Las Vegas shooting thread moved to polyass

[ill-advised strategy]

Whenever these things happen I feel horrendous for some period of time.

Last 2 days there was really good surf, 65 degree water, 70 degree air, trunked it...took the dog down there, found a snowplow part at a junkyard along the drive. Easy days at work, minimal BS. Wife being cool....I have no problems but I still feel awful.

The first night driving back after surf, in the middle of nowhere, there was an old man, 75ish (actually, just looked him up on whitepages.com and he is 75 exactly...so good guess) waving me down at the side of the road. I slow down and he's doing the hitching thumb, and it's clear now that he's in front of his roadside house.....so I figure there's some problem, medical maybe, or he just needs a lift into town for some reason. I stop and ask if he just needs a lift into town, and he's wobbling and slurring, so I immediately suspect a stroke, except in a few seconds I can smell the alcohol, and his wife is coming out yelling "he's drunk, get over here!" like waving the rolling pin and screaming. And he slurrs "never mind, we're just fighting and I wanted to get out of here"....so I'm not in any hurry, and I worry about people, so long story short I just stayed there with those two for like an hour and a half being roadside Dr. Phil. But there's nothing I can do, because this is all because she has alzheimer's and is on a loop of nagging and hassling him about stuff, and he eventually can't take it and goes to the bar to get bombed. They're 75, she's not getting any better, they're in the middle of nowhere with no access to help or community of any kind. He's doing the best he can, but he's a drunk and this whole deal is beyond his ability to cope. Jesus man....It was SO SAD. So so so sad.

In the $900 rusted truck with dry rot tires for hours to and from this surf spot hoping the frame doesn't break and the tires don't blow out, listening to talking heads on the satellite radio fail to explain why people keep losing their minds in this country.....It just feels like there's only a fine, fine line between being aware of what's going on around us and feeling hopeless about it. Yesterday was the best day of surfing all year, and still things are so fucked up it didn't even last like an hour out of the water until the awful weight of the world crept back in.

[Grape_Ape]

that dude owes you his life, you’re a good friend!

Yep.

Empathy and compassion. This country needs more of this and less assholes with guns and a chip on their shoulder.

[mtngirl79]

In the $900 rusted truck with dry rot tires for hours to and from this surf spot hoping the frame doesn't break and the tires don't blow out, listening to talking heads on the satellite radio fail to explain why people keep losing their minds in this country.....It just feels like there's only a fine, fine line between being aware of what's going on around us and feeling hopeless about it. Yesterday was the best day of surfing all year, and still things are so fucked up it didn't even last like an hour out of the water until the awful weight of the world crept back in.

I feel like it's obvious why people lose their minds here. People are disconnected from each other. Everyone is too worried about themselves. We have the most and the least all at the same time. Where are those people's children? Community? Church members? Friends? Neighbors?

We try to find meaning on skis, mountain bikes, in the surf... we have so much, yet so little and for most of us, our little chunk of stability isn't promised.

We have to find a way to start taking care of each other.

[KenJongIll]

I feel like it's obvious why people lose their minds here. People are disconnected from each other. Everyone is too worried about themselves. We have the most and the least all at the same time. Where are those people's children? Community? Church members? Friends? Neighbors?

We try to find meaning on skis, mountain bikes, in the surf... we have so much, yet so little and for most of us, our little chunk of stability isn't promised.

We have to find a way to start taking care of each other.

Nice post. Peoples faces are glued to/buried in digital screens, instead of facing each other.
It’s fucked up.
It always blows me away seeing a “family” at a restaurant at dinner, and every one of them, even the 1yr old, is on an electronic device.

[Cono Este]

America is the "me" country. It's about individual Rights and liberties. Wether that's the right to blow up tannerite bombs with your AK on saturdays, or get an abortion. (I am pro choice so save it). That's why we don't have universal healthcare or generally less safety nets than other developed countries. People can fuck off, they made bad choice getting cancer, or their "families" can take care of them.

Just general non sensical behavior at the expense of the greater good.


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[frorider]

Yeti, you’ve always come across as a solid dude. This thread even more so.

Did others here read those tweets from the country music guy at the Vegas tragedy? He and his roadies all had guns but in that shit show they couldn’t think of how to use them without making the situation worse. He’s re-evaluating his whole guns-r-great value system.

[uglymoney]

Yetiman for president!

Guys like him feel the pain of others in ways some of us don't.



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[KenJongIll]

Don’t want to shit up this thread....but I seriously don’t know how to get into PolyAss? Jong me?

[KenJongIll]

Yeti, you’ve always come across as a solid dude. This thread even more so.

Did others here read those tweets from the country music guy at the Vegas tragedy? He and his roadies all had guns but in that shit show they couldn’t think of how to use them without making the situation worse. He’s re-evaluating his whole guns-r-great value system.

Assuming country music guy had roadies/security, yeah I doubt they were prepared for a long distance assault. “I’d assume” those guys carry handguns in prep for a lunatic hater at close range.
Yeah, firing pistols at a window (that they probably didn’t see) half a click away would have been useless.

