I am wondering about many facets here: his genetics, his upbringing, his Malasian-Australian girlfriend, how he acquired and modified so many weapons, how he got them into his hotel room(s?) and kept them there several days, his feelings about his father (Bingo Bruce, Chromedome, Old Baldy) and whether he wanted to become more infamous than his old man. I find it hard to believe he was a regular big winner at gambling as well. He may have been facing financial ruin.

I don't know if it makes a difference but I saw Marilou Danley's Facebook page before it was removed. She is one of four sisters and her mother was still alive in several pictures and they appeared to share a close family relationship and spoke to each other in Tagalog which I believe to be is a language used in The Phillipines. She showed pictures of her little grandchild and they all seemed very nice and ordinary.

Not useful information at all, but I wondered if she might have ended the relationship. She is 62 and looked very youthful. None of this is relevant. Just musings.

"Heavenly" regulated. There's a whopper if I ever heard one.

Old age slip, what can I say.

If we can't blame guns should we blame knives? Your is statement is ludicrous.

Tonight on the " news " I learned two things. One or two of his guns were modified with a " bump stock " which allows a semi-automatic rifle to sound like and simulate an automatic rifle. These devices are completely legal and inexpensive in the scheme of things. The debate on whether they should be belongs elsewhere. Someone also said this individual was a " Narcissist " which sort of fits with what we know about him to date. While a layman, when it come to psychology, this means to me that he has never given one thought through his entire life to anyone but himself. While pure speculation, his motivation could have been as simple as to go down in history as a mass murderer.

:agree::agree::agree::agree:

The ease with which to get guns should share part of the blame!!!

:BigApplause:

We don't live in Mexico.

How much "Prayers and condolences" can we send? It's hollow, it means nothing now.

Only hollow if you don't believe in being part of something bigger then yourself.

Only in the USA would we argue about passing legislation to try and stop a .003% problem while 99.997% is not a problem.

Tell that to the families who've lost loved ones.

Press one for English...

Why try to prevent killings when so few people are murdererers. Is that the essence of what you are saying? In other countries they would no be so foolish?

I am pretty much against adding more laws to the books that only serve to make it more difficult and expensive for good, responsible law-abiding citizen to buy guns. But one thing that I wouldn't object to would be making the sale and ownership of bump stocks illegal. Although they don't technically turn a semi-automatic weapon fully automatic, they basically serve the same purpose.

But even at that, people would still get bump stocks if they wanted one. Unless the manufacture of them was made illegal they would still exist. Even with that, I'm sure that there are some people that would learn to build their own.

The problem that I see with this kind of weapon is that it gives criminals an advantage over police, armed security guards and private citizens that choose to carry for protection.

And the plot thickens Paddock'''s Girlfriend Used Two Social Security Numbers and Was Married to Two Men at the Same Time

That is strange. I wonder if people will want to change the name of Paddock Square here in the Villages or just thumb their noses at fate like I do with birthdays (long story)? We do not want evil people stealing the connotations of words and their importance to us. Thumb your noses at such creeps.

100% accurate assessment of the problems plaguing our country today.

Isolated incidents are made out to be general conditions, minority both race and number groups treated as a majority issue/institution, special interest groups (big $$$$ political contributors) getting benefits when they represent a less than 10% entity.

Excellent post.

Not at all. Las Vegas horrible tragedy, heart wrenching. But just an average Chicago weekend. Where's the outrage every night about what goes on in Chicago, Detroit, or even closer Orlando? Gun violence is a problem, a serious one. But what's the first thing you hear, Gun Control. Guns have been in society for years but this level of violence has not.

I think no one quarrels with the fact that guns kill people and should not be used to kill people unless those people are trying to kill us or our families.

No argument at all from anyone I have ever talked to.
I also have never in my almost eighty years met anyone who was a murderer, (well one, but that is another story and he didn't want to kill me or mine and I didn't know he would be a murderer when I dealt with him in business)

The point of passing legislation that would unarm everyone, take their guns (by the way, I don't have any) take guns away from everyone except people who are armed to protect the citizenry...

Or only allowing guns for people to skeet shoot or hunt for game. Or passing laws that no one is allowed to carry guns or own them unless a, b, or c.

Is that the people who use guns to take things from others, to intimidate others, to protect themselves from other people who might take the drugs they are marketing or the people they are marketing, are not likely to be conscientious enough to say they have guns and give them up.

Only people with very loving hearts and slightly unrealistic attitudes about how the world works and how people act will NOTsee that this is locking the barn door after the horses are gone.

That ship has sailed. We have a lot of armed people, both good, bad and some who might just fall apart tomorrow and do a mass shooting. Good things are not simple.

Perhaps I am missing something. HOW would your gun law read???? In other countries guns are not owned by a good many Toms, Dicks and Marys like the are here in the U.S. HOW would your law read????

Does anyone else see the brother as a bit glib and untroubled by what happened?

Too, the so called girlfriend lawyering up seems suspicious to me. She has quite a history, two SS nos., being simultaneously married to two different men...

They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
There's a lot of truth in that.

Steven Paddock's father was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List for a series of robberies and for trying to run down an FBI agent.
He was said to be psychotic.

Paddock's brother, Eric, supposedly deals in marijuana and methamphetamines.
I don't know if this allegation has been substantiated.
What I do know is the he has shown no overt emotion in the death of his brother, the victims of the shooting or those who were injured.

They all seem to have a screw loose, i.e., the possibility of the predisposition of a genetic abnormality -- otherwise known as nut jobs.
There is much we will never know about this senseless tragedy.

I probably see this differently to most people here but believe there is no reason why anyone needs or should have any type of automatic weapon be it semi or otherwise, these can be taken out of circulation by a change in the law and reduce the death toll significantly seen all over the country.

