Thank you to the 1,000+ Minnesotans who came out to fill the beautiful Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis last night. I'll say a little more about the evening itself later in the week, but it took place in the shadow of the deadliest single-shooter mass murder in American history less than 24 hours before, and John Hinderaker, appropriately, began the night with a moment of silence for the 59 dead and more than 500 injured.
In my own remarks, I also addressed the carnage. As often in America, it was met with a great deal of heroism by ordinary men and women rising to the occasion: There was, for example, an Englishwoman in a wheelchair who'd been seated on a raised platform so she could get a better view of the concert. If it were every man for himself, it would have been easy to leave her there, trapped on the dais, exposed to the gunman. Instead, as everyone fled, those around her nevertheless carried her to safety and raised her wheelchair over the fence they scrambled over. There were many stories like that throughout the day, far outweighing the grotesque Tweets glorying in the slaughter of presumed Trump voters. Twitter is an idiotic medium, but not, happily, a representative one.
I had thought by last night we would know more about Stephen Craig Paddock. By now the usual social-media non-paper trail and petty-crime police records and mental-health issues should have emerged. Instead, nothing has - except some bizarrely distinctive details: He wasn't a loner, but lived with his girlfriend - an Australian citizen currently in Japan, but planning to return to the US today. He was not the usual loser, but a multi-millionaire. He had no apparent interest in guns and no military training, but he demonstrated remarkably lethal proficiency, either with semi-automatics he modified or with a genuine automatic he somehow acquired, a weapon that has been used in precisely three crimes in America since 1934. He didn't "snap", but instead calmly planned his act, identifying and securing the perfect corner suite in a massive hotel and then discreetly moving in dozens of weapons over four days and constructing platforms in front of those two windows.
Some of these quirks do not appear to be particularly consistent, and the Aussie in the adjoining room, for one, says there were "multiple shooters" and "they killed a security guard on my floor". On the face of it, "multiple shooters" would seem more plausible than Isis' claim that Mr Paddock had converted to Islam and changed his name to "Abu Abd Abdulbar al-Ameriki". But, pending any further revelations, it may well be that a wealthy retiree with no interest in guns got sufficiently interested sufficiently quickly to pull off America's all-time deadliest single-shooter massacre: An old dog taught himself a new trick, on a spectacular scale.
As I said on stage at the Guthrie Theatre, I had intended to talk about other matters - about the weekend's latest "vehicle attack" in Edmonton, Alberta, by a Somali immigrant (with an Isis flag on the seat of his car), who stabbed one policeman and ran over four people at Commonwealth Stadium; and about the two young women fatally stabbed (one with her throat slit) at the main rail station in Marseilles, by an illegal immigrant from the Maghreb; and the seventeen-year-old from the northern Caucasus who's just gone on trial in Oslo after being found with a bomb the day after the Stockholm jihad-motorist struck. But all these events, by fiercely committed ideologues in multiple jurisdictions in service of a global civilizational struggle, were all but forgotten, banished to the in-brief sidebars at the foot of page 37 by one apparently non-ideological American retiree who, unlike the aforementioned, was extremely good at killing large numbers of people.
I confess to a certain resentment at this. I regard the Albertan, French and Norwegian stories as far more relevant to where our world is heading. It is not a small thing when a young Frenchwoman can have her throat slit in broad daylight at a major public venue in a European metropolis, notwithstanding that the Mayor of London and others tell us we have to accept that it's now part and parcel of life in a big city. Yet in a certain sense these events are ineffectual - as the corpse count of a Stephen Paddock reminds us. And every Stephen Paddock makes it easier for all those who want to brush off Islamic supremacism and retreat to all those lame-o lines about how you've got more chance of being killed by a toppling household appliance than by a terrorist, and anyway, even when the shooting starts, half-a-dozen Isis cells can't match one white-male gun nut. Why didn't the Somali guy, the North African, the Caucasian jihadist figure out what one 64-year-old from a Nevada retirement community did? That all over the map there are soft targets with large numbers of people penned into small, tight, open-air spaces - and right across the street tall hotels whose upper floors offer easy opportunities for a bloodbath.
