a militant response, including travel bans and broad suspensions of rights, would be essential. If you run that last sentence by our very own TW for shortening, I think she might be able to work it in by Friday.
Forget it, it's the New Yorker. But take out half the dependent clauses because they're nothing more than pointless padding, and we'll have made a start.
If it was just one more American “psycho,” then all we can do is shrug and, as the occupant of the Oval Office put it, send “warmest condolences and sympathies...”
President Trump, deprived from birth by some genetic accident of all natural human empathy—one should listen to a recently recovered tape of Trump, speaking to Howard Stern, in which he is actually boasting of his indifference to a man he thought was dying—speaks empathy as a foreign language and makes the kinds of mistakes we all make in a second language that we have barely mastered, placing adjectives in places that no native speaker ever would. Who sends warmest anything to the families of murder victims?
Vice-President Mike Pence, who is not a sociopath, merely a Republican, knew that the right language is the language of bafflement, talking about “senseless violence” and the rest.
So far, all signs are that it was just a guy—just one more American killer who got his hands on some collection of weapons designed for the sole purpose of killing people, and who then killed people.
We know that if it was a Muslim with a foreign name, we would be in full panic mode and all we would be hearing about is the ever-greater dangers of terrorism. Indeed, the killings in France, on Sunday, which were surely terrorism, have already begun to attract that kind of attention from the right wing here. But when it happens here, what we’re told by the entire power structure of American life—both houses of Congress, the White House, and now the Supreme Court, locked and loaded to sustain the absurd and radical pro-gun ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller—is that there is nothing at all to be done, save to pray. Mandalay Bay, as I understand it, was a gun free zone to begin with. So, if anything, the shooter showed in one grisly moment how gun control really works, and the result was predictable.
The facts remain facts. Gun control acts on gun violence the way antibiotics act on infections—imperfectly but with massive efficacy. Yet, even with that knowledge, some of us, in our innocence, proposed a sort of truce about Second Amendment issues in the face of the ongoing national emergency—the Trump Presidency—in which it seemed essential to make common cause, even with those who have the strange American fixation on the right to own military-style firearms. Nothing strange about it. There is a strong correlation between private gun ownership and civil liberties. It may be more subtle than attempts to control the transfer/ownership of firearms, for example, but it is provable.
They don’t have a reason for this fixation—no reason can be found. None so blind as one who will not see, I guess.
There’s no argument for it—such weapons are useless in sport, except for the sport of using them; they play no role in hunting, or not hunting anything except helpless people; and they protect no one from a tyrannical government, since the tyrannical government, if it would ever come to that, is hardly in need of small-arms fire to assert its will. It is about cost. Absolutely the government can use force and its great preponderance of weapons against its citizens, but private gun ownership shows that there will be a cost. The first cost will be in blood, but the second is far reaching and permanent: a government that has lost the Mandate of Heaven, and is therefore doomed to be extinct.
Gun ownership shows first that the citizen is and should be the first concern for government policies, and second that should that consideration be ignored, there will be a cost. The leadership in government may be willing to pay it, since they will not be harmed hiding behind the masses of Kops and military, but there's always this: you gotta go to the grocery store sometime. One day your personal assistant won't return from the grocery store, or your secretary won't show up. Gopnik thinks that calls on his followers to wage war on a Constitutional Amendment will be cost free, but that is terribly misleading people down a dark path that has no good end for any of us. All on the Holy Alter of Public Safety.
Absent an argument for it, they merely have a fixation about it, but it remains practically religious in its intensity. Between the consolidated power of the pro-gun right, and the truth that gun control has slipped down the agenda of even anti-violence liberals, this means that the only American response to regular mass gun killings will be a shrug and faked sympathy. It is hard to know how to stay too far ahead of despair. Step One: Admit you have a problem.
Step Two: Stop trying to destroy rights through shaming or any other means you have just to satisfy your own sense of moral outrage.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Saada, the Yemeni governorate that is adjacent to the south of Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... , is home to the Houthis and Ansar Allah militias affiliated to Iran. We are not exaggerating when we say that Iran wants to be present on Saudi Arabia’s southern borders through them.
