What About That Paddock Guy?

 

                So, I know everyone, even those living under rocks, remembers the worst mass-shooting massacre in American history when on October 1 of this year, Stephen Paddock of Mesquite, Nevada, fired over 1100 rounds from his suite in The Mandalay Bay on 22,000 concertgoers at The Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas, killing 58 people and wounding 546.

                The cops killed him about 10 minutes after he started shooting, which is remarkable to me. I know it isn’t popular these days to say good things about cops, what with slavery running rampant in the NFL and all, but way to go guys.

                But then what happened? His brother’s into kiddie porn, Paddock’s own hard drive was missing even more mysteriously than Hillary Clinton’s and his girlfriend knew nothing about anything, but is that the end of the story?

                I’ve been trying to find out but the last sliver of news I can find on the whole story is from October 20 when CNN updated the timeline of events given by the LVPD. That’s it?

                If the leftstream media shut up about it one has to wonder just how high up in the DNC this guy was connected. There’s actually no evidence the guy is even a democrat or that his actions were politically or ideologically motivated. I’m just being catty because of that ABC exec who said Paddock did the country a favor because only Trump fans like Country Western music and would have been in the crowd.

I love Country Western music.

                We know there isn’t much to know about Paddock. By all accounts he was a quiet guy who kept to himself and loved gambling. If he liked you he could be generous. He had no close friends. His work history included time as a mail carrier, an IRS auditor and an accountant. He seems to have made a lot of money flipping real estate.

                Interestingly his father was a machine-gun toting bank robber who died in prison (after escaping twice). Dad was arrested when Stephen was seven and, other than by his absence, is not believed to have been a big influence on Stephen’s life. Genetics, maybe?

                If nothing else, I am personally glad Paddock did not survive his incident. I still almost lose my mind over the fact James Holmes, the Aurora, CO, theater shooter and killer of 12 innocent people, is in a mental institution and not the ground.

                If Paddock had survived I guess we could have given him Charlie Manson’s old digs since he finally died after spawning the original sick and twisted version of mass murder back in 1969. It was never granted but Charles actually had parole hearings on a regular basis which is not the same thing as throwing away the key.

                What is wrong with us? And we continue to blame things other than the maniacs who murder. Oh well.

                Not to break any liberal, gun-control hearts but as horrific as Paddock’s senseless and tragic murder of 58 innocent souls was, we don’t hold the record. On July 22, 2011 in Oslo, Norway (a country with gun control laws that would make any Californian envious), Anders Behring Breivik blew up eight people in downtown Norway with a fertilizer bomb and shot 69 more (mostly kids) at a summer camp.

                Breivik obtained most of his impressive arsenal quietly and legally as hunting firearms. He had a little trouble with the handguns but solved that with the worldwide internet. He got his bomb stuff in Poland and fine-tuned his shooting skills at practice ranges in other countries. He credited the video game “Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2” as his primary training aid.

                When captured, Breivik’s first comment to the press was, “I can’t believe it took them that long to stop me.” (Only he said it in Norwegian, of course.)

                Again, kudos to the Las Vegas police for how quickly they took Paddock down. But I also think Breivik’s story and cynicism are an excellent argument for expanding conceal carry laws. But that’s just me because I’m more serious about stopping nuts like Breivik and Holmes and Scott Ostrem than I am with advancing an hysterical ideology. Feel free to have fun debating my hypocrisy around your dining room table.  Acknowleged. Next.

                Ostrem, by the way, was the Walmart shooter in Thornton, Colorado, who walked through the front door of the store and opened fire killing three before he was confronted by three other Walmart shoppers with conceal carry permits who had drawn their guns and confronted him. Ostrem turned and retraced his path out of the store without taking anymore lives and we anxiously await word as to what childhood trauma may have twisted his little mind into a pretzel.

                Oh, and our friend Anders Breivik, he received a 21-year sentence, which apparently is the maximum sentence you can receive for anything in Norway unless there is something worse than slaughtering 77 people on a sunny day in July. 