We have been, for the most part, very lucky. The foot-soldiers of the jihad are mostly dimwit Mohammedans: they have youth and energy and ideological fervor, but they are also largely stupid and unimaginative. The old guys are less energetic, but also less stupid: if Isis were right and there really were Islamic Stephen Paddocks - 40-50-60-somethings, worldly and full of low cunning - things would be very different.
Consider this year's two pop-concert atrocities: at Ariana Grande's in Manchester, 23 people died - in the cause of the new global caliphate; at Jason Aldean's in Vegas, 59 died - for no reason at all. It is a glum thought, but Paddock's all-time record will likely not stand for long. America's four deadliest single-shooter mass murders occurred in the last decade. Only one of them - the Orlando nightclub massacre - can be said to have a political or ideological component. The rest seem to be a peculiarly contemporary form of narcissism - that, when my life heads south, the only way to give it meaning is to take large numbers of people with me. There is no cause, no fealty, no "Allahu Akbar!" - because pointless slaughter is the supreme triumph of amoral will: Who needs Allah? You're your own Allah. Unlike Manchester or Nice or Paris or Berlin or Brussels, there is no meaning: Indeed, the only meaning is the meaninglessness; that is the point - the black void at the heart of the act.
To reiterate, I regard that Somali guy in Alberta as more relevant to the day after tomorrow, and a man like Paddock as peculiarly depraved, decadent and self-indulgent. But there's no arguing that (even with due allowance for the easier access to weaponry) the latter seem to be far more effective in their evil. In May, Isis called for attacks on Las Vegas - surely an iconic target for Islamic supremacists, but apparently not one they were capable of striking. So it was left to a retired accountant to do it for himself. I wrote in After America that, given the USA's open southern border, the best investment the jihad could make would be to try to convert three or four per cent of Mexicans to Islam. (There's some evidence they're doing that in parts of Latin America.) By the same token, imagine if Isis could really make good on their boasts and convert to Islam a few cool, cold, middle-aged men who over four days calmly walk multiple golf bags across the lobby and press the button for the 32nd floor...
~If you're a member of The Mark Steyn Club, feel free to comment away. For more on The Mark Steyn Club, please see here. Mark will be back on TV live with Tucker Carlson tomorrow night, Wednesday, at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific.
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51 Member Comments
Paddock. The oddest thing since the Kennedy shooting. It's just been dropped. Only 59 dead so no big deal I guess.
Mark - your comments are quite correct, but they are only applicable if Paddock was indeed (1) "THE Shooter" and (2) "Acted Alone."
Despite the eagerness of the "news" media to portray the entire incident in that light, even the Sheriff of Clark County has admitted that "He must have had help..."
For that matter, 'whoever' planned and executed this massacre had a Great Deal of Tactical and Operational Military training, and that excludes Paddock; he might have been a "smart" guy, but definitely not that smart...
I'm NOT a "Conspiracy Guy" (YES, Lee Harvey shot JFK) - but frankly, I think that EVERY aspect of this incident is still open to question. Wa-a-a-ay too much horsedung being thrown about the details, and every bit of it promoting the GunGrabber narrative...
That clown at Fort Hood's count didn't make the cut?
Just to say, the Eloi did look after their own.
Many many acts of heroism were conducted on that terrible night.
The Morlocks among us are not having it all their own way, hope springs eternal.
So few facts have been made available in this case. In the vacuum, everybody has a pet theory. Until further notice, I'm going with "Like father, like son." One robbed banks and became notorious, the other robbed lives, and will gain whatever we bestow on him. A soulless man, who in the end developed a strong urge to kill his betters and then himself.
