Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Vegas Murders

I am incredibly saddened by the mass murder of concert goers outside of Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas this past Sunday night. Stephen Paddock, with unclear motives, stocked his hotel room with a sizable arsenal of automatic weapons and unleashed a deadly barrage upon the unsuspecting crowd. To me it is tragic, shocking, and sad. I mourn for the victims and the city.

The reason I encourage everyone to stop using the term 'shooting' and start using the term 'murder', is because it is the most accurate term for intentional loss of life. We have become so desensitized to the term 'shooting', that the only way we can truly grasp the reality of what happened Sunday night is to use the term 'murder'.

The second thing I encourage everyone to do is to stop using the term 'terrorism' until it is confirmed to be valid. The term 'terrorism' is defined as the 'unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims'. While the violence aspect of what Stephen Paddock did at the Las Vegas country music festival this past Sunday night is clearly evident by the 59 attendees killed and another 527 injured, there is no political motives that have been uncovered at all as of yet.

Both of the aforementioned terms are excessively used by the media to grab the headlines, viewers, and internet traffic. Such is the reality of the entertainment news delivery vehicles we live with. But news should not be entertainment. The news delivery vehicles should be impartial, objective, and avoid instilling fear or confusion in the minds of its viewers.

Politicians also hijack such tragedy for their own political agenda. They usurp the lives that were lost and changed forever in order to achieve their selfish crusade. Do not let them influence you. Think for yourselves and learn to recognize when exaggerated fear is being applied as a manipulative tactic in order to get a desired response from you.

Stephen Paddock was an independently wealthy reclusive individual with no political or religious affiliations. He owned various properties across the United States, gambled a lot, but was generally known as a nonviolent person. He texted his brother to check on their mother's health, after hurricane Irma ravaged Florida. He successfully passed Federal background checks at every gun shop he ever purchased a firearm from and showed no abnormal psychological tendencies before he turned violent Sunday night.

Those of you who know me are aware that the Las Vegas strip has been an annual destination to me over the past two decades. New York may be the city that never sleeps, but Las Vegas is the city where time is irrelevant. To many it serves as a destination for celebrating life's joyous events, a fun spot for business conferences, and an escape from everyday reality. In addition to the incredibly painful human tragedy, after Sunday night's events that image has lost some of its luster.

I sincerely ask all of you to not fall under the entertainment news media's influence of panic and fear. It causes needless confusion, division, and antagonism toward each other. It prevents us from uniting together as human beings and achieving a common voice with the politicians who should represent all of us. Think independently and find trustworthy news outlets like the BBC, that provides unbiased objective information and has no ulterior motives to pursue. We should all expose and shame the politicians who usurp tragedies for their own political means. Such people should never be allowed to hold an elected office ever again, because they are unable to represent anyone's interests except their own.


7 comments:

  1. Your suggestion that we use the word murder versus shooting - extremely powerful. I am taking this on board.

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  2. You bring up some important points and facts ...the way words can be used has a powerful impact ...the media twist the truth for thier own agenda and its disgusting . We need more people like you to give us factual informative in a non biased empathatic way, i believe more people will turn away from major news outlets and look to blogs such as yours for the real news, sorry for your grief

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  3. It's such a saddening state of affair. And like tragedies like that is often wont to do, there are sections of the society trying to blow it wide. My prayers are going up for the victims of the senseless attack.

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  4. Thank you for writing this considerate post regarding the such a tragedy - you bring forth many good points, I too will stop using the term "shooting".

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  5. Great and powerful post..thanks for sharing such a useful and important point..😃😃😃

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  6. It's absolutely heart breaking, God only knows what could have changed him so suddenly

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  7. Really heart breaking. Sending prayers to all affected.

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