The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre

in Historical Guns, Will Dabbs

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is based on the official storyline given by the government and the media. It is accurate as to that version of events. However, this may or may not be what actually transpired. Regardless of what gun enthusiasts and professionals believe happened, didn’t happen, or who was responsible, the outcome was the same; bump stocks were banned, Americans lost freedom, gained no safety, and the inanimate object blamed was removed from the purview of law-abiding Americans.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Adolph Hitler is frequently considered the most horrible person ever to have lived. I would assert that the Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock might give him a run for his money.

Whose was the most dysfunctional psychopathic personality in human history? Hitler was certainly a contender. That guy was so evil as to have become an archetype. However, at least Adolph had a purpose of sorts. As twisted as it was der Fuehrer had a goal.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Stephen Paddock apparently committed mass murder just to fill the void where his soul was supposed to be.

Not so much with Stephen Paddock. Paddock was simply an ink-hearted monster.

Origin Story

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Stephen’s Paddock’s childhood was predictably chaotic and sad.

Stephen Paddock was born in April of 1953, the oldest son of Benjamin Paddock who was himself on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list for a time. As seems to always be the case, Stephen’s childhood was broken and tragic.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Stephen Paddock’s dad Benjamin was a career criminal. The official FBI wanted poster described the elder Paddock as a psychopath.

Stephen’s dad Benjamin was arrested for bank robbery in 1960 when Stephen was seven years old.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Paddock had a knack for business and accumulated a modest fortune through legitimate means.

For all his many manifest faults, Stephen Paddock was a fairly adroit businessman. After stints with the US Postal Service and the IRS, he acquired several real estate holdings that made him a fair amount of money, more than $5 million over time. He also maintained an annual income of around $500,000. His principal weakness, however, was high stakes gambling.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Like the monster he was, Stephen Paddock preferred the dark to the light.

Stephen Paddock’s game of choice was video poker, which he preferred to play alone. He would play throughout the night, preferring to sleep vampire-like during the day. Paddock openly disliked being in the sun.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Paddock’s girlfriend, Marilou Danley, admitted to police that she had helped Paddock load his magazines. Her fingerprints were indeed found on some of the spent cartridge cases. She was, however, ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing.

Paddock was married twice but had no children and remained on good terms with his ex-wives. He traveled widely and maintained a private pilot’s license along with a pair of small planes. In the last decade of his life, he went on twenty different international cruises, many of them with his Filipino girlfriend.

Dissecting the Monster

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Paddock apparently subscribed to a few outlandish Internet-based conspiracy theories but was otherwise fairly unremarkable.

Those who knew him well described Stephen Paddock as an atheist without any serious political convictions. He drank heavily, many times in the morning, and regularly took the anti-anxiety medication Valium. He seemed despondent and might have lost a substantial sum gambling, though this has never been definitively established.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Shooting is usually a fairly social undertaking, but Paddock apparently did not make any friends at local ranges.

In the year leading up to the infamous October 2017 Las Vegas shooting, Paddock purchased 55 firearms along with large quantities of ammunition. Two days before the massacre he was captured on a home surveillance system driving out into the desert to practice. Regular shooters in the areas where he lived never saw him socializing with other firearms enthusiasts.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Paddock had explored several other open-air targets, some as far afield as Boston, before settling on the Route 91 Harvest country music festival. He chose his two rooms carefully to maximize his vantage.

Two weeks before the assault, Paddock sent his girlfriend back to her native Philippines with $100,000 to purchase a home. He was later seen with a prostitute. Six days before the shooting, Paddock checked into a pair of rooms in the Mandalay Bay Casino overlooking the site of the upcoming Route 91 Harvest country music festival. On the final day of the event, there were more than 22,000 people in attendance.

The Shooting

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Jesus Campos was a security guard at Mandalay Bay who happened upon Paddock’s crime in progress.

At around 10 pm an unarmed security guard named Jesus Campos was dispatched to investigate an open door alert in the vicinity of Paddock’s two suites.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Campos’ first inclination that something was amiss was his discovery that this door had been secured via a screw-in steel bracket.

Upon arrival, Campos found that a door on the 32d floor had been secured shut with an L-shaped bracket screwed into the frame. After reporting his findings he heard the sound of further drilling and went to investigate.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Paddock’s preparations included this video camera affixed to the peephole of his door and fed into his laptop. The room service cart equipped with another camera can be seen through the open door.

Paddock had planned his operation exhaustively over a period of months. He had arranged a baby monitor in the hallway on a room service cart to maintain surveillance.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
When Paddock’s improvised surveillance system informed him of approaching security he peppered the hotel room door with rifle fire.

At roughly 10:05 as Jesus Campos approached his rooms, Paddock fired roughly 35 rounds through the door. Campos took a bullet to the thigh but thought he had been hit by a pellet gun. At this point, hotel staff notified the Las Vegas Police Department.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Police found these ballistic calculations among the detritus of the shooting.

