At the Precipice

Months after the October 2017 killings by Stephen Paddock of 58 people at a country music concert in Las Vegas, the media reported recently that investigators had still not found a motive behind his crime.

Perhaps we expect a rational reason behind America’s gun-killings – mental illness is a popular motive for a man to take a gun and kill, job stress is another, and of course terrorism. Why else would a seemingly law-abiding citizen decide to murder fellow citizens with extreme prejudice?

For Paddock, his motive is evident, but we choose not to acknowledge this. According to police and federal investigators, Paddock planned his killings methodically. He wanted to kill a lot of people. Period.

Why? Power.

Paddock chose a public event where people were confined in what amounted to a kill box. He knew he could pick off hundreds, perhaps more than a 1,000, if he was able to keep the police at bay long enough.

Moreover, he knew he had to power to do this. As he started, he knew he held the power of life and death over the thousands of concert goers scrambling to escape his slaughter. Such power is intoxicating in the right minds, let alone the wrong minds. It’s an aphrodisiac.

The laws of this country and the willful misinterpretation of the Constitution handed Paddock this power. He and tens of thousands of other gun owners possess and use semi-automatic weapons that can effectively become automatic weapons with a so-called bump stock.

Paddock, well supplied with guns and bump stocks and ammo in his hotel room, had the power to kill, and kill many. That’s what he did, willingly.

Paddock has no history of mental illness, and by all accounts, according to press reports, he was sane and well-adjusted, if not a bit of a grump to his neighbors. He knew he had the ultimate power and he chose to exercise it with extreme prejudice. He didn’t care who got killed. He just wanted to kill them. He didn’t care who they were. He just wanted to kill them.

Maybe this is a definition of a disturbed mind, but millions of disturbed minds don’t reach for guns. They could, considering the attitude toward guns in this country, where Congress and state politicians work tirelessly in the effort to get a gun in the hand of every man, woman and child.

The National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America are the forces behind ensuring that no regulation however effective at saving lives gets adopted in this nation. They have the power to do this. They’ve convinced the public, state legislatures and the Congress that regulating guns would give guns to criminals. Instead, laws are making criminals out of the law-abiding.

Until he stood in his Las Vegas hotel room and killed 58 people, Stephen Paddock wasn’t a criminal. He had no record. Paddock did have an arsenal of weapons that destroyed 58 lives and damaged the lives of more than 400 others directly, and hundreds of millions more indirectly. He left the nation less safe and more dangerous.

That was the power he held in his hand. That is the power of the gun.

Until Paddock began killing, the NRA and GOA had no problem with Paddock amassing an arsenal of weapons. They encourage their membership to buy as many weapons as they desire. It’s their right under the Constitution, they rationalize. It keeps the membership dues rolling in and profits up for the gun and ammo manufacturers.

Despite the horrors of innocent deaths that night in Las Vegas, and the other mass shootings in recent years, the NRA and GOA have little need to worry. Congress and the state legislatures are not going to regulate guns, no matter what the evidence, and the nation will move on.

The NRA and GOA estimate that mass shooting events dissipate from the public’s consciousness after about two weeks.

They are correct. Several mass shootings have occurred in the months since the Las Vegas killings and no one is doing anything but offering prayers and thoughts while guns are being readily sold to anyone who can purchase one regardless of what their intent.