Our hearts ache for Vegas

[vegas250rr]

Today has been a very tough day for Vegas, I sure wish none of us woke up to the news of what our town is now known for. The lives of so many are changed forever and there is no going back. I just hope that we all can move on. I wasn’t there, but I do know people who ended up being a very real part of it, and that makes me very sad because I know they will never be the same. Their family’s will never be the same and my family will never be the same. I wish the best for all affected by this tragedy and for those lost, may they Rest In Peace in a Better place ~ Vegas250rr

[El Camexican]

Nothing is ever going to be the same. As the candle light vigils and mourning subside and the flowers and wreaths that will be laid at the site start to wither the larger hotels will start installing the same airport style luggage scanners that cities like Mumbai and Istanbul have had for years.

Concrete wall's will replace hedges and new hotel construction will retreat further back from the streets to allow room for mechanical barricades and bomb sniffing dogs to inspect cars before they can pull up to the lobby and America will join the rest of the world that lives in fear of it's own shadow.

I love Vegas, got married there and have been there at least 15 times since. I be back in 5 weeks, but it's not going to feel the same.

Thoughts and prayers to all affected.

[86T3]

My mom is there with her sisters, it was a nervous couple of minutes this morning until we found out she was ok. This is a terrible tragedy, it makes you wonder what goes through a him and mind to do something like this. Did he get satisfaction from it? Was he promoting something? Why wpuld someone do this and then kill themself? It doesn't make sense to me, maybe in his sick mind it did

[El Camexican]

My mom is there with her sisters

Three of my wife's cousins and a niece are there as well.

The niece lives in Cuernavaca and was just in the big earthquake that hit Mexico city, so she drove up to San Antonio to stay away from the mess and kill a few days before flying to Vegas from here, but we had floods last week, so she ended up trapped in the States and had to wait a few days before taking a 5 hour detour around the flood to catch her flight to Vegas. I'm not sure if she's lucky or cursed, but I'm not going to be traveling with her anytime soon.

I just read an interesting bit on the ISIS claim that came out this morning. The author said that ISIS rarely takes credit for events they weren't involved in and they claimed this one pretty fast. Now if a suicide note is found, or some other non-ISIS proof they look like fools, but so far there hasn't been any proof to the contrary made public. If they wanted to falsely take credit they could have waited a few days to make sure there was no note or facebook post, but they didn't. Plenty more to come from this including him asking for a room with that view and video of him hauling in all that hardware as well as footage of him all over Vegas, lots of cameras there.

[El Camexican]

Highly Suspect - little one.....

Very much so.

[stoshu]

I love Vegas, got married there and have been there at least 15 times since. I be back in 5 weeks, but it's not going to feel the same.

Thoughts and prayers to all affected.[/QUOTE]
Are couple locals were victims of this nut job. Fortunately they are going to be OK. Haven't been there since January, I'm sure it won't be same when I go back in 3 weeks. Heading down there to catch some NHRA. Also getting married on Friday night. Looks like I'll miss you by a couple weeks. Prayers sent to all the families affected

[RIDE-RED 250r]

Thoughts and prayers with all of those effected by this madness...


Sure is alot of weirdness with this story!

[Rob Canadian]

Sure is alot of weirdness with this story!

Yes there is. I hear this and that.

Prayers go out to all involved

[atc007]

Being that I don't watch programming/news. I saw a compilation video put together overnight Sunday night/Monday am on FB. I put together fairly quickly that there had been a shooting in vegas. A few things puzzled me as the story "came out". First, the shooting in the videos was fairly sporadic. Def semi auto,and kind of plinking. While I have never been to Vegas,nor a war zone in a concrete jungle. I have been in huge hunting parties where there are a lot of bullets flying..Again, in the hills,, Not a man made environment.I assumed what I was hearing was ground fire being exchanged,,back and forth. Def sounded like more than one shooter. Then I hear one shooter form the 32nd story of the Mandalay Bay! Ok,,,As El already referred too. Cameras everywhere.