Agreed. Seems the most likely. Apparently he tried to rent a suite in a hotel overlooking a different open-air concert (Life is Beautiful) which had a very different demographic to the one he did in fact target, which suggests he was neither a rabid anti-Trumper nor a white supremacist. After all, what kind of white supremacist would first look to target a pop/rap event then, when this was foiled, decide 'what the hell' and shoot up a country gig? Surely most likely explanation, given his highly disturbed childhood, was nihilism. Yes, he's an outlier in that these kind of mass shootings are normally perpetrated by much younger people, but it's the most plausible theory right now I feel. That said, I agree with Mark that whether or not a motive is ascertained in this case, there is a clear agenda to downplay Islamist attacks which I agree pose a far greater threat to our society. Brendan O'Neill at Spiked Online makes a similar point.
Mark I believe Paddock was dead before a single shot was fired from that Hotel room.Proof the photo of this person lying on the floor of the room.Looked like he was dressed in a hurry.Guns strewn over the room.Why have an Assault rifle intended for mass destruction clicked to Automatic fire with a telescopic sight.Who was meant to be killed covered by mass slaughter.HOW DID that many weapons smuggled into that room pass muster in the hotel lobby.Ammunition for assault weaponry is heavy and cumbersome.How did that ammunition find its way into that strategic room.TWO smashed windows 2 shooters at least plus logistics people.All this with the suspect already dead.Find the target of this atrocity you will find the perps Regards Steve
It did not look like the room of an accountant. They are methodical people. I am not sure what happened there, but I do not believe the dominant narrative. There is no proof that he didn't care what venue.
It appears the murderer, who's name I wish you will never again use, did in fact have an ideological motive.
It us ling past time to admit that lefty culture is the one inspiring hate, enabling violence and blaming the objects of their hatred.
Now is the time to begin to consider what to do about the world "progressives" are forcing us into.
Never use the word "progressive". It is the left's preferred term. The true word is LEFTIST. And most descriptively - Leftist totalitarian fascist. It is time to take back the narrative
Yes, now is the time for people to be very serious, outspoken, focused and watchful. The Left do not allow for scrutiny of their own rhetoric, behavior and illogic. They would rather all Americans buy their bad arguments and they are happy to continue to throw the labels of ignorant and bigot out at anyone with dissenting opinions. Unfortunately, they are in every place of power today from the largest corporations to every part of the bureaucracy to the smallest town newspaper and municipalities. They simply can't be allowed to win elections anymore.
Long ago I lived in Paris... Les gauchists was the favored term. They have certainly succeeded in screwing up what was a wonderful country. We are following right along....
Idle thoughts. Having been invited to a few Filipino feasts, they bring joy to the spirit and happiness to the stomach, too too much much delicious food, but relax... it'll be fine, enjoy the family social camaraderie. What American can hang out with the Filipinos without learning how to relax? Years ago, once marveled at a Filipino wedding in an Islamic Republic... how on earth did they obtain a pig for the main course - quite in ostentatious display as the roasted centerpiece on a mountain of food - including numerous platters of entire metre-long grilled fish. There are ways that they know to get such banned no-nos and everyone knows to keep their tongues from wagging. So... this week we have a somewhat sinister suggestion that the guy wired money to his girlfriend after her arrival at her home. By wiring to her, it's all recorded and traced through the usual wire transfers system, hardly something that can be hidden and not used by those who do hide things. Maybe she was simply intending to have an extravagantly 'fat' time with her family on holiday, buy gifts for mum and aunties... Maybe not, maybe it's something darker... but the usual scenario is very mundane.
Why must you always give me chills? And not the good kind.
since this crime has - so far - not been blamed on 1) Isis, 2) right wing extremists, 3) white supremacists and/or THE KLAN.....we can safely assume that the perpetrator was a man of the left......and they are covering that up as fast as they can.........
Exactly. The dog has not barked for far too long.
Our lefty compatriots have become as predictable as they are relentless and deceitful.
