Guest post by Joe Hoft
There are many questions concerning Las Vegas shooter – 64-year-old Stephen Paddock from Mesquite, Nevada – that remain unanswered.
But based on what we don’t know, we may have some indication of what we do know.
We know that a gunman opened fire on the crowd of concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival next to the Mandalay Bay Casino in Las Vegas. At least 59 people are reported dead with 527 injured.
We know that the event was sold out with many of the biggest names in country music present when shots were fired. Videos of the event show the concert in progress and then suddenly multiple gun shots from an automatic weapon being fired.
We
Here’s another video of the event. The shooter started firing and then paused and started firing again.
We know that the shooter was identified as Paddock and that he died by an apparent suicide shot before police could get to him.
Las Vegas Shooter Identified as 64-Year-Old Stephen Paddock – Police: https://t.co/bQTEzphMkp via @SputnikInt
— Brian Brown (@BrianBr33893155) October 2, 2017
We know that his live-in companion Marilou Danley WAS OUT OF COUNTRY during shooting and that she lived with Paddock since January 2017. We know that her name was released as a person of interest before Paddock’s name was released to the public.
Marilou Danley is being sought for questioning re the investigation into the active shooter incident. If seen please call 9-1-1! pic.twitter.com/Z83XvcHejH
— LVMPD (@LVMPD) October 2, 2017
We now know that police found an arsenal of 42 firearms, explosives and thousands of ammunition rounds in both his Las Vegas hotel room and Mesquite home A St. Louis gun expert says to purchase one fully automatic weapon could cost around $30,000. So the stash of guns held by the shooter was very costly.
We understand that Paddock had previously visited the hotel two other times.
“Not an avid gun guy at all…where the hell did he get automatic weapons? He has no military background,” gunman’s brother says pic.twitter.com/EMSKLQGYFM
— CBS News (@CBSNews) October 2, 2017
We also know that it was reported that Paddock had been at the hotel since September 28th. He was not on anyone’s radar. Paddock rented two rooms at the Mandalay hotel.
Shooter had rented two rooms at Las Vegas hotelhttps://t.co/BsEJrdW350 pic.twitter.com/eAd0zEseN8
— Daily Mirror (@DailyMirror) October 2, 2017
We don’t know his motive but we can surmise from what we don’t know.
The shooter’s brother reportedly said that Paddock was not strong into politics. We can guess that at least part of this is true because if Paddock was a Republican, conservative or a Trump supporter we would never hear the end of it from the mainstream media.
So we really don’t know whether Paddock was a Democrat but we are certain he wasn’t a Republican from what we know.
ISIS claimed that Paddock was a recent convert but we really can’t say this is accurate because they have been known to say similar things in events in the past that could not be verified.
We don’t know much from the killer’s social media because any indication that he had accounts is yet unknown or has been cleaned up by individuals who would have the ability to clean them up. So we can’t gain much from the accounts, if anything.
So here we have a 64 year old man. His father was wanted by the FBI. He had no prior arrests that we know of and then suddenly kills and wounds hundreds of people. He is found dead with more than 40 guns in his possession. Such a horrible story with many questions left to date unanswered.