I have friends that frequent all the UFC events and SEMA . I know the security in that hotel is no joke.. No muzzle flash from the side of the building that I have seen,and 11 minutes of shooting until he killed himself? Today on FB a video pops up from a persons cell phone. Very clearly showing a very skinny guy with a security shirt on entering the camera from the bottom left crouching and letting loose with bullet spray. It is removed and gone.I shared it on my feed,it's gone. I googled it, all I see is what the "news" people have put out. Something stinks. We will probably never know what or why.

[Scootertrash]

Is this what you're looking for?

[Scootertrash]

Beside the fact that ISIS is a manufactured and largely fictional "threat",

Got a link?

it's a little early to be pushing the anti terrorism agenda folks. There are human lives still in the balance.

Your Progressive leftist politicians where pushing the gun control agenda not long after sunrise on the morning after. Maybe you should have a chat with them before you criticize people here.

[atc007]

That was it Scooter, thanx. Some of this story is,well, a little dramatic and I don't agree with everything,but the gist,,,,yes. Who knows...
https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-10-...ded-brass.html

[redsox]

I have a few cents to toss in here, if i may. First thing that i'll address is the notion that ISIS or terrorism, or radical islam is not a threat and this is all a conspiracy. That is just malarkey. And don't tell me to learn to swim, because i can swim just fine. I've always let the conspiracy theorists theorize without any push back because i just dismissed much of it. But there is a line. Has anyone ever considered that "learn to swim" and "get woke" and other jingles are part of a greater defense mechanism which allow the user to reject reality and supplant it with grandiose notions that only they themselves can understand? It empowers the self, and allows for the mind to control what, in actuality, is an uncontrollable situation. It is a natural defense mechanism of the human brain. What has surprised me over the years is the extent of the mental gymnastics used to create stories to alter reality. In fact, no amount of actual evidence can counter the conspiracy because the conspiracy is not bound by reality. If you can watch jumbo jets fly into buildings, watch people leaping to there deaths, watch video of the scumbags boarding the planes, hear the flight recordings, see the carnage left and the broken families that remain and still concoct an alternate tale that only you can understand, then there is no amount of fact that can reach you. Its a pointless discussion.

Evil exists in this world, my friends. Real evil. I've seen it with my own eyes. This vegas shooting is no different. Its evil in its purest form. Derangement of some kind. I think that we will learn more about what happened. We may never know the complete truth but there will be more to come on this. I have my own theory, based on the interview of the shooter's brother. It was a very candid interview. Reporters put him on the spot, and he was emotional, and spilled his guts out. The important part of that interview to me was when they asked him what his brother did for a living. Now, I pride myself on my ability to spot a lie. I'm good at it. The shooters brother was not lying about anything in the interview until he was asked that question. There was a slight pause and change in inflection in his answer. He knows something and was hiding it. I have no doubt about that. One can only guess what he was hiding, but there is something there. This onion will peel. 60 year old guys just don't leave the reservation like that. It has never happened, and i don't believe he is the exception to human history. Was the guy ex-military or CIA or something like that? Was he converting to Islam? Was he tripping balls? There will be something more to come.

Lastly, i'll address the gun control BS. Its insulting to the dead and absolutely abhorrent behavior to capitalize on the emotions of the survivors to advance a political agenda based on control. Shameful.

[sledcrazyinCT]

Wife posted this on facebook yesterday and writer's POV is something never really thought about previously.
Charlie Hoehn is the author of Play It Away. He has spoken on the topic of mental health at the Pentagon, U.S. military bases, universities, and TEDx. You can get his books for free at CharlieHoehn.com.from

Author’s note, Oct 7th: Thank you all for your support, comments, and critiques. I’m thrilled that these issues are being discussed. I also did not anticipate that this article would go viral, and I am very aware of its flaws. I will be making revisions in the coming week.