The dog!
A strange deal indeed Watson.
I finally have something to comment on. Not only do I live in Edmonton I live in the building by the alley where the first pedestrian was. hit What has been most insulting is the overwrought press and the absolute pablum spewed by Canadian politicians in the aftermath.
I truly believe there is a playbook of cliches that have to be read to make everyone feel better. I don't want to feel better. I want people to open their eyes to the bigger picture. An attack happened outside my door on an ordinary Saturday night. I believed it could happen anywhere anytime before. I didn't need the up-close reminder.
The governments don't protect the citizens anymore. It's like the Wild West again having modern terrorism.
Vigilantism will be on the rise. Is there any one in leadership in your city that said enough is enough and calling out for an answer to this problem? If you can't walk out of your building without worrying about some freak running you over in their truck that's not a little thing anymore.
If vigilantism rises, I suspect it will be against the elite who have stopped the masses from being protected and have allowed murderers into their countries.
You're right, because the terrorists stay hidden until they commit their heinous acts and no special intelligence arm of our governments whom the elite seem to control now have been effectively trying to root them out before the blood letting. If there is a terrorist event we have the people in law enforcement and emergency responders right on it but these people must be exhausted and frustrated beyond their limit and no matter how heroic their efforts, they won't erase the problems. Law-abiding and life-loving citizens are getting targeted from above and below. The hard solution seems to lie in removing two immovable destructive forces both within our midst.
Father Brown Mysteries, "Where does one hide a tree? In a forest."
Grave and thoughtful. A tough week to talk about the great issues. Indeed, Occam's Razor seems to apply in the Vegas atrocity.
To me there are but two possible explanations for this murderous rampage. The guy was either converted by Islam or, and far more likely, Paddock was a hater of conservatives, not unlike the mental patient who shot up the congressional baseball practice, and went for the gold. I hope we can find out. But if he was a crazed hateful leftist like that other guy was, wow, have we ever got a situation here. Corrupt MSM and Democrats calling for gun control will have soon 'splanin' to do!
Mr. Steyn, please stay with your thesis. You implied in your article about this Paddock affair, that things may not be as they appear, that Paddock may not be the lone gunman, or may not have been the gunman at all. Then you conclude with yes, Paddock was indeed the "Oswald".
Tragically, in the wake of the revelation of Operation Northwoods, every possible, and seemingly crazy, unthinkable scenario, has been put on the table. So yes, any shred of evidence suggesting that Paddock may not have been involved must be assumed to be correct unless proven otherwise. The first question to be asked when investigating this type of incident is... who benefits.
Mark is, as usual, astute in his observations and perspectives. And right now, we know so little about this crime -- what guns were used, how many shots were fired, Paddock's physical condition from an autopsy (like blood work or disease), what was in the room, where he was most recently, who his girlfriend was, what was in his computer or cellphone. So speculation, and calls for useless gun control, rule the day. If it indeed turns out to be a retired white male American that decided to spray a crowd on his way out, we are disheartened at the decline in American morals of even one person, but maybe not very surprised, as our decline contributes to our inability to resist Sharia and other totalitarian instincts.
Steve Sailer has commented on this before. The competence gap between stale pale males and the would be jihadi appears to mean that despite the large gap in aggregate numbers the deranged stale pale male is a much more grave risk on an individual attack basis. While this may be in bad taste it does suggest that in a dire scenario where there was an all out battle between some upstart caliphate and a rump body of European nationalists one suspects that the caliphate might be less effective than it first appeared. This somewhat mirrors Moshe Dayan's comment regarding the secret to his success: fight Arabs.
The Catalan Suppression is, for me, a bigger event.
The elites refuse to hear reason - the debate is settled.
They refuse to allow votes.
So the Islamization of Christendom continues.
Barcelona shows how Americans will be cowed, once disarmed.