There are no valid arguments about second amendment rights and citizens freedoms that justify the current situation where mass shooting of large groups of people are so easy to perpetrate by any member of the public that might be a perfectly law abiding citizen one day and have a breakdown the next.

The reason I see it differently is because I am not American but English and have lived through the change of gun laws in the UK where just 2 mass killings was enough for the government of the time to act and abolish just about all guns in circulation and have seen no mass shooting since.

I currently live in Spain where similar strict gun laws make gun crime something that you just don’t think about, it happens but in such small numbers it’s not given a thought and personal safety is almost guaranteed with violent crime again minimal even in parts of towns and city’s that may not be the best.

I now own a house near the Villages and love everything about it and enjoy my time spent there and the friends I have made but am more than aware that shootings are happening at least once a month sometimes weekly within a few miles of my home there and consciously go home before the bad guys come out each evening and am slightly on edge in situations that I would never be in Europe.

Someone needs to have the balls to stand up to the NRA and say enough’s enough and that this type of carnage can and needs to be brought to an end for all the thousands of innocent people who have lost their lives so needlessly over the last few years and for all those who will lose their lives in the future if something isn’t done.

Handgun ownership in the City of Chicago
 

Handgun ownership has been legal in the City of Chicago since 2010 per a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Gun sales are "banned" in the City of Chicago (notice I put banned in parentheses as the real situation is much different. If you are a Chicago resident and wish to legally purchase a handgun, you must go to the suburbs to make your purchase. Handgun owners in the City of Chicago must also get an Illinois Firearm Owners ID card, complete a firearms safety course, get a City of Chicago Firearms Permit and then register the firearm with the City of Chicago. Do all handgun owners in Chicago follow the city's handgun ordinance requirements...of course not.

From Time Out Chicago's web site:

In June, 2010 the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that effectively, and instantly, shot down Chicago’s 28-year-old handgun ban. The opinion, issued by a narrow 5-4 majority, said the Second Amendment protects the right to own a handgun for self-defense, a decision that overrides state and municipal restrictions. Otis McDonald, a South Side septuagenarian and the namesake plaintiff in McDonald v. Chicago, was among several local petitioners in the suit sponsored by the Second Amendment Foundation and the Illinois State Rifle Association. McDonald argued he had the right to protect himself and his family in his Morgan Park neighborhood, which he described as crime ridden.

“The number of Chicago homicide victims during the current year [2010] equaled the number of American soldiers killed during that same period in Afghanistan and Iraq,” justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion. “If safety of…law abiding members of the community would be enhanced by the possession of handguns in the home for self-defense, then the Second Amendment right protects the rights of minorities and other residents of high-crime areas whose needs are not being met by elected public officials.”

Gunman reserved hotel rooms in Chicago
 

This past August, the gunman also reserved rooms at Chicago's Blackstone Hotel which overlooks the 4 day Lollapalooza music festival. Lollapalooza draws about 100,000 people per day to Chicago's Grant Park. The gunman did not actually stay at the hotel during this past August's Lollapalooza festival, according to the Blackstone.

He was scoping out various cities for an attack. This man looks like he was very deliberative and not mentally ill. Just a very evil person. My friend told me that he hoped this man had a tumor that caused this as my friend could no understand how someone could do this.

With Chicago they have to address the gangs there which are connected to the lucrative drug trade. The guns are used to defend their turfs and further gang violence while many civilians get caught in the cross-fire or are out right targeted if they have some connection with the gang like a relative in one of them.

A person can definitely be both.

Yes. But that has usually been diagnosed by that time and noticed by relatives, friends, co-workers and the like. John Forbes Nast was a brilliant thinker with serious mental health problems. A Beautiful Mind (film - Wikipedia)

John Forbes Nash Jr. - Wikipedia.

There is no evidence so far that Steven Paddock was mentally ill. A great deal that he was extremely evil in nature.

An ex-Marine goes on a killing spree at the University of Texas - Aug 01, 1966 - HISTORY.com

I do remember that this man had some serious problems with his brain when he did this other tragic act by a sniper.

Some of the various news programs have mentioned this killer in their discussions of the Las Vegas mass murderer Steven Paddock.

Other than killing 59 people and wounding hundreds more? Yeah...no evidence at all.

Hitler and his henchmen killed at least 11 million people or so. Or contributed greatly to the war that created that mess and I do not believe any of those people were mentally ill. The Holocaust's Forgotten Victims: The 5 Million Non-Jewish People Killed By The Nazis | HuffPost

Heinrich Himmler - Military Leader - Biography.com

Stalin killed what, 20,000,000 to 60,000,000? no one knows.

I believe that the Nazis kept very meticulous records of their evil plan. Stalin was just acting according to whatever he felt threatened him and his State.

Has there been any word of mental illness on the part of Steven Paddock? I am not aware of any. The mystery of Stephen Paddock's brain - CNN

And some people with mental illnesses of various kinds have made great works of art. Artists with mental illnesses

You have your definition. I have mine.

Autopsy results? What would you think they would be looking for? Perhaps drugs? Brain tumor?

I think this man acted alone. I think he had the time to set it all up, the money, and some kind of sick motivation. I think the prostitutes seen with him on his last days may be able to tell somebody something, but I think he was mad at the world. Dangerously mad at the world and may have had a genetic criminal tendency of some kind. His family is a little odd in my opinion.

But of course that could be said about most of our families.

Wonder if he had obvious defects, maybe the warrior gene too.

That sounds like a correct assessment. And I doubt if he would have told high-end call girls much of anything. They would have told someone having no loyalty to a man planning such carnage.