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Las Vegas Shooting: What We Know Now
Image via ABC News.
At least 58 people were killed and more than 500 hurt in the largest mass shooting in US history. The gunman, 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, fired from his 32nd-floor room at the Mandalay Bay hotel onto the Route 91 Harvest country music festival.
When confronted by police, Paddock killed himself. No motive is known at this time. He was a retired accountant from Mesquite, NV. His brother said “he was a wealthy guy playing video poker… on cruises,” adding that he could afford anything he wanted. Paddock’s father, now deceased, was a bank robber who was on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list.
The shooter had no criminal record. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said, “We had no knowledge of this individual. I don’t know how it could have been prevented.”
President Donald Trump called the attack “an act of pure evil” and praised the Las Vegas police. The President and the First Lady will lead a moment of silence at 2:45 pm ET/11:45 PT to honor those killed.
Published in General
No, you’re right. I suppose I’m being rather petty. Cheap rhetorical bravado brings out my petty side. I’ll knock it off.
I’m so sorry, @kweiss! That’s dreadful, surreal and so sad. My best prayers for your cousin Lori tonight. Blessings to her and her husband, and your whole family.
No, it’s a synonym for when people insist on scoring points in an argument. I frankly don’t care about your opinion of my stance, yet you continue to pick nits. Therefore you’re being boring, repetitious and tense.
Have a good evening.
It does seem an odd point to harp on. There’s a difference between saying “I’d like to punch that guy” in a conversation with people you “know” (Mike can, I think, claim to know us and feel reasonably assure that we understand him) and making a general call for violence which then gets taken seriously enough to be discussed by pundits.
Richard Dawkins’ remark reminds me of my major complaint against progressives: they’re mean.
They don’t even realize it. They’re just reflexively, mindlessly mean. (In both senses of the word, that is, stingy and cruel).
I think it’s pretty easy to have a strong emotional response when a person like Dawkins openly mocks people who have just been shot and killed, and further mocks the country that is rallying behind those people. I don’t think that most people, however angry, would actually go out and punch Dawkins in the face, however much they might think this comment is deserving of a punch to the face. I also think you know that, Sal. It is meaningfully different to say, on the one hand, that you’d like to punch out a guy who literally just tweeted out something like Dawkins did, and, on the other hand, to hold a position that it is ok to go around “punching nazis,” especially when the people who say the latter tend to define “nazi” somewhat broadly. It is a bit disingenuous to compare that emotional response to Dawkins’ tweet to a policy espoused by Antifa thugs whose mentality that of un-provoked violence.
And Mike, this doesn’t help anything at all. It is, as Sal points out, cheap rhetorical bravado, and it only serves to take away from any legitimate point you might otherwise be wishing to make.
I do agree that this is an important distinction. Conservatives don’t go around punching people out. Antifa does.
Moderator Note:
Please desist with the GIFs. It's not helping.[Redacted.]
Mike, this is the sort of snark that is likely to make people want to punch you in the face. I am inclined to agree that Dawkins behavior is detestable; what confuses me is why the man who wishes to call-out Dawkins’ incivility is so eager to mimic that exact sort of senseless behavior.
Moderator Note:
Also not helping.[Redacted.]
Hmm…
Is this Thanksgiving dinner in the Ricochet household? No more beer for Uncle Ted.
Point taken, Kate. Trouble is, Ricochet isn’t just a conversation with people you know. It’s a conversation among people who, although they may share some core values, have a wide spectrum of opinion, and perhaps not a lot in common. And although some of them may have met personally, and/or communicate regularly both on Ricochet and by other means, and although some of them may be ‘friends’ in the non-virtual sense, there are lots of people who interact infrequently and perhaps only on posts of mutual interest (where they may disagree). And so perhaps there is a duty to be a little more thoughtful before opening up one’s mouth and letting fly than there would be if one were in a private club, or in the locker room with one’s friends after the game. (There’s also the matter of many of the posts (including this one) being on the main feed, where they are visible to anybody on the Internet, and the material in them can, and has, been picked up and linked to, and perhaps even discussed, by pundits and others). “Think twice, speak once” (which is an adaptation of my rule of thumb when working on construction projects), is probably a best practice in these circumstances if we all share a mutual interest in keeping the conversation civil.