Paddock broke out the windows to his suite with a hammer and opened fire on the unsuspecting concert-goers below. Officers later found accurate graphical depictions of the range to the concert venue along with estimates of ballistic performance of his weapons and appropriate target holdovers.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
The volume of fire Paddock launched from his perch was simply breathtaking. He used the hammer seen in this picture to break out the window glass.

Over the next ten minutes, Stephen Paddock fired more than 1,100 rounds.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
This is the view from Paddock’s firing point. Everything about the situation was carefully crafted well in advance.

Paddock launched eight rounds toward the large above-ground fuel tank located some 600 meters away at McCarran International Airport. Two rounds connected with the tank, but only one penetrated. As jet fuel is predominantly kerosene and unlikely to ignite from such an insult, nothing further came of that effort.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
This is an image of Stephen Paddock’s killing zone. The numbers represent the locations of his victims.

The average range to his victims was around 450 meters. A security fence surrounding the venue prevented the crowd from escaping. In the chaos of the moment, it was impossible to determine the source of the fire. The end result was tragic beyond words.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Paddock shot himself roughly ten minutes after firing the first round.

Ten minutes after the carnage began it abruptly stopped. The first Law Enforcement officers arrived outside his room at around 10:12, but immediately thereafter the suite went quiet. At 11:20 SWAT teams breached the rooms with explosive charges and found Paddock dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound through his mouth. One member of the breach team inadvertently triggered a three-round burst during the assault, but no one was harmed.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Stephen Paddock’s meticulously planned attack was the worst American mass shooting on record.

58 people died as a direct result of the assault, 36 women and 22 men. The ages of the victims ranged from 20 to 67. 869 concert-goers were injured, some 413 via gunshot wounds or shrapnel. Stephen Paddock’s methodical attack was the largest mass shooting committed by a single individual in American history.

The Guns

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
It took Paddock multiple trips over several days to get his weapons positioned. At times hotel staff helped him with his heavy black bags.

The police discovered 24 firearms in Paddock’s hotel room. He had ferried the cased weapons and support equipment up in several sorties, at times assisted by hotel staff. The room was littered with dozens of magazines to include several Surefire 100-round boxes.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Paddock’s two hotel rooms were absolutely littered with guns.

Fourteen of his weapons were .223-caliber AR15-type semiautomatic rifles. There were two each from FN, Daniel Defense, LWRC International, and POF-USA, as well as three by Colt. A single example from Noveske, Christensen Arms, and LMT were recovered.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Paddock’s sole handgun was a Smith and Wesson .38-caliber Airweight revolver.

Paddock also had eight .308-caliber AR10 rifles along with a .308 Ruger bolt action and a Smith and Wesson Model 342 .38-caliber revolver.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Paddock’s AR10 rifles were configured for precision shooting. All of his AR15’s featured bump stocks.

Paddock’s AR10’s were equipped with bipods and high-end telescopic sights. His AR15’s included forward handgrips and bump-fire stocks. As Paddock had no criminal history, all of his weapons were legally purchased.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Stephen Paddock accumulated his arsenal despite some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the country.

Paddock procured his guns from lawful sources in Nevada, Texas, Utah, and California. This means he had passed the most stringent background checks in the nation. Law officers later found ammonium nitrate, another 1,600 rounds of ammunition, and fifty pounds of Tannerite in his Hyundai Tucson SUV.

The Dreaded Bump Stock

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
In the aftermath of this horrific attack the American people needed a villain, and we settled upon the bump stock.

In tragedy folks naturally want something to hate. As the shooter took his own wretched life, that something became bump stocks. A bump stock is a simple contrivance that appears at first brush to be an oversized rifle stock. A bump stock incorporates a mechanism that allows the rifle so mounted to reciprocate slightly as it fires. By applying forward pressure to the gun and allowing recoil to disengage the trigger these devices will produce the equivalent of automatic fire at the semiautomatic weapon’s theoretical cyclic rate.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Now that bump stocks have been reclassified as machineguns almost none of them have been surrendered to the government.

Bump stocks are not particularly accurate, but they can be quite reliable in experienced hands. In the aftermath of the attack, the BATF controversially reclassified bump stocks as post-86 machineguns and demanded they be surrendered to the government. Estimates of the number of bump stocks already in circulation range from 280,000 to 520,000. As these devices were previously unregulated the exact number will never be known. As of this writing 680 of the stocks had actually been voluntarily abandoned to the BATF.

Ruminations

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Stephen Paddock’s degree of premeditation was simply mind-numbing. He bodged together this contraption using scuba components in an apparent effort at rendering himself immune to tear gas.

After an exhaustive investigation, Law Enforcement officials admitted that they had no idea what drove Stephen Paddock to do what he did. Researchers at Stanford University dissected his brain and reported it as grossly normal. Paddock had an obsession with cleanliness and potentially suffered from bipolar disorder. However, he refused to take psychotropic medications with the exception of Valium.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Despite his profound emotional dysfunction, there is no evidence of Stephen Paddock ever having been formally diagnosed with mental illness.

