"you can't expect a boy to be vicious until he's been to a good school." saki.
well, i've known quite a few "boys" never went to school spent a lot of time cultivating natural born mean streaks, and some met the definition of vicious pretty completely.
but, they were amatuers, strictly small potatoes one-at-a-time mean.
what saki means, and quite correctly, is the person who is vicious in a thoroughly institutionalized and mechanized sort of way. stalin, for instance, was a seminaarian. lenin a lawyer. manachan begin (who i greatly admine) was educated a lawyer, ... , as was ghandi, for that matter. (so, all lawyers are not terrorists attempting the transition to statesmen, such as begin successfully complete, and as ken would have you believe that ho chi men did as well.)
but, even such accomplished killers like ho, or mao, or stalin or hitler really don't quite satisfy the gist of saki's point. saki is referring not to someone who is physically cruel, but a person who is intellectually cruel and who distances himself from the violence of and pain of cruelty, in a "you cannot make an omelette without breaking a few eggs" sort of way. the sort of person who tries to gloss cruelty and murder in intellectual or religious guise, so as to "transform" it somehow into a higher purpose.
to do this requires education, and the mastery of sophistry.
marx and engels, and hegel come to mind. as does mohammed. and, such lesser lights as marcuse and alinsky all fit the bill. and, all the major and minor thugs of the nazi apparatus were highly educated and traveled in the highest circles: the famous concentration camp commandant who each morning before breakfast coffee went to his balcony and shot inmates at random, and then played classical violin in the evenings to soothe his soul comes to mind. (bill clinton is capable of this, though obama lacks conviction, in my view of things.) and, all those mild as field mice college professors who are physical cowards, but teach their students the ways of antifa and "black lives matter." they are educated. and, they are vicious that all the skull crackers i defended and prosecuted in criminal court could never aspire to.
hat tip to the novemer 14, 2017 issue of "forbes" magazine, at page 172, "thoughts on education & success."
john jay @ 10.31.2017 (all hallows eve, 2017)
p.s. and, as if we needed it, further proof that most good lefties are really intellectually brain dead. fran lebowitz is quoted as saying "in real life, i assure you, there is no such thing as algebra." well, this suggests that she never quite cut it as a mathematician, because you are not going very far if algebra stumps you. and, it proves absolutely that she knows nothing of "real life," because if she's ever bought a package of frozen peas and carrots, or a can of deluxe mixed nuts, she's come across algebra in spades. good old algebra fixed that pricing of mixed components, every day of the week in "real life."
fran lebowitz also comes to you, that same issue, same page of forbes.
when hillary clinton was secretary of state she sat on a panel of federal officials to approve the sale of about 20% of the u.s. uranium reserves to a canadian front for russian acquisition of that uranium: v. putin is a major stakeholder in that russian concern.
while this was going on bill clinton was being paid for his speaking ability by the rooskies, and the clinton foundation received a tad more than $125 million from the russians. how's that, a former u.s. president and a sitting secretary of state taking bribes to sell uranium to the russians.
well, somebody was gonna leak, but the u.s. justice department and the fbi put the screws on the would be snitch to compel his or her silence.
the director of the f.b.i. at this time? (i prefer the descriptor of "f.i.b.," but, it hasn't caught on, so what's the point?)
it was none other than that worthy, that paragon of washington d.c.'s version of propriety & virtue, one robert mueller. you know, the one who is special counsel trying to besmirch the trump administration for its ties to the rooskies. how's that for a little bit of irony.
now, none of this is particularly secret. the right blogs, including this one, have been speaking of this since before trump assumed office. and, it is beginning to gain weight in the "mainstream media," much to my amazement. this is principally because the snitch has lawyered up, and the lawyer is speaking to anyone who will listen about the matter, so that gains a bit of traction for the account of the clinton perfidy.
so my question is, where is the groundswell demanding a special prosecutor be appointed to investigate all of this? you would think someone in washington d.c., (where the quest for truth, virtue and knowledge reigns supreme), would take notice. john mccain, perhaps. paul ryan. mitch mcconnel.
john jay @ 10.30.2017
p.s. oddly enough, the google thumbnails provided to alert this writer of "related posts" is absolutely silent on the matter. left wing cabals? who could think such a thing?
