Active Shooter Situation at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Any news as to who this guy is/was? Seems kind of random on the surface.

Stephen Paddock. Some retired white guy who doesn't appear so far to have wacko affiliations of any stripe.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Terrible. The weapon used was an Assault Rifle which was bought as a non-fully automatic weapon, but later modified to be so.

This absolutely is a time to bring up the debate about gun control.

The "accessories" that enable such modifications should clearly be banned, though. Fully auto rifles have been illegal for decades for a reason

Paid shill Andrew Napolitano wasted no time weighing in.
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/las-vegas-shooter-used-outlawed-115442218.html

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Some media outlets now say Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, claiming Paddock had recently converted to Islam and was their soldier.

Of course: if a Westerner drives into a tree, ISIS will claim it was one of their agents who planted it.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

The President refused to call it "domestic terrorism" and did not call for action. I'm sick of politicians trying to grand stand.

We don't know his motives yet, so it would not have been able to immediately call it terrorism. Las Vegas Police are not calling it terrorism at this time.

This is a fair take on the situation.

But I think we all know what the so-called President would be saying if the shooter had been black, or named Mohammed, or had prominently supported Democratic candidates. Which is an even worse problem than any one heavily armed murderous nut.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Terrible tragedy.  We have a cultural problem in this country.  And nobody should be allowed to own these mass murder machines (I dont know if they were purchased legally or not).

Does that 'nobody' include the government, including law enforcement?

(I do not think that firearms by themselves protect the public from an oppressive government.)

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Steve Scalise chimes in with a terrible opinion on gun control:

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https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/steve-scalise-says-las-vegas-shooting-hasnt-changed-stance-gun-control/

Unbelievable. People who advocate prayer as a substitute for assistance or policy action of any kind are despicable. I can accept that argument that people benefit from prayer because it allows them to contemplate and reach spiritual clarity. But saying that somehow prayer benefits victims of actual violence, and is somehow more important than having a substantial debate about how to solve these issues, is horrendous beyond words. People who believe in prayer over legislating in this country shouldn't be allowed to write or vote on laws.

Also the mention to law enforcement and not to medical professionals and first responders who saved his life is also pretty gross. Those doctors must have prayed pretty damn hard when he entered the ER this summer.

It's more of the Republican / so-called Christian right's prosperity gospel nastiness. They believe that if you're a good/godly person then bad things cannot happen to you. Conversely, if you do have bad things happen to you, it's proof that God hates you and you're a bad person.  There's lots of self-reinforcing nuttiness involved, but that's the core of it.

Look up Calvinism and predestination for some idea of where it comes from. Most Republicans don't explicitly think of it in those terms, but that's where they're coming from. They believe everything - doctors who save their life, random chance of who gets hit by a bullet and how bad it is - are manifestations of divine favor or the lack thereof. Which is why they go on about prayer and God.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Steve Scalise chimes in with a terrible opinion on gun control:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/steve-scalise-says-las-vegas-shooting-hasnt-changed-stance-gun-control/

Unbelievable. People who advocate prayer as a substitute for assistance or policy action of any kind are despicable. I can accept that argument that people benefit from prayer because it allows them to contemplate and reach spiritual clarity. But saying that somehow prayer benefits victims of actual violence, and is somehow more important than having a substantial debate about how to solve these issues, is horrendous beyond words. People who believe in prayer over legislating in this country shouldn't be allowed to write or vote on laws.

Also the mention to law enforcement and not to medical professionals and first responders who saved his life is also pretty gross. Those doctors must have prayed pretty damn hard when he entered the ER this summer.

It's more of the Republican / so-called Christian right's prosperity gospel nastiness. They believe that if you're a good/godly person then bad things cannot happen to you. Conversely, if you do have bad things happen to you, it's proof that God hates you and you're a bad person.  There's lots of self-reinforcing nuttiness involved, but that's the core of it.

Look up Calvinism and predestination for some idea of where it comes from. Most Republicans don't explicitly think of it in those terms, but that's where they're coming from. They believe everything - doctors who save their life, random chance of who gets hit by a bullet and how bad it is - are manifestations of divine favor or the lack thereof. Which is why they go on about prayer and God.

Shouldn't Scalise be having some self-doubt then, after being badly injured in a shooting that could have only happened if he were a bad person?

Nope. God was just testing him, you see. Or maybe the gunman was an agent of evil/Satan and only God's intervention saved him from certain death. It's endlessly flexible.

The prosperity gospel nonsense and it's derivatives are why I'm so caustically dismissive of American-style right-wing Christianity. Like the vile crap you get from ISIS and their Saudi-funded fellow travellers in Islamic extremisim, it's not really a religion. It certainly lacks all the positive upsides you see in religions -including Christianity and Islam- around the world. It's really nothing but a comforting prop to justify their own delusions.