Dean Weingarten writes [via ammoland.com]:
The explosion of conspiracy theories accompanying the mass killing in Las Vegas can be seen all over the Internet. The theories and their rationals range from the absurd, such as “a 64-year-old man could not have moved 10 bags up to his room alone” to somewhat sophisticated analysis of cell phone recordings that claim to find evidence of two shooters.
I have not seen any convincing evidence that requires a conspiracy to explain the mass murder. I use Occam’s razor to winnow out the theories. That is, when given two explanations, the preference should be given to the simpler, less complicated version.
For any incident, an imaginative mind can create an infinite variety of logically consistent explanations. But only one is true. It usually is the least complicated. For example, I might walk out the door without my cell phone. The simple explanation is that the human mind is complicated and imperfect, and I forgot to put my cell phone in a pocket.
A complicated explanation would be that unknown government agents distracted me with fake bird sounds and a loud car outside of my door, just as I was about to pick up my phone. They knew the timing required by monitoring my movements though the camera in my computer. They needed me to leave the phone to access it so as to substitute a phone with sophisticated tracking devices embedded in it.
There have always been conspiracy theories. The human mind is designed to notice patterns and assign causal relationships. It works for us most of the time. But sometimes the mind creates causality where it does not exist, especially for unusual, complicated, important events that threaten our sense of safety.
The standard explanation is that conspiracy theories serve a psychological need to deny reality. From reviewjournal.com:
University of Massachusetts professor Kirby Farrell is a regular contributor to Psychology Today and the author of a 2015 book about America’s fascination with rampage killings.
He prefers the term “conspiracy fantasies,” not theories.
Farrell said the need to invent — or to believe — elaborate and often unprovable explanations for attacks like the one in Las Vegas is rooted in fear and avoidance. It is an attempt to “sanitize or wish away the inexplicable violence that overtakes certain individuals,” he said.
“Conspiracy fantasies are a kind of sophisticated game people play to prop up or reinforce denial,” Farrell said.
There is more to it than that. In the last 20 years, a number of technological advances and the resulting social changes have accelerated the tendency and motivation to create conspiracy theories.
First, we have found that real conspiracies have existed, and have been effective.
Hitler did create fake attacks against Germans to justify the invasion of Poland. The U.S. government used Mafia proxies to attempt the assassination of Fidel Castro. The Russian government used sophisticated devices to assassinate political opponents in the west.
The common knowledge of real conspiracies is magnified by the prominence given to the concept in movies and TV shows. Consider “Enemy of the State” or “Conspiracy Theory” or “JFK” or, to go a little further back, “Mission Impossible”.
Second, the public has often been lied to by the government, and some of those lies have been exposed. Lyndon Johnson become famous for lying about the Gulf of Tonkin episode. Barak Obama lied about “you can keep your plan”. James Comey lied about any real intention to investigate Hillary. The Federal Government did sanction sales of AK clones to Mexican drug cartels.
Third, “Black” operations are known to exist. By nature, they are not widely publicized. I personally know two people that were involved in “Black Ops”. “Black ops” existence has been widely touted.
Fourth, over the last 20 years, the establishment media has been repeatedly caught in lying, creating false narratives, and cover-ups that are blatantly partisan. The Paula Jones story was spiked by major media before it was outed by Matt Drudge. The misdeeds of Harvey Weinstein were covered up by his media pals for decades. Dan Rather was caught using fake documents in an attempt to throw the 2004 presidential election to the Democrats.
All of the above have eroded trust in government pronouncements and media sources.
Fifth, there are real rewards for someone who can prove a real conspiracy. The people who proved the falsity of the Rathergate documents are still touted on the Internet for the heroes that they are. Codrea and Vanderboegh have been lauded for their work in exposing Fast and Furious.
Sixth, there are real rewards for putting out semi-plausible sounding conspiracy theories. A site will gather millions of hits and much advertising revenue if it creates a plausible sounding theory that is difficult to disprove.