I’ll never forget April 20th, 1999.
I was 12 years old, sitting in art class in middle school. We were playing with clay and making sculptures.
Suddenly, our principal came on over the PA. Her voice trembled.
“I have an important announcement to make. All teachers and students need to hear this. I will wait 60 seconds for everyone to be completely silent.”
The next minute was eerie. My friends and I exchanged confused looks, and nervously laughed. Our teacher held her finger to her lips. Silence.
The principal’s voice came back onto the PA:
“There is a shooting at Columbine high school. All students are to go home immediately.”
Columbine was 15 minutes away from us.
I remember taking the bus home, and walking into my house. My mom turned on the news. I recognized that fence. We’ve driven by that fence.
My mom knew the teacher. Dave Sanders. She’d substituted with him at Columbine.
In the last 18 years, we Americans have experienced too many of these shootings. And I want to share a few of my thoughts on why I think they keep happening.
By the way, this isn’t a political post about guns, or the media. It’s a post about men, and their emotional health.
Over the past few years, I’ve found myself in the mental health space. I’ve learned a lot. Particularly that men in the United States REALLY struggle in this realm, and have very little social or emotional support. This affects men of every race and socioeconomic background.
I was watching Jimmy Kimmel’s impassioned, raw speech last night about the Vegas shootings. Like Jimmy, I felt sick and heartbroken by the tragedy. But something he said stood out to me:
“There’s probably no way to ever know why a human being could do something like this to other human beings.”
Sadly, researchers know a lot about why human beings — particularly men — do things like this.
Why mass shootings keep happening.
It’s tempting to say the mass shooters motive was simply “pure evil,” or to blame the media or guns, but that absolves us of looking deeply at what each of us — as individuals, family members, friends, and community members — might be missing.
Now, I’m not a psychiatrist. And I don’t know much about the Vegas shooter. I’m just a guy who studies mental health.
Again, this is not a political post about guns, for the same reason it’s not a political post about weaponized cars. Easy access to guns is a big part of the problem, but I’m not as interested in the tool as I am in what causes a man to use it so destructively.
Nor is this a post in defense of the shooter, or to make him sound like a victim in any way. What he did was a horrific act. He is a murderer, and he is not excused from this by any stretch (though I truly feel sympathy for the shooter’s brother, who seemed to be totally caught off guard by this behavior, and now he has to deal with the aftermath for the rest of his life).
https://byrslf.co/thoughts-on-the-ve...fe9-1507390098
The goal of this post is simply to shine a light on what’s eroding men’s emotional health.
1- Men in the United States are chronically lonely.
Boys in the United States — just like all human beings — need touch, caring, warmth, empathy, and close relationships. But as we grow up, most of us lose those essential components of our humanity.
What’s worse: we have no idea how to ask for those things, or admit we need them, because we’re afraid it will make us look weak.
As a man, you might be thinking, “Not me, I’ve got drinking buddies. I play poker with the guys. I’ve got friends.”
But do you have confidants? Do you have male friends who you can actually be vulnerable with? Do you have friends whom you can confide in, be 100% yourself around, that you can hug without saying “No homo,” without feeling tense or uncomfortable while you’re doing it?
For many men, the answer is “no.” So, we spend our time posturing instead.
From an early age, we have an unhealthy ideal of masculinity that we try to live up to. Part of that ideal tells us that Real men do everything on their own. Real men don’t cry. Real men express anger through violence.
The byproduct is isolation. Most men spend the majority of their adult lives without deeper friendships, or any real sense of community. Not to mention a complete inability to release anger or sadness in a healthy way.
There is a fantastic documentary called The Mask You Live In, which explains how boys in our society are ultimately shaped into mentally unstable adults. My friend Ryan recommended this film to me, after confiding that he cried throughout the entire thing. I cried, as well.