at this point in the aftermath of the las vegas rampage i am convinced beyond any need for further investigation that the las vegas shooter did not act alone. he had help getting the logistics train in order for the attack, e.g., procuring the weapons and setting them into battle array.
to me the only open issue is his motivation.
some have posited that antifa lies at the source of his embrace of death as a zeal. perhaps more convincing evidence is emerging that the isis claim of his affiliation to the goals of islam for spiritual & physical conquest is truthful. as for myself i do not see much that is in conflict with the shooter finder both faiths as a well spring that fed his homicidal impulses.
quite a pair as funding & founding partners in death, george soros and mohamed. brothers in arms, as it were along with their 64 year old acolyte. it seems logical to understand both sources as motivators for the shooter, and both sources equally satisfying to the zealot who found his zeal in dealing death.
when you think of it in a certain perspective, nothing could have been more like dealing the cards of death to random players for the shooter, than raining death as a matter of chance upon a defenseless crowd. the drinker, the gambler found his zeal. in dealing death.
again, it's damned messy to get shot in the head, especially at close range by a rifle.
not to be fastidious about it, shit just goes everywhere. the subject of what is called "blood spatter" is a recognized field, and tells much about the nature of wounds and how they were inflicted. it could just a easily be called "flying goo analysis."
i got to thinking about all of this, when friend "c" wrote asking some questions about the "death scene" photo of the las vegas shooter, and also theorizing about the posture of his body on the floor. i got to thinking about that, and then something struck me, and brought to the surface of my mind an issue that has been troubling me.
and, the issue lurking below the surface has been the relatively antiseptic condition of the body, and the surrounding floor, walls, drapes and furniture in the hotel room. there is no goop on them. nor, on his body and articles of clothing.
no blood. no fragments of tissue nor skin. no macerated, shredded brain tissue, no parts of eyeballs. nothing in that line on that portion of his death scene is apparent to me. i am not saying that the death scene should look like something out a a chain saw massacre movie, but, the area surrounding his body looks very tidy to me. especially for someone who may have been killed by a self inflicted gun shot wound.
let me explain.--
a bullet comes out of the end of a gun barrel at a very high velocity, and as such the bullet possesses a high level of kinetic energy. i am looking at the barnes reloading manual no. 2, the section for reloading teh .223 remington. they provide date for their 53 grain bullet indicating a muzzle velocity from a 24" barrel at in excess of 3300 feet per second, this velocity generating over 1200 pounds feet of energy. such a bullet, impacting bone and tissue (such as found in plenitude in the head) transfers a great deal of this energy in a matter of fractions of 1,000th's of seconds, and in turn bone and tissue fragments become "secondary projectiles" in the study of terminal ballistics. the more rigid and strong the structures impacted by the bullet, the greater the "energy dump" from bullet to tissue, and the more devastating the wound, and resulting spray of tissue and blood associated with it.
in the crudest and most accurate description that can be attached to this process, "... shit goes everywhere." it is a real mess. for those who have the stomach to watch it, the zapruder tape of the john kennedy receiving his fatal bullet wound are pretty instructive.
the bullet is not the only thing that applies force and energy to the bone and tissues of the human head when a gunshot is received at very close range, either in contact with the head or just inches away.--
when gun powder is ignited, it created a very large volume of incandescent gas at very high temperature and under very high pressure. in the usa, we measure the pressure in footpounds, in england they describe it as numbers of atmosphere. a round like the .223 remington produces peak pressure in the barrel, just in front of the chamber, on the order of 55,000 to 60,000 pounds of pressure and at extremely high temperature: it is, in effect, a super pressurized blow torch at extremely high temperature. this pressure imparts movement to the bullet, and the bullet is accelerated down and out the barrel in the space of a few 1,000th's of seconds. at the volume of barrel behind the bullet expands behind the accelerating bullet, this pressure drops, until it is something along the order of 6 to 7,000 lbs or 4 to 5,000 lbs, depending upon the volume in the bore derived from diameter and length. 5,000 lbs doesn't sound like much, but, it is nearly 300 atmosphere.
