Why is this so hard to understand?

I read the Guardian (UK edition) daily, usually in the mornings, with my coffee.  With the events that happening in Las Vegas this the past week, I have been struck by a few things:

1. Law enforcement is either really stupid or simply in denial of the reality of white men.
2. People want to “feel” better, no matter what that takes.
3. Politicians will say anything & do nothing.
4. Very few people have any idea of what domestic violence really is, believing it to be “just a few bruises” & “if it’s that bad, leave”.
5. Paddock’s woman (abused or not) was obviously bought off.  Or she figured she’s out of it now, stay out it.  Which is understandable.
6. And the biggie … “what was his motive?”

That one really gets me.   Like isn’t it wicked obvious?  Let me tell it to you in plain words:  HIS MOTIVE WAS TO MAIM & KILL AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE.

Why is this so hard to understand?  Why do people need something more than this?  A political ideology, a religious angle, some other philosophical bent.

Some people live to kill.

My ex-boyfriend is a hunter & really nothing else.  He’s a union pipefitter & a welder but he lives to hunt.  He believes that Ted Nugent is “working for our rights”, that is, our rights as gun-owners & hunters.  I like to hunt & fish but please, don’t associate me with Ted Nugent in ANY way.

One of his friends once called him a “murdering bastard” cuz he would fill all his tags & then he’d fill everyone else’s tags, too.  He’d shoot every bird out of the sky, if he could.  He hunted so many geese that he got bored with it.

This is my point.

I doubt my ex-boyfriend will ever do anything like Paddock did because he’s really too lazy to do it & he hunts with primitive weapons – he’s that kind of guy.  & he can’t afford a personal arsenal.  & for years, he had me to terrorize.

But because of hanging out with my ex & guys like him, I know that the big thing is the “action”.  You want a lot of “action”.  So if one field is boring, you go to another field.  That’s why you put up cameras & make sure there’s lots of deer hanging around.  In the old days, we checked for actual deer sign, but technology is changing this.  Anyway, I can easily see how some bored rich guy with an arsenal at his disposal might get bored with regular hunting & want to try out his fancy guns on something else.

When I was a kid, I read a short story called “The Most Dangerous Game, by a writer called Richard Connell.  It was in an old short-story collection at my grandmother’s house & I must have been really bored to have reading it.  Here’s a link to the story: https://fiction.eserver.org/short/the_most_dangerous_game.  There was a 1932 movie made of the story, starring Joel McCrae & Fay Wray, so you understand that this story is almost 100 years old.

People don’t want to think about a man wanting to shoot down people for “fun” because it doesn’t make them “feel safe” in the world, but this idea has been around for a long time.  My attitude about “feeling safe” is it’s just an illusion anyway, but that’s a whole ‘nother blog post.

Reports say that Paddock scouted out several placed for this massacre, including Fenway Park and sites in Chicago.  But as every hunter knows, you look for the place that’s easy to get in & out of.  Where you can enter & exit without being noticed.  Paddock was a gambler.  As a “high roller”, he would be able to get a luxury suite & privacy.  He wouldn’t have to worry about being noticed by the staff, because they were used to seeing him anyway.  That’s a kind of camo right there.

So again.  What was his motive?  What was he doing up there?  He was SHOOTING TO KILL.  That was the motive & the only motive.

You can talk about mental illness, you can talk about domestic violence, you can talk about pure evil in the hearts of men.  But until you remove the instrument that allows them to do these kinds of human destruction – these high-powered guns – it’s going to keep happening.  & honestly, the motive doesn’t matter.  Or really – the mind of the person doing the shooting.  Because the end result is all the same.  People dead & wounded.