This all happens at the speed of wi-fi waves and electrons transmitted by wire. The access to massive data from thousands of cell phones and sensors gives citizen investigators enormous resources to pick and chose to create plausible scenarios. The lack of data is more grist for the mill, as conspiracy theorists claim the lack of data is significant. “Why haven’t we seen this video?!” is trumpeted as evidence of a conspiracy when the video may not exist, or there are perfectly valid reasons why it has not been made public.
We will not see an end to conspiracy theories. We must live with them.
Objective truth should win in the end. Internet investigations have shown their worth. I urge everyone to be careful about spreading unproven theories, and to investigate facts for themselves. Be skeptical, be careful, remember Occam’s razor and other rules of logic. Don’t accept a theory, just because you like it, or because it validates your politics. The truth will out, but it will take time.
©2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included. Link to Gun Watch
The officials largely have themselves to blame at this point for much of this. They are sitting on key details and pieces of evidence that would refute much of the theories for no apparent reason. If the official story (single shooter in the 32nd floor of the MB) is basically correct there’s no pending prosecution(s) / investigations to protect.
Releasing some key details, like (but not limited to):
1) Fairly comprehensive crime scene photos showing the piles of brass and locations of weapons / magazines / ammo / etc. in the room. The body doesn’t need to be shown.
2) Complete list of weapons recovered from the room
3) Information about the state of the weapons when recovered. Were they fired, jammed, in a malfunctioned state? Which had bump fire stocks
4) Some details about the bullets (calibers) recovered from victims and any other areas/places where they were recovered
5) Security footage of Paddock moving through the Mandalay Bay
6) Some financial details on Paddock
7) More information on what they have found out about him
What? The government should *not* be feeding conspiracies you say? Next you’ll be demanding them to have some shred of competence! Bother! Harumpf!
Speaking of incompetence, I’m waiting for the next forthcoming timeline revision. The NYT video / audio mashup they put together from the various video clips posted to the web doesn’t jive with the current official timeline. Presuming the NYT didn’t totally bungle aligning all the clips it should be the gold standard timeline at this point.
Its a big hoax, it didn’t really happen.
The audio evidence may prove that the Police as usual are lying between their teeth as far as the time line is concerned. Their constant bellowing about how great a job they did made one throw up just listening to their bullshit. They FKed up from the beginning to the very end. They did not have adequate security at the concert, were slow to react when the shooting started and did not return fire at the windows and then once in the building they cowered down in the hallway for an hour and fifteen minutes and did nothing in all that time before finally getting around to storming the room. What a bunch of incompetent Morons. If they had not been there at all the results would have been the same as the shooter killed himself because of the security guard and his partner being in the hall outside his room.
Occams Razor isn’t that when all things considered the simplest answer is probably the correct one.
Often misunderstood as such, the Razor is that when looking for answers or a solution, if various methods continue to lead to the same result, path or idea, that idea is probably the most likely to prevail.
For this example it seems as though he just decided it was something he wanted to do.
As you can see, that’s not the easiest answer, since there is little to no explanation available or driving force known at this time.
The easiest answer would be that it was a staged attack by the government to push for more regulation of firearms in an otherwise losing battle by the leftest population.
Two totally different schools of thought.
I know of an instance where a guy was attacked by a dog while hunting. He fell down and the shotgun went off quite accidentally and it killed the dog. It was not intentional at all. The hunter was then sued by the owner of the dog and the hunters home insurance had to pay for the dog which was 10 times what is was worth and despite the insurance company telling the hunter his rates would not go up because it was not his fault they ended up doubling his home owners policy.
So when you here all these posters puffing up their chests and claiming they would blast away and kill a persons dog just remember in todays world it has legal consequences even if you are in the right and you could also be arrested for disturbing the peace by firing off a weapon, being a public nuisance, endangering the public by shooting off the gun and the list starts to become endless very quickly. Sometimes legal bills can escalate to over $50,000 dollars in a very short period of time and that is if there is not a trial and a lawsuit.
ANNNNNND…54 year old Kennedy murder information is “MAYBE” being released this week. We have Dubya whining about Trump after plunging America into a totally unwarrented Iraq War. I myself barely missed Vietnam. Simply put-we don’t know shite…
Keep up the great work
They distracted you with that bird too? Damn, I thought that they only used it on super high value targets like myself.