remember a fundamental law of physics -- matter is neither created nor destroyed. in short, the powder gases have weight, around 25 to 26 grains (an ounce equaling 440 grains in the nomenclatures used in reloading powder into rifle cartridges)*** and they also have velocity, that being at least equal to the bullet as it exits, and once hitting the atmosphere, greatly accelerating as the gas hits the open atmosphere where it is no longer confined. the energy in the bullet gases quickly dissipates.
this is what causes the tremendous bang of a rifle shot, as the atmosphere absorbs this energy.
put a head in front of this plume of incandescent & pressurized flame, and it absorbs the energy as well, even as the bullet is doing its damage. this plume of flame cuts like a blow torch, it burns tissues, and it displaces them very violently. it all happens very quickly, but, irreversibly.
this is a very violent process. skin, bone, blood, brain and allied structures are ripped apart, and fly. in a fine mist, in drops, and in chunks.
everywhere.
now, this is what bothers me about the death scene photo. i see no evidence of this on the floor, nor the drapes, nor the furniture.
and, most importantly, i see no evidence of this on the deceased's body, especially none on his left hand and arm, where it is not covered the the apron mitt glove on his left hand.
to my mind, there are only two plausible explanations, assuming a wound to the head as stated by law enforcement. 1.)the fatal wound was administered by a low powered handgun as he lay on the floor (which sounds odd to me), or 2.)the body was dragged to the location of the photo after death. otherwise, to my feeble powers of observation and deduction, the absence of this so of gore is absolutely inexplicable.
update, 10.06.2017 : condition of shooter's head. i have found a photo of the shooter's head, which is of some use, but the utility is a bit limited by the fact that the image is obscured. http://www.bizpacreview.com/2017/10/04/leaked-graphic-photos-inside-killers-hotel-room-show-cache-weapons-body-floor-possible-note-544115 . but, though i see not evidence of a revolver in the photo, (as mentioned by reader "plus.googe..." in the comments below, it is evident that the shooter did not die as a result of a high powered rifle shot to the head), there are things that can be learned from the photo. first and foremost, is the fact that the picture of the shooter's body was not taken immediately, or even proximate to his death. part of the blood on the carpet is dried at the point of the photo being taken, and the rest of the blood appears to be coagulated and/or coagulating.
this causes me to doubt that he was killed as the police approached his door, or as they were gaining entry. he died somewhat before this. whether he killed himself, or whether he was killed by a confederate who then made his escape is remains open to question. certainly there was enough time for this later scenario to have occurred. some 70 minutes elapsed between the start of the shooting and the police coming into the hotel room.
what took so long. i can understand a bit of caution, but, this seems a very slow response. end update.
we await the autopsy. and, photos.
john jay @ 10.05.2017
p.s. was there a deceased person in the hotel? was the photo staged? the lack of visible evidence of the inevitable result of a gunshot wound to the head, inflicted by a high powered rifle shot, ... , well, ... , it raises these questions. simple as that. and, it casts doubt upon the police version.
*** the weight of this ejecta would impart about 1/2 again the energy of the bullet to an object being struck at close range by a 53 to 55 grain bullet. and, of course, as the ejecta accelerated its burning in an open atmosphere, it energy output and yield would grow, for however briefly. but, as the increased energy were absorbed by human tissue and bone, so too would the overall wound effect be increased.
we are soft bodied. we are not made to absorb energy at these levels. the effect is simply fantastic. and, messy. and, goes everywhere.
i love typepad. not so good in a lot of ways, but, cheap. close enough.
it refuses to block email i have listed as "spam." and, it places email responses i have written to readers into the "spam" account, and i check it from time to time to make sure my submission to the "letters" file are not blocked.
i just checked "spam." 14 emails were set forth there. 4 or them were from people i had never heard of before, on matters best described as "arcane" or "obscure," and certainly having nothing to do with anything i have penned: they have been deleted. (it is not that they have disagreed with me, that is "allowed." it is simply that they are incomprehensible, so, therefore have earned deletion.) the other 10 were notes i have submitted in response to reader comments.
typepad is pretty tricky about this. this will not do this for a while, but when i get a little lax about checking the "spam account" they spam my replies with great vigor. it is nothing more and nothing less than google censorship and suppression of conservative viewpoints. nothing new in the world, nothing ever changes in this regard .... they just refuse to condone anything they do not agree with. this is not very unusual in the nature of things.