                He is currently serving his sentence in a three-cell suite equipped with exercise equipment, television and a computer. You don’t have to believe me. Google it.

                He will be eligible for release in 2033. At that time judges could continue to lengthen his sentence by five years and every five years thereafter if he continues to express an interest in killing large numbers of people (or even small numbers, I’d imagine). But sure, it’s the guns, not the maniacs. Or maybe it’s the fertilizer. (What a clever, almost unintended pun!)

                You won’t believe this but I sat down to write this blog about the 500,000 machine guns still in private circulation in this country after we passed a law in 1986 to quit making them other than to fulfill military or law enforcement contracts. Gun-control enthusiasts will swoon over the fact that I am alarmed and I agree that 500,000 machine guns in private hands is a bad thing.

                There might be some comfort in the BATF’s claim that “almost all” of those half million automatic weapons are owned by ranges which have passed stringent requirements to be classified as “secured facilities” and which house the weapons for rent and use within those facilities only. They must be fun to shoot, I guess.

                However, not being a fan of Common Core Math nor a reporter for CNN, “almost all” isn’t an actual number in my neighborhood and I couldn’t find a more numeric representation more of us might be able to relate to.

                The BATF probably also thinks we would find it reassuring to know that to own a pre-1986 manufacture machine gun one must secure an ATF Class II Permit and undergo a rigorous local police background check and supply photos of your bad self as well as fingerprints.

                We would. Except that sales between private individuals may or may not be reported and may or may not be registered.

                The DOJ reports that 79% of prison inmates convicted on crimes involving a firearm acquired said firearm from an illegal source or a friend or family member. And according to the FBI, 232,400 firearms were stolen annually between 2005 and 2010.

                But don’t worry. The Colorado State Gun Law Website says that, “In general, one can safely assume that any fully automatic weapons are banned from civilian use.” Well, except for maybe half a million of them or so.

                I’m just not sure passing more laws is going to help folks.

Until Proven Innocent

                I’m not sure what it says about us as a society when it seems like a daily media contest to see whether the story above the fold will be about another mass shooting or a literal busload of women accusing one fellow or another of various degrees of sexual assault at some point in his past. Neither thing is a very flattering brush stroke in the portrait of the most technologically, economically, militarily (I hope) and prosperously mighty nation on the planet.

                Sexual assault is a horrible crime and I would vote in favor of the most harsh punishment the most twisted minds in North America could devise for those animals found guilty as charged. It does, however, seem like we have totally streaked past the “guilty as charged” phase and rushed straight to judgement by the media which is the least qualified institution in the solar system to judge anyone on an ethical or moral basis.

                Well, ok, there are also those lawmakers in Washington who have declared themselves judge and jury as well but my expectations of them are only slightly higher and both groups reside somewhere well beneath where whales defecate on the floor of the ocean, in my opinion of course. (I keep forgetting some people still watch CNN and MSN-anything and can’t tell a fact from an opinion.)

                Listen, I do believe that most of the time where there is smoke there is fire. I’m still reeling over the whole Bill Cosby thing. Cosby was one of my childhood idols and the smoke surrounding his indiscretions and crimes is thick enough to choke on, not going away and fairly impossible to deny after hearing the courtroom arguments and testimony.

                Take a look at either of the elder Clintons. Bill’s sexual crimes are legendarily numerous and have only gone away in the cases where he’s written his victims a check. As for Hillary, could her foundation and her behavior be any more obviously and disgustingly corrupt? Yet we choose not to investigate or prosecute them in the court of public opinion or even a legal and real court, because, well, because the left controls the court of public opinion and, apparently, the legal and real courts.

                And where there is smoke on the left there are usually also mirrors.

                You still hear noise about allegations made about Donald Trump and sexual assaults before the election on some of the obscure lamestream “news” shows occasionally referenced on Facebook. Allegations made by women who swore before the election they were going to pursue and sue for the wrongs done to them.