Simon Sinek echoed similar insights on Glenn Beck’s show:
“We’re seeing a rise of loneliness and isolation. No one kills themselves when they’re hungry; we kill ourselves when we’re lonely. And we act out, as well.
In the 1960’s, there was one school shooting.
In the 1980’s, there were 27.
In the 1990’s, there were 58.
In the past decade, there have been over 120.
It has nothing to do with guns, it has to do with people feeling lonely.
How do we combat the loneliness that kids are feeling? All of them attacked people in their own community, and all of them attack people they blamed for their own loneliness.”
This loneliness compounds as men grow older.
Without deeper friendships or a strong sense of community, the isolation is soul-deadening and maddening. You are alone.
Any slight from someone you care about can feel emotionally traumatizing. After enough rejections and feeling like an outcast, you begin to believe that people are just cruel and not worth the effort. You perceive people as threats.
And the effects on our health are devastating. Here is Dr. Dean Ornish, the founder of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, on the effects of loneliness:
“I am not aware of any other factor — not diet, not smoking, not exercise, not stress, not genetics, not drugs, not surgery — that has a greater impact on our incidence of illness, and [chance of] premature death.”
Before we ask, “How could he do such a thing?” we have to understand how that person felt on a daily basis, and how those feelings grew over the years.
2- Men in the United States are deprived of play opportunities.
You might be offended by this suggestion.
How could this guy talk about play after a shooting?! Play is for kids!
Wrong.
Homo sapiens play more than any other species. It’s impossible to prevent a human from playing. We play shortly after we are born, and the healthiest (and least stressed) humans tend to play for their entire lives.
Play may be God’s greatest gift to mankind. It’s how we form friendships, and learn skills, and master difficult things that help us survive. Play is a release valve for stress, and an outlet for creativity. Play brings us music, comedy, dance, and everything we value.
Above all, play is how we bond with each other — it’s how we communicate “I am safe to be around, I am not a threat.” Play is how we form connections with other humans.
The irony is that loneliness would not be a problem if we all got ample time to play. Not only would we have deeper friendships, we’d also have better relationships with ourselves. Play allows us to enjoy our own company.
There is a strong correlation with play deprivation and mental illness.
When you deprive mammals of play, it leads to chronic depression. When you deprive a human child of play, their mental and emotional health deteriorate. Play suppression has enormous health consequences.
“But the Vegas shooter loved to gamble! He went on cruises!”
That’s not the type of play I’m talking about.
To better understand this dynamic, we need to look at the background of another mass shooter.
In 1966, Charles Whitman shot his wife and mother. Then, he climbed up the tower at the University of Texas in Austin, and shot 46 people. In total, he murdered 16 people. At the time, this was the biggest mass shooting of its kind in United States history.
Dr. Stuart Brown and his team of researchers were commissioned to find out what “The Texas Sniper” had in common with other mass murderers.
They gained a key insight when they examined their childhoods.
Brown recalls:
“None of them engaged in healthy rough-and-tumble play. The linkages that lead to Charles Whitman producing this crime was an unbelievable suppression of play behavior throughout his life by a very overbearing, very disturbed father.
Healthy and joyful play must be had in order to thrive. Boys need to wrestle with their dads, and they need to roughhouse with other boys. Parents and teachers need to play with their kids.
But more importantly, they need to encourage those kids to go out and play. And then, let them be.
“It’s 10 o’clock. Do you know where your kids are?”
Ever since that famous ad aired, parents have shamed each other into watching their kids like a hawk.
If you let your kid walk up the street alone, you’ll either get a call from another parent, or the cops will pick them up. Our kids are stripped of their right to experience life on their own terms.
In an effort to improve our kids’ test scores and beef up their future resumes, we’ve stripped away nearly all of their free play opportunities. Recess has been sacrificed in the name of Scantrons, and pills are prescribed to the kids whose bodies and minds cry out for play.
The result: A generation of the most anxious, depressed, and suicidal American children on record.
This is in alignment with Dr. Peter Gray’s research, who studied the epidemic of mental illness and the decline in play:
“Over the past half century, in the United States and other developed nations, children’s free play with other children has declined sharply. Over the same period, anxiety, depression, suicide, feelings of helplessness, and narcissism have increased sharply in children, adolescents, and young adults… The decline in play has contributed to the rise in the psychopathology of young people.