so, if you haven't received a reply from me on something, check your letters again. my original reply may be "up." then, again .... .
apparently a note has been recovered at the scene of the shooter's death. https://pamelageller.com/2017/10/las-veags-shooter-note.html/ . we do not know the contents of the note, nor whether it reveals any motives attributable to the shooter. someday we will find out.
appearance of shooter's room. but, interesting material is to be had by looking at the contents of the photo's.
a photo is provided with the note circled in read, and the shooter's legs sprawled on the floor beneath it. there is a rifle at his feet, the rifle equipped with a short legged bipod, what appears to be a magpul 30 round magazine in the rifle, and another full 30 round magpul magazine lying besides it.
a close up of that picture clearly shows the full magazine besides the rifle with a magazine in it. and, that is interesting, because of the time frames involved. the shooter had a camera rigged to a room service table in the hallway, showing the approaches to his door. and, he shoot a security officer in the leg who stood outside his door. yet, some 70 minutes elapsed before the swat team breached the door, causing the shooter to take his own life.
why, then, are there so many loaded magazine left on the floor, not a single round appearing to have been expended from them. there were apparently a lot of "target opportunities" available to him during that time.
also of interest is the lack of spent brass cartridge cases on the floor. in the area of the rifle with the bipod and the full magazine next to it are some empty cases, but, not very many of them. there are certainly not hundreds of them, and there are certainly not the number of cases one would expect from more than ten minutes of extended fire. several of the rifles shown have no empty cases around them at all, though one of the rifles has a surefire 60 round four-column magazine inserted in the magazine well. this latter rifle has a "bump stock" mounted on it, with a forward grip, such a rifle being able to emulate full auto fire. the rifle fire control mechanism is not altered in the slight to do this.
[operation of a bump fire stock. the bump fire replaces a regular fixed stock. it slides back and forth. when the rifle fires, it recoils into the interior of a slot, shielding the trigger from being pulled. the fore-grip is pushed forward by the support hand, and the trigger comes out of the slot, and the trigger finger can them make contact with it again, firing the rifle. the trigger finger is not flexed, it is simply held in position over the shielding, and the trigger is pulled to it by pressure on the fore-grip. this can be done, quite obviously, far quicker than it takes to describe it. but, i go to the trouble, simply to demonstrate that it hardly is calculated to produce accurate aimed fire, ... , it is mostly designed to make dusty.]
multiple source of gun shots. well, cell phones are everywhere.
a las vegas cab driver was waiting in que for rides outside the hotel in question, and he started recording gun shots. and, it is obvious that shots were fired from multiple locations. as drew458 noted, some of the shots were followed by echo's duplicated the rhythm and pattern of the first string. but, that is not always the case with the shots. some of the shot strings are followed by shot strings clearly of a different pattern and number of shots. and, some of the shots sound very close to the cab's location, but, other shot strings come from farther off, are of a different pattern, and different number of shots.
and, it is obvious that "bump fire" stocks are causing some of the shot strings, given the irregular pulse of the shots, and their sporadic nature. these shots, too, are followed by very obviously different strings from different locations.
https://pamelageller.com/2017/10/vegas-gunfire-video.html/ . all of the above observations about multiple sources of the gun shots are derived from listening to the video at the link above, from pamela geller's journal.
there is no doubt in my mind that "automatic" gunfire was shot from different sources, what sounds to me like as many as three locations.
and, another observation from that video. there are cops and cop cars everywhere. and, not a single cop is to be seen entering the hotel at the entrance that the cabbie was parked in front of, (with people wandering through the lobby without a care in the world), but they are all crouched behind their parked cars in the streets around the hotel.
again, from several sources, the shooting goes on for about 9 or 10 minutes, then stops, and then the swat team enters the room with the dead shooter some 70 plus minutes later, at which point it is claimed that he shoots himself. (i don't believe it. i think he was shot much earlier. more on that, later.)
general observations. 1.)as per usual, pamela geller is way out front of most other coverage. 2.)i do not see any evidence in the photos of the dead shooter any evidence of a great number of shots being fired from his room. 3.)nor do i see any evidence of equipment suggesting that he was directing aimed fire at the concert crowd, in any disciplined fashion. the optic on the rifle that lay at his feet with some surrounding brass, but a full magazine right next to it, was an eotech red dot sight, which is a sighting system that is not magnified: it is a system that projects a holographic red dot in front of the sight, again, without magnification. looking at a crowd some 400 to 440 yards in front of him, he would have seen no more of the crowd than with a naked eyeball.
the eotech has a dot in the center of a circle of dots surrounding it. at one hundred yards, the outer circle is filled by the height of a man, at 200 yards a man fills one half the outer circle, and so on. at 400 yards, you cannot see much.
