Last week, a man with no prior criminal record, Stephan Paddock, shot and killed nearly 60 people attending a country music concert from a hotel room in Las Vegas. As soon as the incident hit the airwaves, people on all points along the political spectrum have been attempting to attribute a political motivation in order to defame their ideological opponents.
But as yet, no evidence for any political ideology has surfaced as the motivation for Paddock’s actions other than simple madness or evil.
The left wasted no time pointing out that Paddock was a white man, and by all accounts, straight. They then quickly went on to shame and blame the NRA, gun owners, and conservatives in general for allowing this man to have a gun.
There are many reasons why gun laws could not have stopped a crime of this type, not the least of which is the fact that fully automatic weapons are already heavily regulated in this country.
A number of seemingly incongruent facts surround the event and have led many to construct conspiracy theories. For example, there are reports that before the show began, a Hispanic woman was telling concertgoers that they were all going to die, and the fact that Paddock’s receipt for the hotel showed that he was one of two guests staying in the room. These are strange, but not conclusive.
But perhaps the strangest incongruous event surrounding the Vegas shooting is the fact that there have been reports that ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack.
ISIS has been dwindling in numbers since the end of last year when Russian President Vladimir Putin began bombing their camps, installations, and oil caches. And this year, President Trump ordered the MOAB attack on an ISIS tunnel network, resulting in the loss of a significant number of ISIS fighters. So, it stands to reason that the terrorist organization would turn to less direct tactics to strike at the West. According to the report, ISIS claims that Stephan Paddock was recently converted to Islam, and that the shooting was motivated by his loyalty to them and their cause.
“The Las Vegas attack was carried out by a soldier of the Islamic State and he carried it out in response to calls to target states of the coalition,” the report by the terror organization’s quasi-news agency read. “The Las Vegas attacker converted to Islam a few months ago.”
Officials have said that there is no evidence that Paddock was associated in any way with ISIS or any other known terror organization. Casting further doubts on the validity of the claim, ISIS’ statements did not include the name of the Vegas shooter, which would seem important if he did, in fact, have any association with them.
ISIS appears to have taken to the use of a range of public relations tactics to forward their agenda, including claiming responsibility to attacks for which they cannot be linked. Some experts have speculated that this might be a kind of dying gasp from the organization which has been thoroughly routed by Coalition Forces as well as the Kremlin.
On Friday, the 1rst of October, ISIS released an audio message of a person they claim is their leader, Abu Bakr al-Bagdadi calling for all jihadists in Iraq and Syria to rise up and resist the enemies of Islam.
All of this rhetoric is coming from an organization that holds a fraction of the territory it occupied in 2014. Further, the Las Vegas, Sheriff Joseph Lombardo has said that he and other law enforcement officials do not believe there is any connection between Paddock and ISIS, calling him a “lone wolf attacker.” What’s more, the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security has said that there were no known credible terrorist threats aimed at any public venues in the country at the time of the attack.
It seems ISIS was talking out of turn. But it doesn’t mean paddock might not have been motivated by any ideology whatsoever. Certainly, it’s hard to imagine there was no ideological motive. However, there is no reason to claim certainty that he was moved by anything other than madness and evil.
~ Liberty Planet