I was attacked once when out hunting. I made the mistake of trying to run. I jumped down out of sight into a ditch out of sight and took off running but the dog was smarter than I thought and he appeared right above me while I was down in the ditch running. I was a mere lad of 16 and I threw up my 16 ga Savage Stevens single shot flipped off the safety and stood still with my finger on the trigger. If the dog had attempted to come down into the ditch he would have been blown in two but the dog realizing I was going to stand and fight him turned and walked off.
I do not hate dogs but I do not like them much either. They are an animal that you can never trust especially around kids. They may act protective and gentle one minute and the next turn into a savage carnivore the next minute. We had a next door neighbor who’s little 5 year old daughter was sitting on the porch when a dog which was a Shepard that lived on the other side of town came up to her and bit off half her face. Just another example of a hill jack irresponsible dog owner who needed to go to jail and be fined into bankruptcy. He paid plenty over that incident but was small compensation for disfiguring a little girl.
Three times, you called the gun’s grip its “handle.”
Please stop calling a gun’s grip its “handle”. That makes me wince, because people who refer to guns having a “handle” are usually the same people who call AR-15s “assault rifles”, magazines “clips”, 9mm “0.9mm” or “0.9mm caliber”, 5.56mm “0.556mm”, and 7.62mm “0.762mm”.
For example, see this article, which says, “I had an SKS which is .762 millimeter, I had an AK-74 which is a .554 millimeter and I had an AR-15 which I just got for Christmas which is a .556 millimeter.”
[Gee, did those microscopic guns come with a set of 3-inch tall toy soldiers? LOL]
https://www.rawstory.com/2017/10/responsible-gun-owner-blames-theft-of-10000-in-weapons-on-stripper-dont-let-them-in-your-house/
Hande: the part by which a thing is held, carried, or controlled.
soooooo….. yeah. Technically, grips are meant to be an attachment to a handle, like tape or rubber to aid in holding a device.
You wanted to get technical, so we are doing so.
I’d say you handled that, hahaha!
Following the JFK assassination, conspiracy theories exploded. Recall a book that listed 140 some theories. All boiled down to the same thing. “How could a nobody failure like Oswald kill Kennedy?” There is a part of all of us that needs a conspiracy to explain what we don’t understand. The Las Vegas shooting was discribed as “An act of pure evil.” That’s an explanation that’s hard to deal with.
When evaluating the accuracy of a compact pistol with iron sights at 25 yards, the difference between a 2 1/2″ group and a 3″ group is not statistically significant. Just sayin’. In any real world situation, any defensive pistol on the market is going to be more accurate than the shooter’s ability to aim it.
Otherwise, nice review! Good to see S&W stepping up and making real improvements.
I recall some left-wing reporter making the claim, shortly before the 2016 election, that she is afraid that if Trump loses, his supporters will became violent, while if Hillary loses, her supporters will merely be sad. Of course, this was nothing more than an attempt to paint Trump supporters as crazy guys with guns. It also turned out to be completely untrue, as when Hillary ended up losing, it was her supporters who became violent and rioted.
“It’s like hanging out at your favorite gun shop with friends.”
I shop online to get away from the likes of that!
Any organization who pays their executives millions per year is not “of the people”.
Wayne called for the regulation of bump stocks and said he supports the restrictions on automatic weapons. Soooooo… just how many rounds per minute does Wayne think we should be “permitted”? 10?, 20?, 30? And, what is the basis for the number? Will the NRA help craft legislation that imposes a limit? Does he favor a law that mandates nonexistent technology to achieve his goal or does he think legislation could be devised to cover every possible technological innovation that will ever be devised? How about if we just impose severe criminal penalties on anyone who fires more than 12 rounds per minute? I do believe there is something seriously wrong with that boy.
The NRA leadership is about as far off-track as they could be. That needs to be corrected. Their lack of perfection does not negate the good they have done in the past and will accomplish in the future. Or, we could throw away our best bet and cede the field to Shannon’s Sugar Daddy and his merry band of intolerant anti-civil rights bigots.