4.)if the shooter were alive after the shooting stopped, why did he not flee, or simply go downstairs and continue gambling, where he would have been recognized? after all, there was a full 70 to 72 minutes to do so after the shooting stopped, assuming he was alive and unharmed. maybe he assumed capture was inevitable, regardless. maybe he was shot, and his body left, so that he could be the fall guy for the entire operation. at any rate, from the photos i have seen at pamela geller's blog, there are not enough rounds of brass on the floor to account for the dead and those who may have been injured by gun shot. my guess is, when survivors are interviewed, they will be asked what direction they were facing when wounded. if so, multiple sources of shooting will be established. assuming the cops and the f.i.b. have the native wit to ask the proper questions.
5.)none of the equipment i see in the shooter's room would have aided him in taking stable shots. the bipods on the rifles were entirely inadequate for this, and i see nothing in the photos that indicates he used any furniture to prop the rifles up. in any event, the steepness of the shot from 300 feet (100 yds) off the ground to a location 400 yards away offered him any choice except to probably stand, or poke the rifle out the window.
in that regard, i am wondering if the autopsy will establish any deep cuts or abrasions on his forearms such as the broken glass in the windows would have caused, had he been using the window frames as a rest for his shooting. my guess is, he simply stood at the open "window," and fired away "freehand." again, given the optics he was employing, this rendered the chances that he would hit anything at all pretty much nil.
conclusion. 1.)the shooter was not alone. shots rang out from multiple locations, perhaps as many as three. 2.)the shooter was not equipped with the equipment to take aimed shots at any one, let alone to exact disciplined and exacting damage on the crowd that he was shooting. he may have killed some people, but in so doing, it was pretty much lady luck exacting a fickle penalty on people simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. 3.)someone else planned and executed this rampage. it was not the hapless shooter. 4.)and, finally, it appears to me that he was set up as the hapless stooge, either executed or left to his own devices as the cops closed in. that he could not use the 72 minutes available to him to make his escape indicates to me that his devices were extremely limited. and, i believe that it is a pretty good chance that he was execute by his confederates to be found by the police, and give his confederates time to make their escape.
anyone taking any bets on whether the "girlfriend" returns to the united states?
john jay @ 10.04.2017
p.s. there is speculation that the shooter had converted to islam before the rampage. this is fueled by isis claims that he became a soldier of god and carried out the operation. well, we'll see .... but, though i suspect this may be so, it is not sufficiently confirmed for me to claim in outright with any conviction.
i will not be surprised in the least if it develops that he was lured into this by the use of the classic "honey trap," and that isis or someone else used him as a dupe to lay the blame on. it is obvious more than one shooter was involved, and the intent to inflict a large death toll points to islam.
sooner or later it will be established, in my opinion. but, i am not quite ready to assert it as established fact, even though it has all the earmarks of islam about it.
a letter to a dear friend, explaining the various laws which will provide the context for the police and forensic investigation into the las vegas shootings.--
"c:
you buy a rifle, you get subjected to background checks. if you buy a weapon outside of your home state (say a resident of nevada buys a gun in california), you cannot take delivery of that weapon in the "foreign state," but must arrange for the licensed dealer in the "foreign" state to ship it to a designated dealer (w/ a federal firearms license to deal in firearms) in your "home state" to arrange the delivery to you. you are subjected to a background check at this point.
so, if the selling dealer follows the law, each and every individual purchase is the subject to a background check performed by an agency of his home state. he cannot take delivery elsewhere.