What’s your point?

[Cono Este]

Try being 8 years old when your dad does that. Dad used a shotgun, and also killed my stepmother and infant stepbrother. I've spent the better part of my later childhood and early adulthood processing it....wondering if there's some genetic timebomb that will make me schizophrenic....spending my whole 20s having as much fun as I could because I figured my brain would implode like his, so why build a career or save for retirement. Now I'm fucked.

It might have been worse having him around though, he was a frightening guy, and there was some level of relief mixed in when he killed himself.

Dad was a teacher at the local high school, and my sister was a freshman there when it happened. On one level she's fine, but on a finer, deeper level she's basically always off, I don't think she'll ever really be normal. As far as I know she's never had a serious romantic relationship at age 48. She moves every few years, bunch of places in the US plus France, Chad, Thailand, China, Mexico, India...etc.

It's in this write up....it says a lot about us 'mericans that it's just one of many multiple-killings in just that weekend.
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/01/08/us...5-weekend.html

The worst part was probably the little kid down there who came home to find bodies everywhere, including her mom and mom's boyfriend. I never knew that part, I remember one of my grandparents, like, talking about that kid as if she were a distant cousin or some family member I'd never heard of, "she's doing well"... but I didn't know who she was or anything about the details (I got it from the newspaper article linked....I never knew until recently) so I just wrote it all off.
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapi...newwindow=true

Gun violence sucks.

That's terrible.

Don't feel bad about the money and career, you're not alone.

Enjoying everyday and health is the first priority. Money doesn't buy that.


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[Sirshredalot]

America is the "me" country. It's about individual Rights and liberties. Wether that's the right to blow up tannerite bombs with your AK on saturdays, or get an abortion. (I am pro choice so save it). That's why we don't have universal healthcare or generally less safety nets than other developed countries. People can fuck off, they made bad choice getting cancer, or their "families" can take care of them.

Just general non sensical behavior at the expense of the greater good.


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Actually, the reason we don't have universal health care is an accident of history. We had wage controls during WWII, so private employers started offering subsidized health insurance plans to get around the wage controls. After the war, our labor market was tight, wages were good, and we were the only major power in the world that wasn't either Communist or rebuilding or both. That's the time period when pretty much everyone else undertook major health reforms, but we didn't bother: the anachronistic system of employer-provided coverage was working pretty well for us back then. It just wasn't sustainable and grossly underperformed other countries' health systems as the years passed. It has nothing to do with some imagined love of individualism: it's actually a relic from when our nation was at its most collectivist and had the greatest government control over the labor market.

[Cono Este]

Actually, the reason we don't have universal health care is an accident of history. We had wage controls during WWII, so private employers started offering subsidized health insurance plans to get around the wage controls. After the war, our labor market was tight, wages were good, and we were the only major power in the world that wasn't either Communist or rebuilding or both. That's the time period when pretty much everyone else undertook major health reforms, but we didn't bother: the anachronistic system of employer-provided coverage was working pretty well for us back then. It just wasn't sustainable and grossly underperformed other countries' health systems as the years passed. It has nothing to do with some imagined love of individualism: it's actually a relic from when our nation was at its most collectivist and had the greatest government control over the labor market.

Interesting, thanks.

Luckily we got social security and medicare through. Defined benefit plans have disappeared. I think we're really fucked in 20 yrs.


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[Mazderati]

Assuming country music guy had roadies/security, yeah I doubt they were prepared for a long distance assault. “I’d assume” those guys carry handguns in prep for a lunatic hater at close range.
Yeah, firing pistols at a window (that they probably didn’t see) half a click away would have been useless.

What’s your point?

Some hicks realized packing a heater doesn't make a dangerous situation safe. Try and keep up, JONG.

[garyfromterrace]

Looks like Beer Drinker is not delusional
[

So you his alias?
If you also think things are getting better when you have a mass killing every fucking day in your country, and you have a gun lobby that prevents any tightening of laws requiring gun registration, then you too are delusional.

[garyfromterrace]

Just accept that we will never know the subjective thinking of Stephen Paddock. Only he knows what was going on in his head, and he's dead.

In my line of work, attorneys, judges and juries are often tasked with determining a person's subjective intentions. The only evidence that comes close to objective is the actor's words, although those are often inaccurate because people lie about their subjective thoughts. Otherwise, the evidence is circumstantial and requires inferences to be drawn. One important lesson that I have learned in 31 years of practice is that nearly all people who think they know why another person did what they did are incorrect. It bugs the hell of me when I hear someone say, "He did that because _________________." You don't know why other people do what they do. Accept that.

A few pages ago, 4chan-echoer imaginary "lefty" false accuser 4matic stated that he wanted to see Paddock's gambling records because he "wants to know why he snapped." Maybe Paddock didn't snap. The developing evidence seems to strongly suggest that Paddock shooting spree was the culmination of a deliberate plan that took at least weeks, maybe months or years, of planning. That doesn't sound like the work of someone who "snapped."

