Nov 5, 2017 4 min read

The Oct. 16 edition of Time Magazine carried a feature story on the shooting in Las Vegas. Their writers seemed rightly shocked and dismayed by the mass murder, but missed the mark entirely. I noticed how they quickly linked the shooting to weapons, to white entitlement, and to an off-topic argument on suppressors, but never seemed to answer this question: What was the motive?

Writers Philip Elliott and Haley Edwards immediately identified guns as a root cause. It was not possession of weapons, however. Otherwise, the possession of nuclear weapons in large numbers would have already done us all in, and the possession of so many guns by so many people would have likewise exhibited immediate effect. As a corporeal being, you may possess a material thing, but a thing cannot by its material nature possess you. A gun does not have a mind or a will. So what was it that possessed accused gunman Stephen Paddock to do what he did?

Jill Filipovic wrote a piece identifying racist “white entitlement” as a root cause. It was not a racist sense of conservative white entitlement, however. Otherwise, the number of white men who are conservative, racist, and gun owners would (again) exhibit immediate effect. You would, in fact, have vastly more mass murder. I am a bit chagrined to have to point out to Filipovic, who is an attorney, that a white man shot other white people, and at a country music event no less. Why did race enter the story? Was Filipovic stereotyping whites?

Then there was a political piece on the desire by some Americans to own suppressors for their guns. It had nothing to do with the shooting, however. Otherwise, the killer would have used them, and been much more discreet about his location, rather than blasting away from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort. He planned his death just as he planned his killings; with intent. He made no effort to escape, or surrender. He no longer cared, because death comes to us all. It was life that bothered this man. So he drank the Cup of Death all the way down. Bloodthirsty death.

Now, as to motive, Paddock did not shoot the concertgoers because he was white, a gun nut, or racist. Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius would ask, “What was in his nature?” He had the money, house, girlfriend, and all the material gratifications promoted by America in general and Las Vegas in particular. He was a product of our society, which, if I were to judge by its values (that is, how we spend our money and time and on what we spend it), has no higher purpose than self-gratification. He was no longer gratified. Life became meaningless, as it always will if you devote it to nothing greater than Self. Viktor Frankl, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Jesus Christ all said as much. For what does it profit a man…? And if life is without meaning, then death is too. There is your motive: self-gratification.

The reason Time’s writers missed their mark was because, like Paddock, they have been conditioned by a society that taught them that material things equal fulfillment. Thus, it was impossible for them to see how a man with everything they were taught to want could be so empty once he had it all. The staff at Time obviously has a strong sense of purpose. Even so, it does us no good if they miss such a profound point about life – and death. Worse still is when good reporting is replaced with personal politics.

Katy Steinmetz was closer when she noted the definition of evil is the antithesis of good. But in reality, evil is not any thing at all, but a lack thereof; a lack of love, of joy, of any compassion, or hope. I recommend two good films to anyone seeking to understand what happened in Las Vegas, and why more mass murder will continue in the years to come. The first is “The Devil’s Advocate,” and the second is “Karol: A Man Who Became Pope.” Both films perfectly point to the real underlying cause of our disease, as well as our cure.