Psychologists who have evaluated his life retrospectively suspect Paddock exhibited alexithymia. This is a sub-clinical construct that involves an inability to identify or describe emotions within one’s self or others. While this trait is common among mass murderers alexithymia is not formally classified as a mental disorder. Alexithymia can be found in roughly ten percent of the population.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
We all hurt over horrible stories like this. However, trying to prevent such tragedies by regulating the tools is a fool’s errand. This improvised contrivance using a length of string is at least as effective as Paddock’s bump stocks at increasing the rate of fire of a semiautomatic weapon.

For those of us who understand firearms the reclassification of bump stocks as machineguns is simply asinine. The determined miscreant can accomplish the same end with a length of string and a Kalashnikov, Mini-14, or M1 Carbine. With more than a year to plan a guy of Stephen Paddock’s abilities and resources could have acquired a modest milling machine, taught himself to use it, and crafted his weapons from scratch.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Stephen Paddock planned his crime for months, applying his obviously prodigious intellect toward the dark mission of pitiless mass murder.

For now, we simply have to wonder what exactly broke within this craptastic loser’s brain that made him shoot 471 innocent people attending a country music concert. In addition to his obvious personality defects, computer forensics investigators also found hundreds of images of child pornography on his laptop.

The Heart of Darkness: Stephen Paddock and the Las Vegas Massacre
Stephen Paddock was the purest sort of darkness.

It appears Stephen Paddock was the ultimate unstoppable monster. Godless, soulless, emotionless, twisted, evil, and empty, Stephen Paddock was one of the most repugnant human beings ever to have drawn breath.

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About the author: Will Dabbs A native of the Mississippi Delta, Will is a mechanical engineer who flew UH1H, OH58A/C, CH47D, and AH1S aircraft as an Army Aviator. He has parachuted out of perfectly good airplanes at 3 o’clock in the morning and summited Mount McKinley, Alaska, six times…always at the controls of an Army helicopter, which is the only way sensible folk climb mountains. Major Dabbs eventually resigned his commission in favor of medical school where he delivered 60 babies and occasionally wrung human blood out of his socks. Will works in his own urgent care clinic, shares a business building precision rifles and sound suppressors, and has written for the gun press since 1989. He is married to his high school sweetheart, has three awesome adult children, and teaches Sunday School. Turn-ons include vintage German machineguns, flying his sexy-cool RV6A airplane, Count Chocula cereal, and the movie “Aliens.”

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  • Mont Schroeder October 27, 2021, 1:33 am

    Paddock was made a patsy and shot by some govt. spook as a cover up, to shield a escaping Saudi shiek from the rooftop of the hotel, via helicopter. He never fired a shot, but took the fall, plus there were multiple shooters and no fatalities reported. This author sounds like a DS thug to make a few shekkles off of this article to whitewash the incident……………..

  • Greg H April 1, 2020, 5:13 am

    Nevermind.
    I found the information. Thanks anyway.

  • Greg H April 1, 2020, 4:35 am

    Reportedly, Danley had no knowledge of her boyfriend’s intentions.

    In your article you say that she helped load his weapons and had even left fingerprints.

    Do you have any references to support this claim?

    • Greg H April 1, 2020, 5:15 am

      Nevermind. Please disregard.

  • Ted March 22, 2020, 2:54 pm

    Yeah, a few things are a major red flag to me with the whole incident. First, nobody saw an issue with this guy making so many trips back and forth to his 2 rooms to get large items ? Second, how does a hotel employee not notice how heavy these items are when he is pushing the cart ? That was a lot of weight that was brought up to the room. And the lame BS about not seeing anything ? Those hotels all have surveillance video EVERYWHERE, yet, nobody saw anything suspicious, LIKE SOMEONE TAKING A DRILL AND SCREWING DOORS CLOSED ? That coupled with the multiple videos from ground level that have strong indications that multiple weapons were firing from different locations. The official report smells of BS… Cops reporting fire coming from different floors on their body cam videos. A girlfriend that just happened to leave the country with 100K just prior to the incident ? Reports that food was ordered for more than one person to those rooms. too many questions left unanswered !

  • Bobs your uncle March 18, 2020, 5:20 pm

    check out the B-movie “Hostel III”

  • Doc March 17, 2020, 10:36 pm

    I love that photo of the Ar 15 sitting there above the caption, saying that all his Ar’s had bump stocks and for grips. When clearly on the picture there is no for grip and the stock is a standard Daniel Defense stock not a bump stock.