Abraham Lincoln knew how to deal with secionists, Rajoy should so the same
Accountants do not usually buy guns to excess, nor do they turn up with so many guns that will not be used.
Such profligacy suggests a room full of bean counters.
If the Russians, Chinese or Venezuelans declared these findings, we would smell a nest of rats.
Las Vegas was not the deadliest mass murder in US history. It was the deadliest murder by gunfire (and there are probably some asterisks that go along with that). The Oklahoma City bombing, not to mention 9/11, were far more deadly murders.
Is that reassuring?
I know I feel better!
I know. Mark Steyn columns are depressing and you were hoping to find something uplifting in the comments. I failed you with my anal correction of Mark's trivial error in the 1st paragraph which he has since corrected. I'm sorry!
The non-Islamics are the anti-Allahu Akbars -- for them, God is not great. His brother said he had no religious affiliation. This is not something to sigh in relief over; it's the problem. If he had been a Christian, with a heart softened and moulded by the love of Christ, this would not have happened. And he would have done something better with his life than wasting it on video gambling.
Sounds about right to me, what you say here BB in T.
Someone in my neighborhood just invited me to one of the Alanon retreat sites to hear this priest, Tom Weston, give his closing talk. He travels around the world giving these weekend and weeklong retreats and the topic as you might guess was addictions, all of the types not the two or three big ones. The room was packed with a couple hundred. The man loves sharing his favorite drinking/sobriety stories and they all come back around to his philosophy that addictions hollow a person out. The person is born male or female but isn't suddenly a man or woman one day. It takes lessons, trials, experiences, mistakes (I think of being forged at the iron works of life from how he described it). But his point was that the path of addiction is the way we can avoid getting to that whole person we're supposed to become; the progression is supposed to go from a hard stone to a softened heart that allows for evolving into human that must take place. (Maybe the iron works analogy falls apart here, maybe not). When I heard the gambling piece about the shooter, that gave a big part away to me.
If I may add on something about this talk I heard on Sunday by Fr. Tom Weston. One) addicts love chaos and two) there's three parts to an addict's addiction journey: First, the fun part. Second, the fun mixed with some problems part 3) Finally, just problems
Fran -- I'm thinking out loud here. What about the soft heart that becomes hard, not even through addiction?
The stuff a person is born with couldn't get through the annealing process. It's easy to blame a behavior on what nature didn't give you to work with. The chicken-or-the-egg question will persist as long as there are chickens and eggs. I think it's both. One cannot exist without the other.
One of my neighbors is an old miserable Code Pinker. She made it a point to shun me and my family after Bush stole the election in 2000. Or was "selected". This behavior had very bad consequences — for her, because she is in need of new blood and nice people. Her husband is an old recovering alcoholic. Drank for 25 years till the mid-80s and then got sober. He's not got much of a brain left that isn't wet brain, but he's a fundamentally decent, nice person and has been the essence of kindness to me. He's a bit of a walking miracle.
He's also a Democrat, but of a very different stripe. He believes in property rights to vote! He has never let politics ruin a friendship. We've had lengthy (and I mean lengthy) talks — about the modern Dem party. My question was always, What do they stand for?
He told me he's been a life-long Democrat and was ashamed of his party. But if the Dead Dog is on the ballot he'll still vote for him. His Code Pinker wife has been guzzling wine since Obama got elected. She became a fixture at the voting precinct after 2000 (to make sure no more elections got stolen) but she has been forced to cease her civic duties because there are not many gumboils left in that machine.
So addiction robbed many things from one person, but he remained good. The other one was born nasty, and white wine during the past decade has not improved upon the nastiness.
They are sad people who live in an unreal world, each of them. They probably always lived in an unreal world. But one has a good heart, the other is heartless. The good heart destroyed himself young but stayed good, the empty vessel waited till later in life but she was always cruelly cold.
Al-anon is itself a cult. Although it purports to support the victims of an evil, it also enslaves them, and infiltrates all of family life. There are better ways out of addiction. IMHO of course.
