Initial Thoughts on Vegas

I generally wait at least twenty-four to forty-eight hours after a tragedy like the mass murder in Las Vegas before commenting. The early information is usually wrong or incomplete. So here are some of my thoughts, in no particular order.

1. My sympathies go to the victims and their families. I can’t even comprehend how their lives will change because of this night.
2. It appalls but does not surprise that this became political in nothing flat. It’s almost as if the chattering classes are salivating over the bodies for a chance to push their agenda.
3. It also appalls but does not surprise me that conspiracy theories have sprung up faster than black mold, but with the same toxicity.
4. No, a good guy with a gun would not have likely stopped this or shortened it. The shooter was raining down rounds from a perch three hundred feet up and five hundred feet away. Unless you had the rifle you took top honors at Camp Perry and could somehow locate the target amidst the carnage and horror, I really don’t want to hear about it.
5. What would’ve helped? Probably more people with first aid training and first aid packs with tourniquets and hemostatic bandages.
6. In the midst of such horror, there are always beacons of light. People shepherding and pulling others to safety, others tending to the wounded, and some who are ballsy enough to just stand up and flick off the bastard.
7. No, this doesn’t make the case for gun control. This was a person bent on killing as many people as possible. Even if the antis managed to somehow magically disappear all 300 to 600 million guns in the country, a person bent on mass murder will still find a way. Last year, a terrorist used a truck in Nice and killed more people. Twenty years ago, a terrorist used legally acquired materials to build a bomb that killed almost three times as many.
8. As of this writing, I don’t know if we’ll ever learn the motive. That won’t stop everyone from telling you what his motive was.
9. No, we don’t need to “do something.” The only people who have to do something are those who have to tend to the wounded, bury the dead, or investigate the crime. If you want to do something, make sure you tell your friends and family you love them. And maybe learn first aid.