    • Ted March 22, 2020, 2:43 pm

      Please pay attention. If you are referring to the one on the floor with the bipod and scope, then it would have been one of the .308 versions that were also mentioned in the article, and not one of the .223 versions with the bump stocks. I clearly see MANY of the versions in the pictures that have fore grips, and what appears to be bump stocks. Look in the tub and on the table…

  • Dan March 17, 2020, 5:19 pm

    Many of you commenters should get red flags…

  • Rick March 17, 2020, 12:53 pm

    It took a few days, but this scene reminded me of the set-up scene at the football stadium from “Unintended Consequences”.

    Could that have been an influence?

  • Paladin March 17, 2020, 12:01 pm

    Why didn’t the smoke alarms go off from the rate of fire???

    • Matt March 20, 2020, 7:15 am

      From my experience and observation when have you seen anyone pay attention to smoke alarms in hotels and car alarms?

  • RICK March 17, 2020, 11:01 am

    The way I see it, it’s a good thing he had those bump fire stocks. Had he not, there would have been a serious call to ban all AR’s just because. Yes, the loss of life and all those injured is horrible. I know it sounds bad, but I don’t want to be a criminal just because of 1 stupid mf’er. And I don’t want to give up my guns because of him.

    • kevin March 18, 2020, 3:22 pm

      Good. Then dont give them up.

  • Psychopath Judges March 17, 2020, 8:18 am

    The true problem with the country is the fanciest judges that do not follow the law. They do everything they can to help the people that pay them under the table. Look at most divorces and how the judges give everything to the women and stick it to men. If the United States of Russia actually followed out own laws, we would not have all the bullying and then people getting pissed and going on killing sprees. The killings are a symptom of the corruption in out government.

    • leon March 17, 2020, 12:39 pm

      that is no excuse to go and shoot people if you’re pissed off at the world just blow your brains out don’t take it out on other this asshole was sick in the head already his dad was a career criminal psycho.

      • Sean Ebra March 17, 2020, 6:29 pm

        Nailed it!

    • Dan March 17, 2020, 4:39 pm

      People like you scare me because you have similar sociopathic thoughts.

  • Mike in a Truck March 17, 2020, 5:12 am

    Just reinforce’s that I dont trust a dam thing the MSM tells me and even less what the Government says.

    • Matt March 20, 2020, 7:17 am

      Particularly during the False Flag of CV-19 taking place.

  • ascdew March 16, 2020, 9:02 pm

    Read the comments by Occams, he presents all of the salient issues about this obvious government 3 letter agency false flag event. As someone who works in Las Vegas, I will also add that the LVPD is simply a Barney Fife tool of the feds and the casinos, so all of their input/reporting on this shooting are useful as toilet paper.

    As Occams also mentions, the HPA was moving towards possible approval at the time, and a variety of citizens gun rights issues were trending favorably. Well we can’t have that can we? Better get one of our mass shooting scenarios off the shelf and into action. Oh useful idiot Paddock seems agitated? Yeah let’s tweak that moron a bit and get the patsy moving on this. Anyone that thinks Paddock had the ability and skills to pull off this shooting by himself is an idiot and has no concept of what was truly involved tactically and logistically.

    Casino senior management very high up was also bought off or otherwise compromised into closing their eyes and diverting casino employees away from the area. Anyone in the casino business knows that the high end rooms like that are cleaned & maintained at a very high level. For example, the room service cart in the hallway with the camera is ridiculous, that would never happen, unless there were very specific management directives that told personnel to leave it. That just does not happen.

    Finally as Occams states and everyone knows – follow the money! His reference to that a$$wipe Chertoff is right on point. In fact if Dabs wants to reference Hitler – well Chertoff’s your guy. He is the gold standard by which you can measure the psychopaths that occupy most of the senior levels of government.

    Anyone who thinks the “official” report on the Las Vegas Shooting is anything other than a cover-up and a whitewash of the truth are missing the components of logical thought and critical analysis.

    • Dave churbuck March 18, 2020, 8:27 am

      Thank You. The victor writes the history, The producer writes the script, That aside, Stephan was left handed the bump stocks were right handed, Look at the pictures. Why ?, Because they were for Others to use.
      Most people are right handed. The floors above Stephan are owned by the Saudi’s
      Search for what was going on in Saudi at that Exact time. The band was to be a cover for a hit job
      that went south and was sacrificed for a cover escape. The target was later taken care of in Saudi.
      Isin’t it amazing what they will find on your computer when they need you to be the bad guy ?
      What lives in the deep woods does not play with each other for a reason.
      Like Epstein, Stephan did not kill his self. Prove either is actually burying dead, IF you can.
      Iva Cojones.

  • Sean Ebra March 16, 2020, 4:50 pm

    I think some of you are in too deep. I believe he was a depressed suicidal idiot. He took lives with him in a cowardly way and didn’t care what he did to gun enthusiasts. H sad that he had so much time to rescind his evil thoughts and get help.

  • Lance March 16, 2020, 4:36 pm

    I don’t buy the stacks of empty magazines in the photos. Who has time to stack empty mags when doing mag dumps?

    I also don’t buy the flimsy explanations for Paddock and his brother’s small fortunes.