This is why I believe mental illness may be the biggest health crisis of our lifetimes. Because those kids will grow up into isolated adults who don’t know how to play, or seek out their friends when they are lonely. They have no emotional support.
They are alone.
In the most memorable chapter of So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, the author describes the research of James Gilligan, a young psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School in the 1970s.
Gilligan was invited to make sense of the Massachusetts’s prisons and mental hospitals, where he interviewed murderous inmates. He included in his notebook this heartbreaking observation:
“They would all say that they themselves had died before they started killing other people… They felt dead inside. They had no capacity for feelings. No emotional feelings. Or even physical feelings.
Universal among the violent criminals was the fact that they were keeping a secret. A central secret. And that secret was that they felt ashamed— deeply ashamed, chronically ashamed, acutely ashamed.
I have yet to see a serious act of violence that was not provoked by the experience of feeling shamed or humiliated, disrespected and ridiculed.”
ALL OF US will face difficult times in our lives where we will experience shame, humiliation, disrespect, and ridicule.
Do you know what gets us through those hard times?
Friendship: The love and support you get, from the people you play with.


Whatever the case, these factors about mass shooters are often true:
They are deeply lonely. They have no significant friendships to rely on, and very few quality people to confide in.
They experienced ongoing play deprivation. Their innate ability was crippled, and they struggle to maintain a healthy emotional connection with themselves and others.
They are deeply ashamed. They experienced extreme ridicule, rejection, or humiliation.
Are there other factors at play here?
Absolutely. Mass shootings are complex, and so are people. They don’t fit perfectly into our narratives.
Do the above three factors always lead to murderous behavior?
Of course not. But over time, they destroy an individual’s emotional health. And that’s the point.
We’ve created a culture where the first two factors — loneliness and play deprivation — affect everyone. And because friendship struggles to take root in this environment, we are more likely to be struck by the third factor — shame.
Even though we’re in the safest period in the history of civilization, these shootings will keep happening in America. They happen every single day. Guns are a part of the problem, and so is the media. But there is a bigger problem:
We are a culture that continually neglects the emotional health of our boys, and our men.
The good news is that you, as an individual, can make a difference.
Reach out to someone who you think could be lonely, and invite them to do something fun together. Keep inviting them. Build trust, and confide in each other. Set the example by being a safe and supportive person to be around.
If you’ve noticed their personality has drastically changed, invite them out for several hours. Be there for them. Encourage them to get professional help. You could save their life.

[fabiodriven]

I have read nothing in this thread nor have I seen or read one article having to do with this most recent tragedy. This is freestyle. My condolences to the dead and their loved ones.

Last night I had some company over, and earlier in the day it was just one friend and myself sitting at the fire talking before other people had arrived. He decided to bring up the subject of the most recent incident that took place in Las Vegas, knowing that I shelter myself from such subjects and that I wouldn't want to talk about it. As I repeatedly told him "I don't want to talk or think about that right now" he felt the need to spew at least a few pieces of his thoughts out, and one of the last things he said was "Just think twice before you go to any concerts or big events in the future".

Now, this really, really bothered me. What bothers me even more is I am the uncommon one for thinking the way I do and his train of thought is what society would consider "normal". Here we sit, in the land of the free, where everyone is afraid to do anything. So many things I do, people tell me I'm crazy. I mean I am crazy but not in the sense they mean. I live my farking life, that's what it's for right? Now my friend and almost everyone I know is sitting home in fear, afraid this could happen to them, all sad about this state of affairs, all wanting to be a part of something, will there be a special ribbon color for this event? One share=one amen? They all look to their maestro and all take their cue, and compete to show who's acting out their role best. Cue the sadness, let's all be sad now. You will be happy when they tell you that you should be as well, because your feelings and emotions are public property now. You'll be sad when they tell you that you should be.

I was able to shut him down and talk about something else, but a little while later another friend showed up, and then that friend brought up the same subject and wanted to have the same conversation. I sat silent for a very long time as they spoke about it, I wasn't going to tell the both of them to shut up. At one point I did speak up, and it turned into a rather heated discussion. Now, not only should I sit home, worry, and consume as opposed to going to concerts and living, but the two of these guys were both in agreement that something has to be done about "these gun laws". Here we farking go. Then it turns into the same heated debate with me trying to explain to these two that laws do not apply to criminals, making laws based on the actions of criminals which will affect law abiding citizens is absurd, and cars aren't governed to 55 because one guy crashed doing 200. I'm not even going to go down that road.