There are other areas of Ricochet which could perhaps be described as “conversation among friends which is not visible to those who haven’t self-selected, and which is not going to end up on the main feed.” I’d suggest that it’s a more appropriate venue for some of the comments made on this thread.
Not one single word has been said about me agreeing with Mike LaRoche and even suggesting a mule whip be used. There are some people who are just so despicable, and what they say is so despicable you just want to lash out for pure revenge. What happened in L.V. is so tragic, sad and our hearts are breaking, that having Dawkins jeer and taunt Americans because we have the right to try to defend ourselves is beyond justification. If he had been standing in front of me saying what he did, I would have either slapped him or spit in his face. Thing is, they don’t have guns to protect themselves in UK, so they get chopped up, beheaded, stabbed, have car and trucks mowing into crowds instead. Perhaps we should have respond to Dawkins with just as a despicable reply as his own statement.
Sometimes your reputation shapes how people interpret your words. I agree that anger toward Dawkins is largely justified.
Hammer,
Dawkins is just a pompous idiot. He just reconfirmed his diagnosis. I find Jimmy Kimmel’s comments much more disturbing. He is weaponizing his late night comedy program to attack over half of the American people and accuse them of some sort of crime because they support the 2nd amendment. Nothing could have been in worse taste. Kimmel may be a talented comedian but his political point of view appears to be as sophisticated as the average junior high school student.
Maybe Ben Shapiro should go on Kimmel and take him apart intellectually.
Regards,
Jim
I agree entirely that Dawkins’s taunting was disgusting, reprehensible, and should be called as much. I’ve defended Dawkins before — and likely will again — but not on this because what he did here was 100% shameful.
But, as he didn’t say it to your face…
Then I can vicariously take a mule whip to him! Don’t know anything about Jimmy Kimmel as I have never heard of him before this came up. Don’t watch comedy as I find most of it disgusting and demeaning.
Well, except when they blow themselves up…
Moderator Note:
Please see the Misinformation and Fruitcake clauses of the Ricochet CoC. http://ricochet.com/code-conduct/[Redacted.]
Good compilation. All of this information is leaked – why are the police saying nothing? I mean, a simple question like ‘did he leave a note and what did it say’ goes unanswered, 48 hours after the shooting. Why? Is this a cover-up or incompetence? Another question, ‘is there video footage – Vegas hotels are flooded with surveillance cameras – of this guy dragging suitcase after suitcase up to his room, and when did he do it?’ Again, no answer, why?
Seriously, what in the world is going on here? I’m not a conspiracy kind of person, at all, really. But this stinks and it leaves me wondering.
Or maybe his friend Adam Corolla.
I find it really interesting that this comment was treated to such a grilling. Here is Richard Dawkins’s tweet:
And the polite society of Ricochet finds it unacceptable to comment that this man should be “publicly flogged,” on account of that is somehow the exact equivalent of AntiFa gathering up a masked, armed mob and gathering to disrupt a permitted demonstration.
Y’all are becoming caricatures of yourselves. I am thinking you must agree with Richard Dawkins.
You know, I was thinking that same thing when they started the “Punch A Nazi” trolling. Were they defending that creep? Do they feel the same way about the Constitution? Are they gun grabbers? Or were they just hijacking the thread for the fun of it? I got really confused and gave up. I kept hoping we could go back to the actual post, but it’s lost in history, and we didn’t get to talk about it much because of the threadjack.
Indeed.
The Hammer :” I find Jimmy Kimmel’s comments much more disturbing.”
Is Jimmy Kimmel losing it or what?
What happens if it is found out that Paddock was really working with ISIS or Antifa or with at the very least their incitement to kill Republicans in mind? ( Which btw I think is a reasonably high probability)
These Democrats and Progressives are digging their own graves. If it found out that Paddock was a huge lefty with an ax to grind, all these Democrats who stoked this resentment against Republicans and Conservatives are going to have effectively blood on their hands. There will be a huge backlash for years.
Also, how is one to blame Republicans for this atrocity as Ji9mmy does? It is because they won’t submit to Progressive servitude?
I was waiting for this:
https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/the-strip/las-vegas-strip-shooter-prescribed-anti-anxiety-drug-in-june/
This is the common denominator in most mass shootings.
@bobw, do you think its anxiety or the actual medication?
Do other countries have a similar issue with anxiety and medication? If not, why do we have this issue?
Is it not enough to say that his tweet was disgusting and uncouth?
Sure, MJ. Sure.