  • Rack hunter March 16, 2020, 4:12 pm

    Could it be he was just suicidal and wanted to go out with a bang? Sad that he had plenty of time to rescind his murderous plot.non of us will know what makes a homicidal idiot think that way. The damage he done on those innocent lives and the people who are law abiding gun enthusiasts.

  • Les Thanadequate March 16, 2020, 1:52 pm

    I have no specific info about anything in the article, but I do have a comment on the lack of empty brass you can see in the room. 1000 rounds of M193/M855 easily fits in a single 50 cal ammo can. You can easily fit 1000 empties in many of the common vibrating brass cleaners. If you took that brass and scattered it around a large room it wouldn’t look like much brass. If you have fired a thousand rounds at a sitting the brass scattered on the ground in a 20 foot square ejection area is not that impressive. Also, the brass you can see in the room doesn’t include brass that may have been ejected out the window he was firing from. I agree there are many unanswered questions concerning this shooting, But in my opinion the quantity of brass on site is not one of them.

  • Uncle Bob March 16, 2020, 1:02 pm

    This is the “Official” story. Not the Truth of what really happened or why.
    There is no mention of the phone charger that didn’t fit Paddock’s phone. Why?
    There is no mention of the “Other” blood stain on the carpet not near Paddock’s body.
    There is no mention of the Helicopters in the area that turned off their transponders.
    There is no mention from witnesses that stated they saw flashes from the TOP of the building.
    There is no mention that Saudi snipers were in a convention at the time
    There is no mention that Saudi’s owned an entire floor above the floor where Paddock was found dead.
    Anyone who has listened to the audio(s) can tell there was multiple types of weapons fire, some full auto.
    There was no mention that President Trump was meeting the Saudi royal prince in Las Vegas at this time.
    Come on folks, don’t be sheeple. Think for yourselves and use your logic skills. Why on earth would he bring that many rifles to his hotel room? He was a gun runner for the C_A or some other clandestine organization, he was set up to be the Patsy from the beginning. He was never going to get out of there alive.
    This one has SO many unanswered questions and we are told to “forget it” case closed. Go back to dancing with the stars and shut up, don’t ask questions.
    Reminds me of 911 and why the Pentagon cameras all failed at the same time. Or why building 6 collapsed blocks away from the world trade centers. Never heard of building 6? Look it up and quit being SHEEP!

  • KSG March 16, 2020, 12:55 pm

    Steven Paddock and Jeffrey Epstein didnt kill themselves. The only truth to this “story” is there were alot of innocent defenceless people shot that day. Why does nobody mention the three females that were registered to paddock’s room.

  • Norm Fishler March 16, 2020, 12:40 pm

    Dr. Dabbs, So now that you’ve done it; i.e. given us a road map to what the official version is, how about a line for line analysis of how such foolishness could have never come to pass. Specifically how could all that carnage been accomplished with such a light sprinkling of empty brass? 58 dead, 413 wounded, and over 1100 rounds fired? That room should have been ankle deep in brass and yet I see less brass on the floor than what I put on the ground in an abbreviated range session. Somebody salted the mine? That’s the way I see it. PLEASE!!! Prove me wrong. Sometime within a few months after the shooting I saw a video on the net that showed at least one shooter in the crowd blasting away at the escaping bystanders with what appeared to be an SKS. There has been absolute dead silence on the issue ever since. I have not followed this as closely as you have, but from what little I have seen, the version released to us deplorables, just does not/will not and cannot fly.

  • Ricky B. March 16, 2020, 12:20 pm

    Article mentions he “potentially suffered from bipolar disorder”, but doesn’t provide the source of that information. This is the first I have seen any mention of a specific personality disorder associated with this killer… I’d like to know the source of that information.

    If this killer was bipolar, that’s the closest thing to a “reasonable” motivation the public has been provided so far for such twisted behavior… I mean this behavior simply defies the kind of basic human decency that prevents most of us sane people from even being capable of these type actions.

    This guy is the poster child for why euthanasia should be legal. If your own existence is so miserable due to whatever mental defect you have that you find yourself considering completely random mass murder, we shouldn’t just make a painless and dignified suicide available to you… We should encourage people with these type problems to have themselves legally and humanely put out of their own misery.

  • ~ Occams March 16, 2020, 11:36 am

    Greeaaaatttt story! Now for FACTS:

    1. Where’s Paddock’s 7.62 belt fed weapon in the room? The first burst was 90-rounds. Military vets’ who CARRIED the M240B agree it’s a dead-on match (why is it YOU ‘shooters’ are unable to identify 7.62 from 5.56???). 39 seconds to disprove ‘the official narrative’.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mXe9dk77bk

    2. Why did NO hospital in the area report treating ONE, SINGLE GUNSHOT WOUND

    3. Who WAS using 5.56 to shoot up the lobby fronts while this was going on?

    4. Why did the huuuuge ‘underground’ population of Vegas report seeing vans going in every direction that night?

    5. Why did the 2 long and boring videos of the FBI agents sweeping the grounds show not ONE, SINGLE IMPACT MARK?

    6. Who and what were the blacked-out helicopters sighted and REPORTED in the area?

    7. WHO was using commercial airliner’s Flight Identification Codes as they circled around downtown Vegas in, obviously, helicopters? Was that Paddock, too?

