Another Day; Another Shooting; Another List; Another Lost

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Category: Op/Ed, Legal Commentary

Published on Tuesday, 03 October 2017 20:21

Written by Janet Walker

The lack of revelry, hushed tones, a quiet reverence in sin city, where usually at 2:00am neon signs advertise with bright allure, ladies can be heard negotiating, and gamblers call it a day or begin anew, it is Las Vegas or was.

Today, it is only quiet. An eerie reminder of the horror that unfolded Sunday evening, with minutes to go before the end of the three-day Route 91 Harvest Festival, before the gunshots, before the carnage, the city was itself: full of life, with showgirls, and vendors, visitors and locals, with everyone living the "What happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas" slogan. Only that's not the case this time.

What happened in Vegas once again brings home the national debate of gun control. If our elected officials didn't change the rules when 21 five and six year-olds were carried out of a school in Newtown, CT., along with six brave educators, the odds, in a city that thrives on the odds, that the constitution will be changed after Vegas is the long shot.

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As impossible to believe, in fact as a lone gunman, a single man, unassuming, checking in with ten suitcases, loaded with 42 weapons, high capacity magazines, sitting around his cache of weapons for at least 48 hours looking out the window, at the first two days of concerts, and waiting.

Update: Gunman Kills at least 58; Injures more than 500 in Las Vegas Concert Shooting

Stephen Paddock, 64, at this point the only unusual history belongs to his father, who appeared on the F.B.I.'s Most Wanted list for a decade or so in the 1970's. He and his family lived a relatively quiet life, a traffic ticket. A Traffic ticket? His only brush with law enforcement was a traffic ticket?

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Where is the motive? Rage? It must have been a quiet rage as it was never exhibited. General anger, political anger, blaming the Alt-right which seems to have an affinity for Country & Western Music for the election of Donald Trump? Possibly. Although someone who wants to make a statement on political activism usually leaves a message so the motive would be clearly defined and not misunderstood.

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Does motive really matter? Not to the friends, families, brothers, sisters, children, lovers of the 59 who died and the more than 525 injured. Motive is secondary to burying their loved ones, hoping the injured wake, ensuring the legacy isn't lost and to ensure they are more than a name on a list.

What matters to every reasonable person with a platform is controlling the purchase of high powered automatic weapons and high capacity magazines meant for law enforcement and military exercises.

UPDATED:Three Dead, Nine Injured in Louisiana Theater Shooting

No person, is jumping on the Gun Control debate. We've learned. If they won't fix it for their own, Rep. Scalise (R-La.) and members of Congress were practicing for a charity baseball on June 14, 2017, when shots rang out in D.C. earlier this year.

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After that mass shooting not one person championed Gun Control, purchase modification, stricter laws, debate. And Scalise is glued to the Second Amendment, stitched together by some Republican ideal that inaction will actually result in action.

I wouldn't hold my breath on that gaining any traction as it took thirteen years after President Reagan was shot in an attempted assassination on March 30, 1981, and his press secretary James Brady was shot point blank, altering his life and career, before any gun control legislation was passed.

Unfortunately, that takes us back to Las Vegas and Sunday night. Could the carnage been avoided?

Paddock planned something. He didn't just snap. Just snapping doesn't have 42 weapons fully loaded with additional high capacity magazines and explosives at his home. That is a man who planned for mass casualty, mass carnage with no thought, no concern for anyone or for the many who would die.

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As the public has come to realize under this watch we the people have to step up to the proverbial plate and lead.

Our leadership is somewhat pre-occupied with himself and his alleged agenda of Making America Great again, revoking all his predecessor's policies, making America safe from the shadows that lurk, or the countless natural disasters on the international radar, to deal with this tragedy.

"See something; say something" the safety slogan that made its debut in the New York City Subway system has become ingrained in the minds of the straphangers and countless commuters who ride the miles of track every day has now gone global. See something unusual say something; notify someone.

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The unfortunate truth, the inconvenient truth, is that somewhere, someone, is amassing weapons, chasing numbers, angry that a brother in arms, known or unknown, took the title and now in order to be the best, the next total has to be higher.

Would knowing the motive of someone, the sociopath among us, make it easier to handle? According to Dr. Martha Stout, a clinical psychologist from Harvard University, who details in her book, The Sociopath Next Door, the disturbing world of the psychopath presents a hypothesis that one in 25 citizens exhibit benchmarks traits of sociopathy. The depth or range, is the difference. Are they functional or a threat to himself or society?  

Five Dallas Police Officers Dead; Seven Others Injured in Peace March Ambush

I guess Paddock's close knit circle including the manufactures, who sold him the weapons, the credit card companies who saw the charges adding up for his personal Armageddon related purchases, even the internet police, who are always watching when it comes to kiddie porn or other disturbing criminal actions have some responsibility or should.

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Federal authorities can't catch every one and this one, like the last one, and the one before that and in actuality every one of those who committed a mass shooting must have been the ones that fell through the cracks, mishaps of an overloaded system.

Who gets caught in these imaginary sting operations? How many mass shootings are stopped if an equal amount are being acted upon?

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To those who are grieving; we grieve with you. As leaders are elected to act, I'm not sure prayers are enough. Pray first, as there is a time for seeking, and then step forward and act. The time has come, before the next one, before one more person dies in a mass shooting, to act. Please.