persons/businesses who sell firearms have to maintain a log book, showing the date of receipt of firearms into their possession, and showing delivery to a person, no matter how that arrangement transpires. so, a gunsmith who does repairs logs a rifle in, with a receipt delivered to the owner, and logs it back out, with a receipt of delivery to the owner. it makes no difference how minor something might be, it is logged and receipted.
all such log books are subject to inspection by the atf. if the logs are not kept correctly, the ffl-dealer is shut down, and can be subject to federal prosecution and imprisonment.
the major exception to this procedure is the private exchange between individuals, and purchases at gunshows and the like. if an exchange at a gun show is interstate and nature, they are procedures to be followed, and if not followed, unpleasant things occur.
there is a store in a nearby town that sells alcohol, cigarettes and firearms. a convenience store w/ a gun rack. covered very closely by the federal firearms, tabaco and alcohol agency. logs for everything, the tax man is to be satisfied in his quest for revenue. lots of paperwork.
with regard to firearms like the ar-15 the lower receiver is the "firearm," as it is that part of the firearm which is "serialized," e.g. has a serial number & maker's name affixed to it. "__________," smith and wesson, for instance. each firearm found in that room with the dead guy will be marked in such a manner, and that means that each firearm that is so marked will have been sold in conformity with the regulations as more or less (accurately) set forth above. since the firearms were described as "daniel's defense" ddm-4 models, they were serialized by daniel's defence, and their sale/purchase will be recorded at each step of the commercial transactions that got it into the hands of the las vegas shooter.
in short, every transaction in the commercial chain is recorded and logged, and all such logs are subject to fta inspection and oversight.
now, it is hard to believe, but my understanding is that atf is not equipped w/ a digital system for doing this, and each paper trail for each gun will have to be built by hand. it will take time. i would imagine the agency has been told by the justice department to get it the hell done, for the police & security agencies involved. the information may be withheld from the public for security or political reasons.
likewise, all the victims will be autopsied, and if bullets are recovered from bodies, they will attempt to link the bullet to a particular firearm, all of which will be fired with ammunition samples likely taken at the scene.
this as well will take time, as 59 deceased persons and others wounded by surviving will each require a forensic examination, checking bullet samples against 17 to 23 firearms recovered at the scene.
there will be lots of overtime work done on this. i would expect 2 to 3 weeks, maybe longer, would be a reasonable time frame to get all of this done.
more mundane things will be required, such as finger print analysis. this may or may not be laborious, dictated by how fastidious the shooter and others involved may have been about handling the firearms and ammunition involved, not to mention loading magazines and the like. if care was done doing this, there may not be many prints involved. (unless the police involved in securing the area and neutralizing weapons were not very fastidious, and then they may be at this aspect of it for a very long time. who knows? when this kind of thing happens, people are under tremendous pressure to resolve things, and procedures handling firearms may not be observed.)
people should be a bit patient. 59 autopsies is a lot of autopsies, especially when memorialized in conformity w/ forensic protocols and copious photographs, and all that. likewise, medical reports prepared for the number of gunshot wounds potentially involved here will take a great deal of time.
and, somebody is going to have to review all of this for investigative purposes, security purposes, and with a view towards making bureaucratic review of gun sales better and more thorough. again, such matters may not be discussed publicly, especially if our muslim friends are involved. (remember, isis has named the shooter, and id'ed him as one of their own. if this is substantiated, and if investigative leads are to be followed, we will not know about it.)
(of course, mr. mueller will say the rooskies and trump were behind the whole thing, based on a confidential leak at the c.i.a. the c.i.a. and mueller's team, bastards all.)
well, that's about it. i will put this up at the website, and send you the link, for proper attribution. as always, feel free to pub it out on your email list, but i would appreciate the link on something major like this.
so far i have read on the net and on the lamestream that the source (point of purchase) of a couple of these weapons has been established, to include a gun store in mequite, nevada.
there are 17 to 23 weapons said to have been found with the shooter's body in the hotel room from which shots were supposedly fired.
where did they come from?
if it cannot be established beyond peradventure that he purchased each and every one of them in person, and with funds traceable to his accounts, then that leaves open the possibility that the guns were purchased by others, and supplied to him so that he could carry on these shootings.
what, somebody spent $3000 to buy a gun for this guy, so he could shoot tin cans? gimmee a f***ing break.