    8. Why did the unlicensed security guard, who supposed broke this up and was ‘shot’, flee to Mexico, after claiming he was treated at a small clinic – who said they never saw him and have NO capabilities to treat a GSW in the first place?

    9. Who were the 30+ FBI agents that checked into Mandalay the days prior?

    10. Why was one of Paddock’s planes, a Cirrus-20, N5343M, ‘delisted’, but is/was registered to a ‘Volant LLC’, of which there is little info? However, a ‘Volant Associates’ is none other than a Dept of Defense contractor.

    ‘Conspiracy theory’? Naw. Just questioning facts that no one wants to talk about, and instead, keep welling on obvious lies. So, rather than just accepting proven liars telling you a story – that they had to change 5 times due to independent media outing their lies – go do a little digging.

    And please? don’t use ‘goolag’. “Bing is a search engine. Google is a weapon”.

    You see, if you do some real digging – and not ‘accepting’, you’ll maybe see 2+2=4. The ‘Hearing Protection Act’ for open use of suppressors was up for a vote in the House (Senate?) – BUT WAS IMMEDIATELY KILLED.

    And oh yea! Dual Passport holder Michael Chertoff, who released the 9/11 arrested ‘5 Dancing Israelis’ – 3 of who were CONFIRMED Mossad, JUST HAPPENS TO BE PART-OWNER in a company which will supply metal detectors for hotel (billions $$$) after this ‘massacre’.

    Come on, gang. This is HOW they’re taking away the 2nd. Wake up, or lose it. Everything above is EASILY confirmed.

    • Shan March 16, 2020, 5:55 pm

      Just was curious if you have ever fired an AR 15 equipped with a bumpstock? Because if you had you would know the rate of fire sounds very similar to a belt fed machine gun.

  • Douglas Riding March 16, 2020, 11:11 am

    I have to agree with some other comments here, that there is something ‘fishy’ goin’ on with this whole story…

    I drove by Paddocks, Mesquite, Nevada house, after the shootings…

    You could not have chosen a more perfect place for ‘witness protection’ if you tried ! It’s on a dead-end cul-de-sac… To get to it, takes no less than 6 turn-offs from the thru street … & talk about non-descript ! There is nothing to make you give that place a second glance… Not even a decorative cactus !

    I also agree that the weapons, expended ammo, and rate-of-fire are all problematic… Just like the 911 ‘implosions’…

    The lack of detailed pictures, information, or real investigation all reek, like a pile of rotten fish !!!

  • Slim March 16, 2020, 11:05 am

    Everyone trying to figure out why a loon did what they did is just plain stupid! Everyone remembers the couple of kids at school that would be the first person you’d mention and wouldn’t be surprised if they grew up to be a loser like this guy was and climbed a clock tower. Thing is they all grew up and most all have access to any gun they can afford or take from anyone’s house they come across. Who really cares why he did it! the guy was crazy and most times that all you need to know since nothing will ever change things as they now stand.

  • Mauser6863 March 16, 2020, 10:32 am

    Thanks for not letting this story die and for the preface of the limits of the article. I will say a couple of things about this:

    1. Stephen Paddock was a “Trump Hater” and was likely targeting people he thought were responsible for his election. His brother and family are fully lying about his political views.

    2. The FBI never arrested, detained or deported his girlfriend or his Australian male associate???

    3. We have never seen any documentation of who he was really, flight records, credit cards, bank records, txt messages, GPS data, etc. We are told he doesn’t do the internet? He’s dead, so his right to privacy is over. The official case, while closed is still secret?

    His money would be easy to document and a forensic accountant should be able tell us if he had a large unknown source of income, based on his expenses, travel, gambling wins/losses. etc.
    .
    4. Who searched his home following the shooting and what did they take, before it was searched by the FBI.

    5. Has anyone tried to fire a bi-pod equipped rifle with a “Bumpstock”. Love to see that video and was surprised that the authorities or the anti-gunners, didn’t produce such a video. I have been told that the “Bumpstock” won’t work with a bi-pod. Do we know if any of his guns were illegally converted to full auto with an auto sear, etc. While 1,000 rounds in 10 minutes fired with 100 round Surefire mags is possible, the fire sure sounds like full auto to my ears?

    A lot of the facts are secret still and not all witnesses have been questioned. It seems a decision was made early on to blame the crazy, lone gun man and wrap this up. Maybe that’s really the whole truth, but why the secrecy?

