When a 64-year-old gambler stockpiles an arsenal and sprays bullets into a crowd of concertgoers, some people want an exotic explanation. They refuse to believe the guy just snapped.
But I have to tell these folks that the world isn’t that interesting. Usually, the most ordinary explanation of tragic events is the right one.
No, the US government didn’t plot the Nine-Eleven attack on the World Trade Center (it wasn’t the Israelis, either). No, the Illuminati don’t secretly control our lives. No, the US government didn’t fake the kindergarten massacre at Sandy Hook, and, no, the victims were not just actors.
And no, Stephen Paddock (photo above) won’t turn out to be a terrorist.
Sorry, Alex Jones, I’m confident Paddock had no connection to Antifa or any other revolutionary group. What communist – or anarchist – would commit such an attention -getting atrocity without issuing a manifesto?
And if Paddock were an Antifa sympathizer, don’t you think he would wait to stage his macabre show on November 4, when their Revolution is supposedly scheduled to kick off?
What came to my mind when I learned of the Las Vegas massacre was an old Paul Simon hit. Especially these lines:
Now I sit by my window
And I watch the cars
I fear I’ll do some damage
One fine day
But I would not be convicted
By a jury of my peers
Still crazy after all these years
There are so many people who live on the brink of madness, secretly pondering acts of violence, like smoldering IEDs that could detonate randomly at any moment. Most of the time they never act out their fantasies, but sometimes they do. And it doesn’t usually have anything to do with a nefarious global conspiracy.
Sorry conspiracy theorists, we live in a humdrum world where tragedy often has a banal explanation and where events are often random. Dr. Evil (at right) exists only in Austin Powers movies.
The real horror is that our political leaders refuse to take even the most obvious steps to keep weapons capable of mass murder out of the hands of dangerous people.