The point of this post is this; My friends, who are by no means the exception but rather the norm, who watch the news and partake in the bookfacing, are sad, afraid to go out, and think we need more gun laws. This to me, is clear as day mind control. As I've expressed my opinion on this subject before, your government does not rule with an iron fist and tell you "We're going to war with Iraq for oil and planetary domination" because nobody would go along with it. The soldiers, who for the most part are decent people, would drop their weapons and it would never happen. Gun laws are obviously a very touchy subject and clearly the powers that be would prefer we have less guns and ammo, however actually enacting that and slamming down the fist and saying "Ten round clips only, no more. No machine guns period, only 500 rounds maximum total per house hold. Etc..." If they tried to just impart that by force against many people's wills, it would turn into a war. That's not how our government works. Our government lies and goads you into getting behind their agenda for them, so you're now not only not against their idea, you're actually FOR IT.

A word to the wise, which many of you are. Do not let your TV or social media dictate your feelings, and do not be a part of the crowd. The crowd is tainted, it's bought and paid for. Do not listen to the conductor when he strikes his wand for you to react and do not base your day to day life on something that otherwise would have no effect on you if you didn't know about it. Live like you were meant to and use as much of your concern as you can on yourself and those around you. Things are going to get worse here before they get better, and I wish peace to all of our race. If you get out of this country and pull yourself as far away from the media as you can, then you start to see. I have seen friends cancel big life plans based on something the TV told them and it saddens me. There are true villains involved in all of these events, but it is extremely unlikely the true villains are being shown to you nor is the true story being told, I highly doubt it. One more thing that caught my ear while my buddies discussed this mess is how this particular killer "could have" gone anywhere. Apparently he scoped out Boston and other places as well.

So if you cut all the bullshit out, filter the news the way I do personally (clearly not for everyone), then translate the horse shite spewed by "informed" friends, you end up with the following-

Do not go to concerts or public venues or be extremely vigilant if you do so. Translation- "Stay home and worry and consume, do not exercise your freedom or express joy. If you must go out, be worried wherever you go."

We need more gun laws. Translation- "Please take my freedoms away that our forefathers fought and died for and took the time to ingrain into the very fiber of this country for the good of all, especially those who might have very little of otherwise in life. Give those who do not abide by the law more of an advantage, thereby giving me more reason to rely on my government for protection as well as more cause for concern." Our government would love us to be unarmed. If you give them an inch...

The killer scoped out other places and "could have" struck anywhere. Translation- "Worry everywhere you are, because this could happen anywhere and any time. This not only could happen to you, in fact it's very likely. You should worry wherever you are."

Always remember to mourn and be sad. Don't you dare try to live and be happy or, god forbid, get angry and find out who is really the cause of all this bullshite that keeps happening and do something about it. Just be sad.

This country doesn't have a gun problem, this country has a people problem, and it is fawking rampant. This issue will be treated the same way our hospitals work. They are in the business of treatment, not healing. If they were to heal you then they would be losing a customer. The people are acting exactly how they're supposed to be, following the cues, which will lead to more gun controversy. The guns are not the problem. Trying to enact gun laws after an event such as this is akin to giving someone medicine to stop them from sneezing because they have cancer. The laws are not the problem and therefor should not be to blame, nor should the current laws be criticized. This could all stop if people truly wanted it to. People are not being raised right, our kids in this country are for the most part little pukes. Sure kids can be great and fun and all that, but the more kids I meet the more concerned I am for our future as a country. This country is so messed up, and it gets worse every day, it doesn't get better. It is Idiocracy in real life, it's happening right in front of our faces. The problem isn't frigging guns.

EDIT- When I view this post on tapatalk, the first half is missing. If you are viewing this post and it starts out with "So if you cut all the bullshit out", you have missed the first half of the post. If you toggle to web view the entire post shows up.