This presence poses serious threats not only to Saudi Arabia but also to any authority that rules Sanaa. The Houthis, who are Iran’s allies, fought five wars against the government forces during the presidential term of President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
10/03/2017 00:00 ||
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[Hurriyet Daily News] Brexit, the election of Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... , and the ascent of populist‐nationalist leaders to power in Hungary and Poland has prompted panic among liberals and democrats in Europe. The rise of populism narrative has even been fueled by recent elections in the Netherlands and Germany.
While Ottoman Turkish President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
10/03/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
Uh, let's see...oh, right! Islam!
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/03/2017 10:23 Comments ||
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[Mercer] The NFL is now part of the progressive, predatory racial coalition. The goal: Get something from ordinary, innocent folks, who owe this pigment-driven coalition absolutely nothing.
[American Thinker] Within hours of a man carrying out a horrifyingly successful mass shooting in Las Vegas, in which the death toll as of this writing is almost sixty, Democrats are out in public demanding gun control legislation. As disgustingly cynical as this is, it is not in the least bit surprising. Many more will join the chorus in the coming days, while a complicit news media will keep the horror fresh to facilitate the Democrats' exploitation of sadness and pain.
Never wishing to appear to their neo-communist handlers as weaklings inclined to put humanity before politics, or willing to pre-empt the revolution out of respect for human suffering, progressive politicians at America's moment of "fundamental transformation" seem to want to look callous and inhuman, even as they claim to represent the interests of the suffering and downtrodden.
Rahm Emanuel's infamous cat-out-of-the-bag moment ‐ "never let a crisis go to waste" ‐ has quickly evolved from an awkward instance of progressive self-revelation into the proud mantra of the American left. Leftists are no longer even ashamed at the old accusation of "politicizing a tragedy." Tragedy ‐ the bigger, the better ‐ is the grease in their wheels. Politicizing hardship has always been their stock in trade, and now, through years of practice, they have trained to the public to regard this extreme cynicism as the norm, so that the accusation no longer carries any meaning.
Democratic congressman Seth Moulton, refusing to participate in the moment of silence for the Las Vegas victims on the House floor, tweets this perfect example of crisis exploitation: "Now is not a moment for silence; it's a time for action." Action, of course, means laws restricting individual liberty and property rights, in defiance of the U.S. Constitution.
#1
believe when the facts come in we'll find he's a hard core lefty and that his weapons were purchased or modified illegally. This proves existing laws don't work so more laws wouldn't help.
If ISIS is to be believed they claim him as one of their own. I imagine if they did help him it was in the manner of getting the weapons in which case another lefty pillar or two collapses.
The left must control the narrative now (as they did in Ferguson and other areas before the facts proved them wrong) or else.
#2
Democratic congressman Seth Moulton, refusing to participate in the moment of silence for the Las Vegas victims on the House floor, tweets this perfect example of crisis exploitation: "Now is not a moment for silence; it's a time for action."
I wonder of the Good Congressman felt that way when an Islamic terrorist knifed a bunch of college students. Or when an illegal returns to the country after being exported only to rape/kill again. Those are times for introspection and not rushing to conclusions.
[HOTAIR] Opinion is divided this morning on Twitter among people who, unlike me, know more than the most basic basics about firearms. It’s not a matter of mere curiosity; as you (should) know, fully automatic weapons have been illegal in the U.S. for decades, which is why even mass shooters hellbent on murder unto death never use them. If Stephen Paddock used a machine gun, how on earth did he get it?
That’s a big “if” but listen to the shots in the clip below. The rate of fire is fantastically fast, way too much for a “one pull, one shot” semiautomatic. That’s an automatic, no? Unless the YouTube clip is fake, it sure sounds like an automatic weapon, with a pretty big magazine. It'll be interesting to see how he acquired it.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/03/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
It's Vegas!