    • Ricky B. March 16, 2020, 1:09 pm

      I should have known better than to continue reading your comment after the nonsense included in your first bullet point…

      Not that it is any stupider or nonsensical than your first bullet point, but your bullet point #5… WTF? Just because a bipod dampens recoil, doesn’t mean it completely eliminates it. As long there is some kind of recoil to keep the rifle bouncing back and forth against your trigger finger, the bumpstock will function as it was intended to… That is to say it will simulate automatic fire but, obviously, at the expense of accuracy. If you are spraying down a massive crowd of people from an elevated position, you don’t gotta be accurate at all to still produce such a high body count. Just stop trying to think so much bro, you’re gonna give yourself a headache!!!

    • chas maravel March 16, 2020, 6:32 pm

      You have some good points but too many for me to digest all at once.. I would add a few to the mix if that wont confuse me more. The article says 50 lbs of Tannerite but not the ammonium in pounds.Ok maybe I missed that or it was in another story or report. Q.) How friggin many cars could you blow up with that much Tannerite. A.) 10 20 30? easy. Then add ( lbs?) of Ammonium. The mass is not given here a prev story did give 200lbs. Whatever the mass we got a big big way big problem here. Not just that could go very big as to booms BUT this stuff has been used before. 9/11 guys were the second shot at that same set of towers. I was very near the first time and way too close the second. First gang used this stuff and they did not buy it at the place I worked at. They did buy it at another place near me. That place was a very well known problem and the feds were all over that place for years. I mean all over every sale and every exit entrance truck in truck out. I know this guy could and probably did get this explosive else where but this had to I mean he had to draw lots of heat. That alone says we got something similar to the boys from the Oklahoma bomb. Smaller but stuff that draws heat.
      Next problem is that tank. Been there seen that but for some reason after doing all his research AND being a pilot he did not know that a small hole in a Jet fuel tank was not gonna go bang. He did have a car full of explosive and a detonator , 50 lbs of Tannerite set off with a rifle round that could be parked near the fence at not far from that tank. If the huge bang was not enough the 1000+ rounds would sure as heck make lots and lots of holes plus huge amounts of fire ball. We can also presume this stuff went over that pigs head? Nope not gonna buy that pig in this poke. OK I got more but with what you got and what I got I think I need to ask. What kind of crap are we being fed here. I do not mean to discredit your stuff at all or do I mean to criticize the points the author made about bump stocks etc. I myself did not want to spend 300 on one and even when they got cheaper I thought whats the point. I got string and I cannot afford to waste ammo so why bother. I almost wish I had one so I could live dangerously as a federal felonious dangerous master arms criminal. The fact that nobody turned them in says that a few hundred other master criminals are out there. Well Im out. wait I also heard he was afraid that fema guys were gonna take our guns after some kind of made up emergency. Gosh what a tune. Who would believe our gov would take advantage of a real or overblown emergency to take our rights away. Why thats the craziest sh$t I ever did…nevermind.

  • Chris S. March 16, 2020, 10:28 am

    What kind of derangement can put something like this into action?

  • Michael Newton March 16, 2020, 10:14 am

    While I typically enjoy and support your articles, this is unacceptable. You mentioned the shooter by name. We don’t do that. Ever.

    Heroes and victims get named, not the monsters who create them by destroying lives.

    By naming the shooter, you give him his own piece of history. A legacy, if you will. These cretin should fade from memory into obscurity as fast as possible. Their stories don’t deserve to be told in an identifiable context. Lest the next potential shooter seek the immortality that you have afforded this shooter.

    What you have done here is no less than gravely irresponsible. I individually consider it reproachful.

    As a lifetime firearms advocate I respectfully request an edit to this article, removing the name of the shooter. I also less respectfully request that you take no less than a one month sebatacle, in order to consider what you can really do to support the rest of us with appropriate information and activism.

    Michael

    • Michael A Keim March 16, 2020, 12:07 pm

      Get over it.

    • John Boutwell March 16, 2020, 1:19 pm

      Not reporting the names of these shooters does nothing to dissuade the next mentality ill person from doing whatever crime s they can dream up.
      You have no valid point!

  • Notsure March 16, 2020, 9:57 am

    They didn’t only win, they were straight up communists, a much purer form of collectivism than a simple national socialist. And the Leftwing media and entertainment personalities in the West made sure to do all they could in order to defend their ideological brothers.

  • Foxx C-B March 16, 2020, 9:35 am

    My cousin took 3 through her chest, including 2 through her lungs that night. ICU for days, but thanks to some incredible bastard who saved her and several others by rushing them to the hospital in his personal vehicle, she’s okay now.

    • Mauser6863 March 16, 2020, 10:39 am

      Sorry that this happened to your cousin. No one deserves that.

      According to the authorities, the concert was 450 yards away and we saw the evidence of what happened to those poor people.

      On the other hand the hotel security guard was shot through a door and only one of the many rounds reportedly hit him. He said it felt like a “Pellet Gun”. Although the door will reduce the velocity of the bullet and therefore its terminal effects, he sounds like the luckiest man alive?