Coolest Halloween costume I ever saw: young man, must have been in his late teens. Had a FULL on set of Roman armor and uniform. Shield, sword, helmet, sandals, torso armor, all of it. Real metal, wood, and leather. Sword was real with a bone handle and looked functional. Looked like he just walked out of the legion.
Libtard hypocrites continue to push for the pussification of America.
Now there’s a surprise, not.
I guess he just ignored the huge protest we had at the capitol building in CT… I’d wager 90% or more people were armed, they were there to protect that right after all and lets just say that area of Hartford isn’t super nice. There were plenty open carrying handguns and rifles too.
DUMB! Use the same ammo and you won’t have to identify anything.
Be absolutist in what counts as “the good”, but the point is moving the needle that way. Less laws, less traction for their agenda, less credibility for the anti-advocates; all better. More of any of that for the pro-side, also better.
The NRA was uncharacteristically clueful handling this latest anti-gun spasm. The mud flung their way missed, the anti’s punched themselves out, the ATF is on the hook and can’t win.
Sets up second-order effects, too, like if the ATF can’t come up with a viable bump-fire restriction that will work, maybe such stuff is hard in practice. The table is set for when the try something: bring up the “assault weapons ban”(*), and various examples of over-reach(**). Write what you mean.
Somebody’s been reading their Alinsky. Make your “opponents” look like idiots and bait them into making mistakes. This doesn’t convince true believers, but makes the persuadable middle wonder why they are listening to idiots. If you have an argument, you get a chance to convince the convincable. Contra Alinsky, who has you cashing in by grabbing a temporary advantage while your opponents are off balance, and your supporters all wee-wee’d up. It’s almost like he’s proposing “Rules for When You Don’t Have a Case.”
Or perhaps whoever’s gotten a clue at the NRA has been reading HerSelf’s college thesis arguing that Alinsky’s goals would be better served with modified tactics applied from *within* institutions. Interestingly, neither of Uncle Saul’s two books declares outright what the goal is, what counts as good or better, or what process this is all in aid of. I don’t know what’s in the training & indoctrination for operatives. Perhaps some people just want to watch the world burn. Or be the one directing their flying monkeys where to light some fires.
Besides, these good and upright people can’t want to make a precedent of stuff whittling on enumerated rights through sloppy proclamation. We kinda want to slow down and get this sort of thing right. Do we want The Orange Crush banning news channels by declaring them “fake'”? or “divisive”?
(*) If they go to the AWB the set up reply is: “Deaths went down after the AWB, tracking without the ban where we could get a measure. The assault weapons ban seems to have done literally nothing. Do better this time?”
(**) To any claim that it’s limited, and objections are just being pedantic: “Well, from proposal’s text, ‘…any device or modification to facilitate faster firing…’ could mean self-loading, lever-action, ‘light’ triggers or any number of other things. A muzzle brake reduces the pounding on your shoulder: you could argue making the next shot faster.”
“We’re talking about an agency that tried to ban lead ammunition altogether, and common milsurp ammo people use for practice by redefining it as ‘armor piercing.’ It seems reasonable to assume they’ll do anything they can fit through the law’s wording. BTW, that attempted milsurp ban impacted blue state gun owners way more than red state, rural much more than suburban or urban, and frankly working poor much more than upper-middle class and above. Why do you hate them?”
Although I see no humor in and it is meant to portray white 2A supporting men as dullards. I support the making and viewing of it’s content for one important reason. The 1st Amendment. I support Free Speech in all it’s forms. Unless you do as well you are no better than the Anti 2A Assholes out there who only support a highly infringed upon Right. Free Speech Means Every F@#king Word as Shall Not Be Infringed Means The Right To Bear Arms. I support ALL of the Bill of Rights. So stop whining and Suck It Up Butter Cup.
