Readers of these virtual pages will know by now that I’m no wild-eyed conspiracy theorist. But some of the aftermath of the horrendous Las Vegas shootings are beginning to smell a bit off. Excerpt:
Jesus Campos, the security guard who was shot just prior to the massacre at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas, has apparently vanished, the LA Times is reporting. According to the president of the Security, Police, and Fire Professionals of America union, they have not had contact with Campos for the past four days. Campos was reportedly taken to a quick care facility, and has not been heard from since. (Note – he has since resurfaced.)
Campos also canceled interviews with a variety of news networks, and was supposed to appear on Hannity.
Mark Steyn has some thoughts on the matter as well:
Among the many emails I’ve received is this one, from a gentleman at a London think tank whose job is to focus on “the analysis of economic and political issues and outcomes”. Make of this what you will, but he writes:
Today we turned our collective minds to the the shooting in Las Vegas as a test case since the event is extraordinary in that thus far no one appears to have identified a cause behind the carnage. This is our reasoning: The fact pattern in this event is striking for not fitting any known profile. In particular:
The gentleman concerned had no known political or religious affiliations. The level of premeditation is unusual and crystal clear from his mass buying of guns and the cautious systematic smuggling operation to ferry them to his room together with the illegal modifications and the position of the room he chose and occupied for several days beforehand. This denotes a deeply serious commitment to his act. And one which leaves no doubt that act was conceived to generate the maximum possible publicity. The question then is: ‘publicity’ for what exactly? And the answer would appear to be ‘nothing that can be identified’.
The whole thing is a bit odd. Most mass murderers, at least those in recent history, seem to have some kind of agenda; religion, racism, politics, something. But the Las Vegas shooter appears to have been apolitical. He wasn’t particularly religious. He didn’t seem to have any particular passions other than gambling, and (perhaps strangest of all) he has no online presence at all.
What is it with this guy? Mr. Steyn thinks the whole event may have been a set-up to push a gun control agenda, and you have to admit, if you wanted to stage a horrible event to push a gun-grabbing agenda, you could hardly do a better job than this.
But I have a hard time believing it. Stephen Paddock seems an unlikely type to sacrifice himself in the service of an agenda that he didn’t seem to adhere to. And if there were other people involved, where are they? Who are they? Maybe the as-yet-unreleased casino surveillance tapes will show something.
It is perhaps belaboring the obvious to point out that the investigation is still ongoing. Still: Mass shooters are by definition barking nuts. But Paddock’s particular brand of nuts is as yet undetermined.