Well, Debra, I do say, I take your point. Most definitely, there is that about the stuff one is made of, especially if one has five generations stacked against him or her as Jordan Petersen suggested. However much I like a swill from the till of the anecdotal treasure chest, it's not much to go on. Still, I thought it was an interesting angle to toss out about addicts. I rarely take everything I hear any longer, lock, stock and barrel, but if the facts fit into a template, I like to consider them. Wouldn't Mr. Sherlock Holmes? I think the best bet will be to wait as the evidence trickles in and then we can speculate even further what made the creep tick tock until his tocsin went off.
I am an admitted ignorant of Sherlock Holmes but that's in part because my son is such an aficionado. A treasured original reprint of 2 volumes of the short stories was my Christmas present to him one year, and I read a story or two but I couldn't get past the cocaine use in the original stories (later sanitized out of the fiction). Some learning moments there!
I meant no criticism of Al-Anon; it's just that every person has a varied set of circumstances and complications to deal with every day.
I'm just enjoying the language play and not myself a Holmes aficionado either, and completely agree Al-anon strikes me as also cultish as John Ward says and not for everyone but works for some. Ciao!
I want to agree with you here, John. It was always my first thought about AA and Al-Anon, a church-like substitute where God is replaced with Higher Power so nobody is offended and all are included. Yet,
I'm open to hearing a talk by someone who inspires and helps some cope with their difficulties. If I came away from the talk with a few missing pieces to the addiction puzzle in exhange for an hour of my time, that was worth it.
Yes, I'd thought you'd planned quite a different programme at the Guthrie Theatre, but those terrorist attacks, particularly in Marseilles, remain chilling reminders that the "war" is not over.
As for the cold-blooded killer with too much money and time and, yes, freedom, I think there are some very damning facts that will emerge over the course of time when cooler heads are beginning to prevail. The screeching of the reptilian liberal hens (for a really mixed metaphor) might suggest that this guy was acting out his personal evil against the scapegoats defined by the Left. Just a theory, and this murderous maniac might have gone on his shooting spree against any mass gathering, but now that the Personal has become so political, how does one separate them in a climate where a mind gone mad & evil festered for who knows how long and all we have left if carnage and crisis and then carping on the Twit machine?
Here in the US West, we've been dreading a Vegas strip attack for years. The soft target this guy found is a reminder that the casino owners have been shirking a few duties$$$.
The casino owners were supposed to prevent a guest from bringing luggage into his room and anticipate him knocking out window and firing on people?
Yes, in a high-rise motel/casino, there should be sensors for the windows being knocked out. What if someone wanted to commit a suicide?
For the SWAT team to need 20 (?) minutes to find the room once they entered the hotel, was to hand them a nightmare.
Where's the next terror attack/mass murder coming from? There are limited resources. Right now, where should that money be spent? There are a zillion places and if every conceivable hole were plugged, the inconceivable holes would be exploited. This goes beyond anything preventable by ordinary means. This is a spiritual battle in realms that transcend the physical.
Thank you for providing the proper perspective Mark. Although I remain skeptical the Vegas murders are as simple as so far reported, unless something truly shocking emerges, the true existential threat remains the same.
Brain tumor, a la Charles Whitman? But even Whitman repeatedly asked for help but in those days, nothing was available, (barring a lobotomy?)
Not sure I would even believe the autopsy report at this point. (How sad.) Too much being denied too quickly. Hopefully the New Media will take the lead.
Interesting possibility. I'm starting to wonder more about his girlfriend and whether she has any ties to any groups like Abu Sayyaf, the Islamic terrorist group in the Philippines. Since this mass murderer wired $100,000 to the Philippines shortly before the murders, and given that nothing else is pointing to anything as a motive, it appears that whomever that money was intended for is important. The authorities have elevated her now to a person of interest. If I were an investigator, she would be high on the list.