It is possible that, after all the evidence is in, expert criminal profilers will provide some broad theories re what was going on in Stephen Paddock's mind the last few weeks of his life, but at most those will be merely educated suppositions. Sometimes "why" is an unanswerable question. OTOH, the question of how Paddock was able to pull off this massacre is the question we should be trying to answer.

Good point Steve. I find it unrealistic to suggest this was a snap. It appeared totally premeditated. Look at the stockpile of weapons and ammo. This had to be collected over a substantial amount of time. How, is the question. How to avoid this happening again another valid question. The only logical answer is to enact serious gun control laws. Unfortunately the NRA seems to be able to prevent this. It's very sad - such a great country and people held hostage by fucking lobbyists, big gun business, and whacko right wingers.

[digitaldeath]

Motherfucker said "half a click"

[snoqpass]

There's a Seattle suicide prevention group that distributes trigger locks and safes free to concerned friends/families. I think it's part of the bigger national project that I mentioned to beedrinker that he then ignored because it contradicted his "feelings" on suicide.

At least we learned to never rent one of his apartments though.

Trigger locks used to come free with a purchase but it's been a few years

[WTF is dat]

Beerdrinker’s main argument: I can not defend gun violence so instead I will discuss unrelated alcohol deaths and cigarette deaths and hope that this false equivalence resonates with some people

[ill-advised strategy]

America is the "me" country. It's about individual Rights and liberties. Wether that's the right to blow up tannerite bombs with your AK on saturdays, or get an abortion. (I am pro choice so save it). That's why we don't have universal healthcare or generally less safety nets than other developed countries. People can fuck off, they made bad choice getting cancer, or their "families" can take care of them.

Just general non sensical behavior at the expense of the greater good.


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What I find most ironic about this scenario is it's often couched in terms of competition, but we keep forgetting our nation is in competition with other nations. This dog-eat-dog nonsense inside our country is akin to coaching a hockey team to cheap shot each other in practice so you go out to the games worn out and injured. There's a bigger picture here, we could be so much more competitive in the marketplace of nations if we'd listen to the more civilized elements of our culture and follow the available leads on issues like guns and healthcare. Quit fighting each other and either stop fighting, or focus on fighting the huge amount of tyranny and injustice in the world. To me, that's what Putin understands about our country better than most of us...we're like a bunch of stupid dogs, you can get them playing and fighting with each other over some scraps and they completely forget you're closing the gate to their pen and strolling into the house to burglarize it.

[wyeaster]

i'm sorry to read this IAS.

Try being 8 years old when your dad does that. Dad used a shotgun, and also killed my stepmother and infant stepbrother. I've spent the better part of my later childhood and early adulthood processing it....wondering if there's some genetic timebomb that will make me schizophrenic....spending my whole 20s having as much fun as I could because I figured my brain would implode like his, so why build a career or save for retirement. Now I'm fucked.

It might have been worse having him around though, he was a frightening guy, and there was some level of relief mixed in when he killed himself.

Dad was a teacher at the local high school, and my sister was a freshman there when it happened. On one level she's fine, but on a finer, deeper level she's basically always off, I don't think she'll ever really be normal. As far as I know she's never had a serious romantic relationship at age 48. She moves every few years, bunch of places in the US plus France, Chad, Thailand, China, Mexico, India...etc.

It's in this write up....it says a lot about us 'mericans that it's just one of many multiple-killings in just that weekend.
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/01/08/us...5-weekend.html

The worst part was probably the little kid down there who came home to find bodies everywhere, including her mom and mom's boyfriend. I never knew that part, I remember one of my grandparents, like, talking about that kid as if she were a distant cousin or some family member I'd never heard of, "she's doing well"... but I didn't know who she was or anything about the details (I got it from the newspaper article linked....I never knew until recently) so I just wrote it all off.
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapi...newwindow=true

Gun violence sucks.

[Bobby Stainless]

http://www.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/2016/07/Violent-Crime-Rate-Chart1.png[/IMG]

I just want an explanation, of why this has happened.

[Bobby Stainless]

This type of behavior/mentality, is what causes all the gun violence in the US. It's not me, it's not anyone in the guns thread, its fuckers like this, that think they are badass. This is where your gun violence comes from.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BZ2F7_2j...ateskoebeen100

[abraham]

I've mentioned smart gun technology, and that is a obvious winner.

Phones are more secure than guns.

Those need work too. Not something I follow but I remember this post from a bit ago
https://hackaday.com/2017/07/25/smar...-dumb-magnets/

Gun violence sucks.

You're a good friend to your buddy. And that background is rough

[wyeaster]

This type of behavior/mentality, is what causes all the gun violence in the US. It's not me, it's not anyone in the guns thread, its fuckers like this, that think they are badass. This is where your gun violence comes from.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BZ2F7_2j...ateskoebeen100

why am i not shocked

[Viva]

There are some people out there that need to be shot. That is also a fact.

Your grasp on what constitutes "fact" is quite tenuous.

There's quite a bit in your numerous posts here that I might comment in, but this one struck me as particularly odd.

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