I'm divying this up in two.
Part one, what you're reading, is my analysis (or more accurately, a guesstimate) of the LV shooting.
Part two is about responding to it.
So, a 64-year-old multimillionaire with multiple planes, residences, and a longtime girlfriend, but no known ideology, political affiliation, or religion decides to do this.
Not a gun guy, which makes even less sense to go the route he did if a body count was his goal. Mccarran airport is right there and the guy was a private pilot. All he would've had to do was deviate after getting clearance to land and kamikaze straight into the festival.
Instead, he spends over a year and well over $20K on multiple rifles, ammunition and accessories. All of it legal and nothing NFA I've heard about.
He rents the ideal suite, sets up multiple firing positions. My guesstimate of the distance is maybe 400 meters. Hitting area targets especially with an optic is easy enough even for the untrained. Some of his rifles have bump stocks, and I saw at least one extended magazine in the scene photos.
Then he starts shooting. And his shooting is... weird. I've listened to some of the raw videos over and over, and they just sound wrong. He shoots for 12 seconds, then 35 seconds of silence. Then 11 seconds of shooting, 16 seconds of silence.
The man has almost everything he could need to shoot more or less continuously: multiple positions, stacks of magazines, multiple weapons at each position, bump stocks... yet those pauses are ridiculously long for shooting that way. He might have been running back and forth between positions, I guess. But it's inefficient.
The entire way he's set up feels amateurish, really. Like he started making the right decisions and then fucked up the execution. Or like he'd gotten the ideas out of books and never got the range time in to work on the rough spots.
The WaPo claims the shooting went on for 15 or 20 minutes. That's a LONG time to continuously shoot. Multiple news reports say the cops didn't know where his room was until he set off the smoke alarm, and that I believe. Either from the expended rounds or a hot barrel started making the carpet smoulder.
One of the conspiracy theories floating around points out that he had no real counter-police plan. Even though he'd set up cameras and shot at police when they first arrived, he committed suicide rather than barricade himself in his room. (which, at the end of a long hallway, would've let him hold out indefinitely and cause multiple casualties in the entry team.)
Personally, I counter that with two things:
One, amateur hour. Same reason his shooting was sloppy. He didn't plan for counterattack.
Two, if he was what I call an "Avatar" shooter, planning for resistance doesn't happen.
(Side note: we don't have enough mass shooters to really classify. My current system identifies two types:
"Avatars" rely on maintaining control from the moment they begin shooting. Resistance of any sort stops them and they either surrender or commit suicide. The Aurora Theater had a weapons malfunction. The Gabby Giffords shooter was dogpiled by bystanders. Sandy Hook and Charleston ran out of victims.
"Ideologues" don't happen as often but are more dangerous. Ft Hood stopped with multiple bullet wounds and paralysis. San Bernadino were killed by police in a shootout.
Then there's the Planned Parenthood shooter, who doesn't fit either, but is beyond the scope of what we're talking here.)
As far as a motive, nobody official still knows yet. Nor do I.
I suppose we'll have to see.
Part one, what you're reading, is my analysis (or more accurately, a guesstimate) of the LV shooting.
Part two is about responding to it.
So, a 64-year-old multimillionaire with multiple planes, residences, and a longtime girlfriend, but no known ideology, political affiliation, or religion decides to do this.
Not a gun guy, which makes even less sense to go the route he did if a body count was his goal. Mccarran airport is right there and the guy was a private pilot. All he would've had to do was deviate after getting clearance to land and kamikaze straight into the festival.
Instead, he spends over a year and well over $20K on multiple rifles, ammunition and accessories. All of it legal and nothing NFA I've heard about.
He rents the ideal suite, sets up multiple firing positions. My guesstimate of the distance is maybe 400 meters. Hitting area targets especially with an optic is easy enough even for the untrained. Some of his rifles have bump stocks, and I saw at least one extended magazine in the scene photos.
Then he starts shooting. And his shooting is... weird. I've listened to some of the raw videos over and over, and they just sound wrong. He shoots for 12 seconds, then 35 seconds of silence. Then 11 seconds of shooting, 16 seconds of silence.
The man has almost everything he could need to shoot more or less continuously: multiple positions, stacks of magazines, multiple weapons at each position, bump stocks... yet those pauses are ridiculously long for shooting that way. He might have been running back and forth between positions, I guess. But it's inefficient.
The entire way he's set up feels amateurish, really. Like he started making the right decisions and then fucked up the execution. Or like he'd gotten the ideas out of books and never got the range time in to work on the rough spots.
The WaPo claims the shooting went on for 15 or 20 minutes. That's a LONG time to continuously shoot. Multiple news reports say the cops didn't know where his room was until he set off the smoke alarm, and that I believe. Either from the expended rounds or a hot barrel started making the carpet smoulder.
One of the conspiracy theories floating around points out that he had no real counter-police plan. Even though he'd set up cameras and shot at police when they first arrived, he committed suicide rather than barricade himself in his room. (which, at the end of a long hallway, would've let him hold out indefinitely and cause multiple casualties in the entry team.)
Personally, I counter that with two things:
One, amateur hour. Same reason his shooting was sloppy. He didn't plan for counterattack.
Two, if he was what I call an "Avatar" shooter, planning for resistance doesn't happen.
(Side note: we don't have enough mass shooters to really classify. My current system identifies two types:
"Avatars" rely on maintaining control from the moment they begin shooting. Resistance of any sort stops them and they either surrender or commit suicide. The Aurora Theater had a weapons malfunction. The Gabby Giffords shooter was dogpiled by bystanders. Sandy Hook and Charleston ran out of victims.
"Ideologues" don't happen as often but are more dangerous. Ft Hood stopped with multiple bullet wounds and paralysis. San Bernadino were killed by police in a shootout.
Then there's the Planned Parenthood shooter, who doesn't fit either, but is beyond the scope of what we're talking here.)
As far as a motive, nobody official still knows yet. Nor do I.
I suppose we'll have to see.
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