      Afterwards, the guard ran over the the Ellen show and then went into hiding?

      • Sean Ebra March 16, 2020, 4:03 pm

        Conspiracy theories. Geeze some of you sound like your in too deep. I surmised the guy was a depressed idiot who took lives along with his suicidal self.

  • Jim Mason March 16, 2020, 9:01 am

    Excellent synopsis. I am puzzled by the usage of the term “alexythymia”, literally without words for feelings. Alexythymia, in the clinical community, is a pseudoscientific term to describe someone who appears incapable of describing their feelings. Female therapists often apply the term to almost all male clients. The inability to describe feelings is distinct from those who have an absence of empathy, who view people as objects, not as human beings. This latter characteristic is a hallmark of those with Antisocial Personality Disorder or it’s close cousin, Narcissistic Personality Disorder. There is still too much not known or revealed about this murderer. Thanks for the article.

  • Christopher Tucker March 16, 2020, 6:47 am

    I call BS. 1,100 rounds in 10 minutes using different guns?, 471 people shot from an an evelated position 450 meters away (in 10 minutes?), an incredible 58 people killed (in 10 minutes?) by a plus 60 year old out of shape man running back and forth between 2 windows! Plus he took the time to shoot some fuel tanks? 1100 shots in 10 minutes is a fire rate of approx 0.55 shots per second with a impact every 2.33 shots with a bump stock!? It is a staged scene. The guns are just laying around, the number of empty casings do not add up to 1,100 rounds. The room does not show the evidence of gun powder residue from 1,100 rounds? The largest mass murder in modern US history and the lack of news coverage has been minimal? What’s that smell….cover up!

    • horace March 16, 2020, 12:06 pm

      make good points. I’m still trying to determine the real truth behind Sandy Hook. Gun hating liberals own the press, Hollywood & government giving them all the tools they need to influence the message to the public and my trust level is way down for these actors now.

  • Ransom March 16, 2020, 5:39 am

    Why would you mention this POSs name? Responsible journalists should always refer to these psychopaths by a name such as “The impotent Loser the perpetrated the Las Vegas shooting. Let their names fade away and die.

    • John Boutwell March 16, 2020, 1:24 pm

      Your point is moot, not reporting the name is not going to stop the next nut from doing his crime.

  • Jack Hinson March 16, 2020, 5:37 am

    Trotsky, Lenin, and Stalin were 10X more evil and bloodthirsty than Hitler ever thought about being. But they won, so they got to write the history books.

    • Dr Motown March 16, 2020, 6:52 am

      Trotsky and Stalin aren’t even respected by fellow commies. Their crimes are well documented and history is not treating them kindly either 🙄

      • Notsure March 16, 2020, 9:53 am

        Not true at all. Far too many people wouldn’t even recognize those three monster’s names. Don’t believe me? Go ahead and ask a few 20-something’s who was Josef Stalin. But I guarantee they’ll recognize the name Adolf Hitler, and probably will go on to compare him to President Trump. And then there’s Mao and Pol Pot, the former of which may have had more more people executed than all the other 20th century monsters combined. And his name might as well be lost to the ages as far as the the majority of Americans are concerned.

        • deanbob March 16, 2020, 10:52 am

          We all have heard the saying about what happens when we don’t learn FROM history. Could this be a (big) part off why so little history is taught? And why much of what is taught is either not factually accurate or outright wrong?

        • srsquidizen March 16, 2020, 12:37 pm

          Correct. Granted Hitler was a mass-murdering SOB whose name deserves to live in infamy. But he was strictly bush league compared to Chairman Mao. There’s another big difference today. In Germany the Nazi party is outlawed and you can get arrested for wearing a swastika. But in Red China, Mao’s Communist Party still has total control of everyone’s life. Anyone who publicly expresses dissent will still have hell to pay and if not sufficiently “re-educated” may never see the light of day just like the old days. All over the country there are still countless huge pictures posted of “national hero” Chairman Mao, the worst mass murderer in all human history, a monster who made Genghis Khan look like Mr. Rogers. But very few Americans younger than Baby Boomer it seems know anything much about the history of Red China or who Mao Tse-Tung really was.

    • Mark March 16, 2020, 10:34 am

      I agree. All of the famous Communist leaders such as Castro, Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Marx, and Pol Pot were much more evil.

  • Bobs your uncle March 15, 2020, 6:37 pm

    If this POS was smart enough to earn 500k in annual income he was smart enough to realize the political impact his actions would have on Vegas,the President, the NRA, and all gun owners in general. If his goal was to kill a large number of people, he had far more effective ways at his immediate disposal. I believe his criminal misuse of bump stocks is one of the few, maybe the only such example of criminal misuse. If Trump had not banned bump stocks the left would have used it to bludgeon all gun owners. Its easy to see what the motivation for his actions was. My heart is broken for the victims and their families.

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