Allegations made by one woman on HRC’s campaign staff and payroll for five years. Allegations made by another woman about an assault at a concert in San Francisco (where else) that never played. Allegations that evaporated and went away never to be mentioned again (unless you watch those odd lamestream  story hours I mentioned) without a single check being written to anyone or a single charge or lawsuit filed.

                That smoke cleared so fast it barely had a chance to make anyone’s eyes water, unless you live in California and frankly, I think they simply like to cry.

                And I know this is snide and sexist and misogynistic and stuff but have you seen Melania, Ivana or Marla? And have you seen the gals who made the accusations? Turn the volume off on your TV and you decide.

                So I suppose the most fun ball to kick around the hate news shows and Washington, D.C., right now is Judge Roy Moore. I saw on Facebook this morning that he has pulled out of the special election race in Alabama but I haven’t looked any deeper to see if it’s true or if the Associated Press wrote it.

                Even after the allegations against him he was still leading the democratic candidate for the Alabama Senate seat by six to nine percentage points. I couldn’t help but notice on Facebook and my car radio that liberals found some conservative voters who said that a republican sex offender was even preferable to any democrat in the Senate.

                The libs, of course, are using that to point out what deplorable reprobates and disgusting excuses for humanity any and all conservatives are. I’m sure castration and lynching await me by some non-hateful, loving, gentle, enlightened liberal friends for suggesting that perhaps what most voters think is that a man is innocent until he is actually proven guilty.

                I understand the disgust on both sides though. Many democratic officials and candidates these days are almost too disgusting to look at but I’d like to think it is a minority of conservatives who would vote in favor of a verifiable sex offender over a democrat, as repulsive as they are. You could always opt to stay home from the polls and drink and watch Family Guy reruns.

                If Roy Moore is guilty of fondling underage girls, I want him beaten senseless in the middle of the student union at the University of Alabama.

                But does anyone else think it’s strange that four weeks before a Senatorial special election in which Moore was clearly set to steamroll the democratic wannabe that suddenly, 40 years later, four or five or six (I haven’t checked the paper this morning) women decided it was time to come forward and finger him for, well, fingering them before they were of legal age with extreme clarity as if it had happened yesterday?

                I have heard snippets of alt left news talk show hosts saying it is so convincing because they have all come forward independently and didn’t know each other. Or it is a sea-monster-sized coincidence maybe? Hey, maybe not.

                What I have heard less frequently is that the Washington Post, perhaps in panic mode over seeing democrats lose their fifth straight special election when they would like us to believe America is issuing Donald Trump a referendum (?) at the polls when no such thing is happening, sent a team to Alabama and set up shop and interviewed over 30 different women before they found three to charge inappropriate behavior.

                Hey, maybe that’s just good old fashioned investigative journalism. Maybe it’s something else.

                If I raise my hand and say “Nancy Pelosi raped me,” (I’d have picked a cute one but I can’t think of any) is that all the “evidence” that’s needed to force a resignation? Or is an investigation in order first? How about if two or three other guys come forward independently and tell Fox News the same thing? Is that the corroborating evidence the Court of Public Opinion is looking for? How about we go to court and prove she actually did it? (She didn’t for God’s sake, this isn’t CNN.)

                For the third time, if Roy Moore is guilty as charged then punish him appropriately, or let me order the punishment which would be more harsh than “appropriately.” But before we start ordering the chemicals for lethal injection, how about a trial somewhere other than in the Washington Post or on CNN or the bar where Mitch McConnell hangs out?

                Guilty is guilty and wrong is wrong but we have a system for determining that which does not involve Anderson Cooper or your Morning Joe.

                If it looks like stink, and it smells like stink and it sticks to the bottom of your shoe like stink there is a good chance it may not be your mother’s Thanksgiving sweet potato casserole.

                Just sayin’.

The Border War

WYOMING 16
CSU              13

in a blizzard. November 4, 2017.

You thought it was going to be about something else, didn't you. Sorry.

No time for a real blog this week. Too much fun and merry-making in Laramie all weekend.

Go Pokes!!!!!!!!!