if others purchased these guns for him, and in a rather compressed time span, there is only one conclusion to be drawn from this fact, and that is the guns were purchased for him so that he could carry on this despicable act. you tell me what other conclusion can be drawn.
in previous posts i have written on the practical/practicable limitations of the use of automatic rifles in the place of light to medium machine guns (which also fire "automatically.") in short, auto rifles are not built robustly enough to withstand the physical stresses of prolonged auto fire .... their mechanism fail rather quickly under auto fire. for instance, lightweight barrels droop, pulling operating systems apart; and gas systems come apart in the heat that is generated by rifle fire.
the las vegas shooter had many rifles with him, when he died of a self inflicted gun shot wound. (or, when he was killed, and used as a foil, to aid confederates in their escapes. this is sheer speculation on my part, and to be regarded as such, until such time as evidence is discovered to lend it substance.)
he would have had no reason to have had this many weapons with him, had he not known of the propensity of automatic rifles to self destruct under prolonged use, which use amounts to 7 or 8 minutes of continuous fire. (in practicle/practicable terms, about 700 or 800 rounds of fire.)
it has not been established that the shooter would have, or should have had, this kind of knowledge. until such time as it is established why he would have had, or could have had this kind of knowledge, the only reasonable explanation for having this many guns on hand is that someone else, e.g., confederates, supplied him with this knowledge, and helped him plan his rampage.
this is another reason why i think that he did not act on his own.
in addition, after watching a real time video/videos of this shooting spree, taken from the crowd, the sound of the rifle fire is far more intense than i would have expected for a recording of fire occurring some 400 yards distant. even over the very loud music, the rifle fire is clearly discernible. which leads me to believe that the crowd took fire from a closer source, than the mandalay hotel, some 400 yards distant.
john jay @ 10.03.2017
p.s. isis continues to claim involvement, even providing the shooter with an islamic name. the name of an islamic warrior. we'll see.
these details from "the view from north central idaho," http://blog.joehuffman.org/2017/10/02/gun-details-are-coming-out/#comment-102272, with regard to the weapons the shooter had in his possession when he was found dead in his hotel room.
"paddock had four daniel defense ddm4 rifles, three FN-15s and other rifles made by sig sauer."
now various sources have reported that 17 guns were found with the shooter's body, others have reported as many as 23 weapons. not only is this a lot of guns for one guy to be shooting, but these are also pretty high ticket items to have along with you for one use, to be left behind as you skedaddle, or to be left by your dead body.
hey, they weren't gonna be taken with him. as improbable for him to have sneaked all these guns into his room in preparation for his rampage, it is vastly more improbable that he intended to tuck 23, or even 17, weapons under his arm to make his escape down the service elevator or down a back stair well or fire escape.
the daniel defense rifle price out, without optics, pretty close to $3,000 each, the fn-15 pretty close to the same, and anything made by sig sauer is just not gonna come cheaply. if you take an add an expensive optic onto the rifle, such as schmidt & bender, or swarski, or trijicon or a nightforce or even a leupold, you can be adding another $1,000 to $2,000 to the acquisition of each gone. top grade optics can cost $3,000 each.
call it 20 guns in his room. say another 20 guns at home. and, if he were buying ammunition as high grade as these guns, well, he could have easily had $100,000 into the acquisition of guns, optics and ammo, without even trying. this stuff is not cheap generally, and he was going top of the line with the firearms, so i figure top of the line for everything else.
and, his family has gone on record saying that he didn't know anything about guns, and had never used them. (his dad was a bank robber, for what it is worth, and consider the family's statements in the matter, for what they are worth.)
my point is precisely this.--
a guy can go totally pscho, bat shit goofy, just completely out of his mind, in planning something like this, for a helluva lot less than $100,000 . you watch the adds, you can pick up a serviceable ar-15 for $500, a scope that will work just fine for general purposes for another $250, and plenty of canister .223 for 17-cents a round. it will go bang when you pull the trigger, and the bullets will get there.
either this guy has a background in firearms experience and training that no one has stumbled upon, or someone else played a role in the planning of the operation, and the acquisition of the specific firearms that were found with his body. i am voting that someone else who knew guns helped him acquire these weapons. and, quite likely, helped him plan this operation.