Millionaires can buy anything.
A LV shop rents autos to tourists.
Sounded like an AK firing rate to me. There are some dependable 50 round drums available. Need more data.
M16 bolts and trigger groups are available to retrofit AR15s.
#3
Heck, maybe it came from Fast and Furious for all we know.
Given the 600s or so the shooter had to operate, and some 600 casualties, it had to be an automatic of some kind, assuming one in 10 rounds found a target.
#8
This shooting happened at night. By the looks of the bump fire video, it seems it should have been very obvious where the shooter was located. Yet I read somewhere it took the police over an hour to enter his hotel room. Am I missing something? Supposedly he was shooting for about ten or maybe 15 minutes. Something doesn't add up.
#9
Bump fire will empty a 30 round mag in about 2 seconds.
If you use steel ammo it will quickly jam due to melting schellac off the steel.
I looked into purchasing a full auto years ago, expensive and lengthily, not difficult. I think you could pick up a full auto Uzi for under $15K.
#11
Massive gambling debts yet he had a small arsenal of potentially expensive weapons.
I wouldn't be surprised if ISIS isn't telling the truth and they supplied him with weaponry or something. Hopefully they'll find a note to put things together.
#12
From Hot Air. "Two officials familiar with the investigation say authorities found at least 17 guns in the hotel room of the Las Vegas shooter.
Stephen Paddock also had two devices that are attached to the stocks of semiautomatic guns to allow fully automatic gunfire. The bump-stock devices have attracted scrutiny in recent years from authorities."
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
10/03/2017 8:58 Comments ||
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#13
Gorb, The dude was likely using cellular trail cameras or similar devices in the hallways and stairwells to alert him when the police approached...and allow him to direct his fire through the walls..to disrupt their assault. This is an advanced drug dealer tactic we have encountered for years...nothing new. He was a hunter and probably used cellular trail cams in the past. When someone can see you and directs aimed rifle fire in your direction it slows you down and eliminates the direct approach...until you eliminate his cameras and get a base of fire or HE set to suppress his fire...which is what I assume they did.
#15
If you got him trapped, and he had ceased fire to counter the siege, might as well take your time, do it as safe as possible. Could be traps galore.
I have not come across the splits between shooter damage and stampede damage. I am sure a stat (wo)man is on that and info not released.
#16
"Yet I read somewhere it took the police over an hour to enter his hotel room. Am I missing something? Supposedly he was shooting for about ten or maybe 15 minutes. Something doesn't add up."
I think the after action report on this will consider this a reasonable time line from outbreak to conclusion. If you figure it took 20 minutes to get the swat assembled, geared up and develop and communicate the action plan. If the trip up to 32 was with elevator or by stairwell, or some combination. If the plan involved both the knowns and the unknowns. How the shooter spent his time should be discernible after action. (disclaimer- I once stayed at a Holiday Inn Express, but not recently.)
#17
The last time I wired a Simplex alarm system there was a sample call-out protocol template provided by the vendor. Maybe you've seen something like this, KS.
And it goes on and on until some human gets a message to send building security to verify. Local First Responders are likely to get notice of 'an event warning' but directed not to activate until a human verified 'incident' is reported.
I think the days of automatic sprinklers are over.
#19
The two windows fairly far apart in the suite makes me wonder about a second (or more) room occupant. Since the suite was at the end of the hall, there would be a stairway. Up one or two flights after leaving weapons in the suite, pop into an unrelated room and you are another guest to be evacuated. Paddock doesn't even know he is left behind until first hotel security arrives, gets shot by Paddock and it played out.
The number of weapons and forensics will tell the tail. The depth of planning and the June Vegas warning by ISIS plus the missing girlfriend.... too many threads?
#21
It was two adjoining rooms. the daily mail did a good piece on it.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
10/03/2017 12:58 Comments ||
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#22
Dang Skid, post got gobbled up. Try again later, short answer is there is neat stuff out there and auto-sprinklers are going the way of the horse hair plaster.
