Finger on the Trigger

To know America has a serious denial problem about assault weapons and guns in general all one has to do is LISTEN to the video clips from the Las Vegas mass murder event. It was the sound of mechanized death being spewed from the mind of a man who should not have been anywhere near such firepower.

His index finger on the trigger actuated the fully automatic mechanism which is capable of delivering 600 bullets per minute. The flaw in his mind actuated the finger that pulled the trigger taking the lives of 59 people and injuring 500+ more in less than 15 minutes.

This was no ordinary man in any sense of the word. His was a personality so twisted that he could even conceive of such an act let along execute it. This man reportedly carried 23 guns up to his 32 floor hotel suite. Also reported is he had 17 more at his home in a senior housing development. This gun fetish, nearly 50 weapons, IS the very embodiment of dangerous mental disease which anti-gun activists continually point out after every mass murder shooting event. This number exceeds 270 in 2017 alone. Apparently no one is able to reconcile mental instability or guns let alone their combination.

Here is another disturbing factor. If he used magazines which hold 20 bullets and he struck over 575 people, he needed to purchase and load approximately 30 magazines (or clips if a gun fetishist wants to argue) just in the actual striking of a body from 400 meters. Certainly he did not hit someone with every bullet fired nor did he have time to restock the clips. So maybe he carried at least 1200 rounds in 60 clips. That is a huge amount of determination to do as much damage as possible.

As of this writing, (Oct 3) no one has established what his motivation was. There appears to be no race, gender, religious, or personal relationships at which to point. His brother says he was just a regular guy. That characterization cannot be true.

He had to take many months to acquire the 50 weapons he possessed. Since not all guns were the same caliber he would have had to purchase a huge amount of ammunition to supply such a heinous act. He would not have taken weapons to the hotel without having a stockpile of bullets for them. Someone knew he was not a stable person. He must have bought at least a few weapon and boxes of bullets at the same store.

To the outside world this "came out of the blue." Not true. He was a man on the verge for a very long time. The Principle of Imminent Collapse states that everything in our experience is at the point of failure and all it requires is The Nudge to make it fail. Our gun and mental health policies in this country make such horrible events not only possible but commonplace. Combine that with the profitability of gun manufacture and sales and you have the ultimate lethal mix.

We have a difficult time separating the righteous need for a weapon from the fetish of gun ownership. Far too many lame excuses for doing nothing make for an environment of escalation. What if he had purchased a silencer? How about if two or three agenda motivated shooters worked in concert? There were upwards of 22,000 people attending the music venue at the time.

We allow gun sales at gun shows and resist requiring the sellers to document the sales. We do not require a gun buyer to purchase insurance against his liability. One cannot sell just anything at a show. No one is permitted to show and sell Cannabis, OxyContin, Methamphetamine, LSD, Dynamite or drums of toxic chemicals. The argument is requiring gun show sale to be regulated would hinder the profitability of such gun sales. Banning such sales entirely is tantamount to heresy.  But, but, but the manufacturers/growers and purveyors of any of the items listed above fall into the same constraint of trade. In most counties you can't even sell raw milk and unpasteurized cheeses without risking arrest and conviction. The restraining of trade is what much of civil law is all about. People cannot be allowed to buy and sell items that are intrinsically hazardous without proper vetting of the buyers.

Without some level of constraint the body count will continue to mount. It is only a matter of time before the murder event tops 100 and it will only be days before the next mass murder shooting event.