Try to remember who the NRA is. It isn’t any of the people mentioned in these responses . They are simple mouthpieces. I am the NRA…You are the NRA…We are the NRA. Our collective voting power is stronger than any of these so-called leaders. To coin an NRA slogan Stand and Fight. Speak up…Speak out. Send your local,state and national politicians. Letters,Emails every day. Call them and state your position on every issue that concerns you. If you feel they aren’t representing your views. Find someone who will and Primary them out. Rise up and banned together. Take back the government at all levels. Yes it can be done. Just stop blaming others for your lack of hard work and difficult decisions. Freedom isn’t Free. It takes hard work and sometimes blood to preserve. Our ancestors knew this not that long ago. It’s truly a shame that so many have ceded their responsibly for Perceived Freedom
Gee Queer dude where’s your evidence the Nazi’s and KKK are coming for you?!? And a pump shotgun? Is an evil black rifle or a handgun too much? Not that shotguns are bad-I have one. And us gun guys are cool with having guns…bizarre BS.
Always welcome the chance to win great gear or ammo
Conspiracy theories. Like ANTIFA, and the KKK being conservatives or tea party Republicans??? Like the last few POS shooters weren’t all POS (D) lib/left?
Like the world, through the UN, don’t have a running 15 year plan to get rid if guns and the U.S. don’t have a pack of liberal globalist FV<Ks that haven't been paid hundreds of thousands, to millions, of dollars by domestic and foreign interests to work subversively, and tirelessly to get it done???
Conspiracy theories like Hitlery didn't eat her own ass in the election, but blamed atrymp and collusion with the Russians??? Conspiracy theories like the no FISA pee pee dossier not put forth by Mueller's FBI thru broke (D)1<k dain bramage McCain (2nd Place Sore Loser) and Comey running cover, to protect Hillary, Bill, Podesta, Loretta Lynch, and the Clinton Foundation, and the won't-service-her-Weiner, but will pleasure Hillary's private server in the bathroom – Huma Abedeen, ithat can no longer peddle Uranium 1, and the sh_t and influence that they have already sold and already got paid for?
THAT CONSPIRACY THEORY???
Come on ! There’s been sometime wrong from the very get go! We all know the end result is political agendas to curtail American Freedoms…Especially the 2nd amendment! It’s very deliberate! I’d say American is currently under going a “cold civil war” as we text, and debate these issues. While American citizens in some states are definitely being blocked from “instantly” exercising their 2nd amendment rights…Regardless of Rights to due process, or being charged with a crime, or a fair trial…This whole thing is a farce….Even my elderly dad , who’s a Veteran ,stated he very concerned where things are going…A shadow power in our country is trying to start a militant coupe…The End result with be the end of our Civil Rights and Liberties as we know them …The 1st major target is the 2nd amendment…Where as in, ONLY government officials and their agents can be Armed…(note: this is obviously outside of the Trump Presidency.)
Anti-gun cultists don’t like the NRA?
In more news of the obvious:
* The Aryan Brotherhood doesn’t like the NAACP.
* ISIS doesn’t like the ADL.
* The Westborough Baptist Church doesn’t like GLAAD.
Anti-gun cultists hate the NRA because it opposes their goal of creating a government (controlled by them) monopoly on the means of armed force. The only way to change that is for the NRA to switch sides and to proclaim it’s desire for there not to BE any gun owners.
What the fifth columnists want is for the NRA to become AHSA (American Hunters and Shooters Association), the deservedly defunct false flag operation, which like the National Firearms Association (NFA) before it, was a tool of the anti-gun cult.
If there was REAL support for such Quisling organizations, and the invidiously racist gun controls which they promote, the NRA wouldn’t be more trusted than the media, and more than a few of us would remember the NFA AT ALL.
We can polite YOU to a near fatal injury, and quieter farts.
I would not call it ‘murder’ insurance–more like ‘suicide’ insurance
AKA you come into my home and that is suicide, if you want to cause me harm!
But since I have home insurance or car insurance—I don’t have the intention to burn the house down or drive on sidewalks mowing down people=lib logic===’s none
Well now, an M60 must obviously use 60 caliber ammunition.
50 Cal BMG is about 117.4 grams. 2000 rounds is about 235 kilograms, about 517 lbs. One strong dude. And 60 caliber is larger still…..
And it must use banana clips, how else would you feed an assault rifle?
60 caliber is a little bigger than 15 mm. Maybe he forgot he was carrying a 15mm MG151 produced by Waffenfabrik Mauser during WWII.