#23
This seems pretty well planned, funded and executed for your basic "guy with gun goes nutso" scenario. Especially given that the shooter doesn't seem to have any military or even hunting experience.
#24
auto sprinklers are Building Code requirements
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/03/2017 14:32 Comments ||
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#25
If I had an auto-sprinkler kick on every time I overcooked a meal, I'd have a canoe in the basement. Top end hotel, I'd wager there is at least smoke, temperature, probably moisture (broken water pipe). I'd wager that is the procedure Skid, with maybe an alert to the front desk in case resident calls with a report.
A lot of hotel fires can be solved with a simple ABC extinguisher with fire fighters showing up to verify the fire is out.
If there are bang detectors, I could see how that would auto-dial police/SWAT, but here false alarms would be obnoxious and even dangerous, and even then this event would likely be outside set sensitivity (cued for single/semi handgun).
Auto-rolling fire every time someone had a good/bad night and lit up a cigar is also obnoxious and dangerous.
I would guess that the event alert was triggered before anyone had a good idea what was going on. Security en-route to investigate smoke alert when the radio starts blowing up.
#26
I don't mean to imply there isn't a suppression system, just that they would want to make sure it was necessary to activate it before unleashing a heap of water damage. I would guess the building has a on-hand supply of water, priority access to water mains, and various hook-up points for pumpers to continue a supply of water to the system if/when the on-site runs out. If a designer really wanted to get into it, a way of injecting foam into the suppression system.
One room smoke, go check it out. One room smoke heat check it and take an extinguisher just in case it was only someone ashing in the trash can but keep the radio handy. Two rooms smoke and heat, now that is a problem, so maybe get those rooms activated especially if operations can select individual rooms.
#30
"One does not simply put a bump stock on a rifle and start off by going seamlessly through drums of rounds."
Heck, with those things, sometimes you are lucky to get off 5.
Something still looks practiced.
#31
Sounded like 50 capacity. If the video is to be believed, multiple flawless feeds.
Even if I got that success rate from a drum, my shoulder would be smoked and I'm not in my 60s after a white collar career. Would it be unreasonable to think drugs and/or weapons bracing is involved here?
Posted by: si vis pacem, para bellum ||
10/03/2017 19:27 Comments ||
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#33
#32 - I've been thinking that, I guess Hotel and his video will back/shoot that down. None of the "evidence" we hear jibes (with at least MY history observations/preconceptions/white privilege/tunnel vision) with a retired accountant with NO military (or shooting buddy's recollections)
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/03/2017 20:12 Comments ||
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#34
#32 Or an extra shooter.
As suggested in another thread...
If it was a detective story - he wouldn't be the perp, but the first victim.
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2017-10-03 13:20
#35
You'd think in a place like Vegas, at least one security camera would capture the muzzle flashes, which would tell us if there was more than one shooter.
#39
'Las Vegas also has a camera system like Cincinnati. Dozens of camera watch the Strip. Now, investigators are going through all of it, trying to figure out how this happened. '
#42
Well barrel gets hot so you need to change barrel or weapons. If tripods were set up, anyother reason presents itself. Also, if you stay in the same place, they can zero in I guess. I played OPFOR before so that's what I did. The echo changes in urban environment throwing everyone off.
#43
If you listen carefully to the audio on the clips, you'll notice that not only is the rate of fire low for a machine gun, but that it is somewhat irregular, likely an artifact of Paddock changing pressure of his shoulder and trigger finger to sustain the action of the bump stock. It is sort of reminiscent of a Ma Deuce with the head space and timing set incorrectly.
Pictures leaked from the crime scene show that he had bipods on some of the rifles. That would have helped him compensate for muzzle rise stemming the very long bursts he was shooting (NB, IMHO, and experienced shooter would have fired 3-6 round bursts, not the very long ones you hear on the videos, therefore a good possibility that he was self-trained).
