Stephen Paddock Essay

On the night of October 1, 2017, a gunman rained fire down on a crowd of concert goers at the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada, leaving 58 people dead and 546 injured. There are three key points of interest and discussion about this tragic event that have stuck out to the American and global publics as well as to journalists, politicians and social critics around the world. These are, who was the assailant and why did he do what he did, how did this incident affect people in America and affect America as a whole and
Between 10:05 and 10:15 p.m. PDT (pacific daylight time) 64-year-old Stephen Paddock of Mesquite, Nevada, fired hundreds of rifle rounds from his suite on the 32nd floor of the nearby Mandalay Bay

hotel down onto a crowd of around 22,000 country music fans. About an hour after Paddock fired his last shot into the crowd, he was found dead in his room from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police latter found 23 high calibre weapons in various places inside of his hotel room and found internet searches about American swat teams response times and other details about them also.

The incident passed the Orlando nightclub shooting of 2016 as the deadliest mass shooting committed by an individual in United States history. One of the three key points of discussion and interest surrounding the shooting was, who was Stephen Paddock and why did he do what he did. So then who was Stephen Paddock. Paddock was born on April 9th 1953 in Clinton, Iowa. He grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and Sun Valley, California, as the eldest of four sons of Benjamin Hoskins Paddock and Dolores Irene Hudson. According to his brother Eric, they never really knew their father as he was never with their mother or them. This was because his father Benjamin was a bank robber who was arrested in 1960 when Stephen was just seven years old. Benjamin was later convicted and escaped prison in 1969. After escaping he still never contacted young Stephen and the rest of his family. In 1971 Stephen graduated from John H. Francis Polytechnic High School, and then from California State University in 1977, with a degree in business administration. Paddock worked for the

federal government from 1977 to 1985, beforing opening a real-estate business with his brother Eric. Where they owned personal property in many areas of Los Angeles including North Hollywood from the 1970s to early 2000s. From the early 2000s to the early 2010s Stephen and Eric sold a lot of their properties so that they could retire comfortably. Although the Las Vegas Police Department has not released or found a clear motive for the shooting, there are certainly some big possibilities or reasons why Stephen Paddock could have committed the shooting.

Stephen Paddocks brother Eric and many neighbours and acquaintances described him as unfriendly, rude and as a loner. All traits that are very common in sociopaths, mass murderers and serial killers. Stephen was also a very prominent gambler who lost thousands of American dollars daily whilst he was gambling. A string of small loses over the years or just one major loss whilst gambling could have helped to lead Stephen down the dark path to committing a mass shooting. Another major reason why Stephen Paddock may have committed this horrible act is because of his father. Benjamin Hoskins Paddock who as mentioned before, was a bank robber and con man who escaped from United States federal prison in 1969 and was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list for nearly a decade. The FBI described his father as a man who “had been diagnosed as being psychopathic, with possible suicidal tendencies.” If this report by the FBI is to be believed then Stephen Paddocks father could have passed down to him his psychopathy, suicidal tendencies and criminal behaviours which then led Stephen to complete this absolutely disgusting atrocity. This idea that Stephen Paddocks father passed down psychopathic genes and criminal behaviours is further

strengthened by the fact that another one of Stephen Paddocks brothers Bruce Paddock was recently arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department on one count of possession of over 600 images of child pornography and 19 counts of sexual exploitation of a child. Although a clear motive has not yet to be found by police there are many different reasons as to why Stephen Paddock may have committed this horrific act, these include his loner personality, his major gambling addiction and the genetic and behavioural influence his father left on him and his brothers. All of these ideas mixed together may have brought Stephen Paddock enough pain, desperation and hopelessness to commit such a senseless appalling act.
Another key point surrounding the Las Vegas shooting was, how did it affect American people and American society as a whole. Well, it majorly affected the 58 that died in the shooting and the other 546 that were injured in the shooting as it ended the lives of those 58 people and physically and mentally injured and impaired nearly 550 others. It also affected all of the family’s of the 58 people that died and the 546 people that were injured as they would have been extremely sad and traumatized after such a horrible event where they lost fathers, mothers, brothers and lovers. As well as this it has made many Americans even more fearful to live in a country that has over 250 million guns inside of it, where incidents like this could happen anytime, anywhere. Another major way this has affected American people and society is that it has reignited the debate about gun laws in America. With the focus being on should items like bump fire stocks that make guns shoot faster be legal. This debate has been opened up because of the fact that Stephen Paddock modified his high-powered rifles with legal bump fire stocks that made them function like automatic weapons, capable of unleashing nine rounds per second, a rate of fire rarely seen off the field of war. Year after year now, mass shootings in America have broken record after record for casualties. From a university in Virginia to a gay club in Orlando, the body count is continuing to increase nationwide. And these sorts of terrible incidents are going to continue happening in America until they make some drastic changes to their laws on guns. New laws would obviously not completely end the problem but they could at least limit the carnage when a murderer goes loose. America has decided that grenade launchers should not be widely available; so why should devices that allow bullets to be fired at a rate of more than 400 rounds per minute be? The political divide in America on the topic of guns is not as big as it appears. As the majority of gun owners in the United States believe in some form of regulation large or small, and several Republican Senators have suggested they are open to compromising. The biggest challenge in bringing change to America is that the debate over gun rights there, isn't really about guns at all. It's about what they represent, cherished freedoms and an extremely high regard for independence. Guns in America are also a rejection of politically correct ideologies that seem to creep into everything these days. And even the smallest move to constrain these deadly weapons seems to many Americans to cut against their rights. But in the blood-soaked scene on the Vegas Strip three weeks ago, those deeply held beliefs collided with their collective horror. The question now, as a nation tries to make sense of a slaughter on a military scale, is where does it draw the line? The Las Vegas shooting has had a major effect on the American public and American society as a whole with many impacts including 58 deaths, 546 injuries and an increasingly fearful public. As well as reopening a discussion about gun laws in the country. All of these impacts and ideas together make the impact the shooting has had on America very significant.