Also, the shot is not as challenging as the press has been making it out to be. I went into Google Maps and measured the distances from the furthest window and it worked out to be ~500 ft to the stage and ~1,500 ft to the what I assume to be the concession stands at the rear of the concert venue. The furthest range is well within the effective range of the AR-pattern rifles he was using, especially if they were chambered for 7.62 NATO.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] On Sept. 25, the region woke up on a decisive moment with 92.7 percent of Kurdish people voting for independence from Iraq.
Then events accelerated and the Iraqi government announced, in coordination with Ankara and Tehran, its willingness to restore control over four cross-borders (two with The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... and two with Iran) and to impose an air-embargo on flights from and to Iraqi Kurdistan with scenarios of likely armed conflicts in disputed regions especially the oil-rich Kirkuk.
Two days before the referendum, the Iraqi Army advanced to launch an offensive on ISIS strongholds in Hawija ‐ the scene foresees a spark of military confrontation that would break out anytime.
True that the local government in Kurdistan confronted the international community with its insistence to carry out the referendum, but the tension in Iraq and the region wasn’t caused only by it. Announcing the referendum is not something new, its date has been previously set and the Kurds reiterated several times their determination to separate from Iraq.
Kurds attribute this demand to years of abuse that have made them realize that it is time to establish their own state. Where was this international rejection before? (Especially that of the US, European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... , Turkey and Iran) Back then, none of them attempted to reform ties between Kurds and the central state, especially that Kurdistan government has been accusing the central government in Baghdad for years of depriving the Kurds from fair shares in power and resources.
Despite all that, the dispute was neglected and this pushed Kurds to insist on the referendum, whose outcome came as expected. This gives Iraqi Kurdistan a strong card to use in upcoming negotiations with the central government on natural resources as well as reinforcement of its political position as a self-ruled region.
Severe escalation
The severe escalation by the Iraqi central government, Iran and Turkey with the unprecedented siege and threats of starving the Kurds, disregard the fact that Kurds announced earlier that the referendum is not an announcement of independence ‐ it only acknowledges the necessity to move to the next step and to negotiate with Iraq and neighboring states in addition to the international community the conditions of separation, if it happened.
Confederation with enhanced conditions and possibly a new version of the current self-ruling which means that Kurds moved on with the referendum after they lost hope in any of the main powers to understand the situation. They moved on with a referendum that enhances their condition and urges European countries to focus on reforming ties between Kurds and the central government.
It should be mentioned that it is difficult for Kurdistan dream of independence to come true in the midst of this regional and international rejection. Geographically, the anticipated Kurdish state has no navy border and is surrounded by states that reject its independence.
Economically, Kurdistan government economy depends on oil transported via pipes that pass through Turkey or is exported via the central government. Iraqi Kurdistan exports around 550,000 bpd ‐ out of daily produced 600,000 bpd ‐ via a pipe in Ottoman Turkish Jihan’s Port overseeing the Mediterranean Sea. All these basic-income sources would be hindered if the tension remains. How would Erbil establish a state without the ability to export its oil?
With the referendum card in its hand, the government of Kurdistan has a strong negotiation card that permits it to move on with a confederation that maintains its status, doesn’t marginalize its people -as it is the case now- and ensures that Iraq remains united as everyone wishes.
This would contribute to finding solutions for pending topics, including the disputed regions between Erbil and Baghdad based on the Iraqi constitution and providing joint market and currency as Kurdistan maintains its independent cultural, economic, political and foreign policies.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/03/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
Odd, the Kurds can vote peacefully in a war zone but the Cats got beaten at the polls.
The election expert from the University of Oklahoma no longer helps state legislatures draw new district lines to maximize their partisan advantage.
He was still wearing those spurs back in 2011 when he provided data that helped Wisconsin Republicans enact a legislative redistricting plan aimed at maximizing their power for the foreseeable future.
But now he's reversed course and filed a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that the practice is undemocratic.
The high court hears arguments Tuesday testing whether extreme partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional. The case from Wisconsin has the potential to radically reorder politics in America.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
