My guess is the Las Vegas shooter was suicidal in a very weird way. Something in him snapped, but it snapped a long time ago, and the amount of time it took for him to plan this and carry it out is an awkwardly long time to be suicidal. There was contempt and hate fueling his death march to the Mandalay Bay. Sometimes when I try to understand a person’s motives, I play a little game. What is the worst reason he could have had for doing this? Insanity? Russia? If we could only have gotten a snapshot of his psychopathology and synaptic condition the last few weeks leading up to the night of the concert…

Large crowds are the prime target for anyone who wants to kill a lot of people. And they can do so with relative ease from a high position using an automatic rifle, especially against a crowd at a concert where the saturation density of people can become so high that it prevents exfiltration of those who wish to leave in a hurry.

It is damn amazing that more people didn’t die in Las Vegas. I’m rather astounded based upon the fact that the gunman was firing from two different vantage points, each position having interior cover. Ive heard an estimate from a news media outlet that it took nine minutes for a group of police officers to assemble, figure out where the shooting was coming from, converge on the hotel and neutralize the shooter.

9 minutes.

Not 19. Not 90. Not long enough for him to expend all of his ammo. 9 minutes. That is amazing response time. And there was also a great coordination response from the Mandalay Bay security personnel. It would seem that LVPD and localized security teams have actually spent some time preparing for this kind of thing, and they have done so with diligence and dedication. My hats off to the Sin City badges and the hotel patrols.

Now its time to get that response time to come down even lower. I think that we need to start protecting these large musical events with active firepower. Its time to assume that someone is going to show up and start shooting. The security at these events needs to resemble the preparation of an event that will be attended by the President. When the POTUS is going to make an appearance, the Secret Service show up in advance and do a risk analysis of the entire area, looking for any place a shooter could position himself. They lock the area down, perform area-denial of all places advantageous to a combatant and post sharp shooters in every direction waiting for someone to get stupid.

Understandingly, there are more risks involved with using rifles to keep people from using rifles around large crowd, but I think these risks can be managed. It is worth the risk, planning and effort to keep a well trained and well focused team at the ready. Had the shooter had a few expert marksman to keep him busy the moment that he broke out the glass of his 32nd story window, there would have been fewer casualties.

And there is plenty of money in the budget for these events to pay for it. How much do we pay for Cochella and Outside Lands? Yeah… the margins are there to the point that this protection doesn’t have to be passed on to the consumer.

I attend concerts like this one all the time. I’m still going to. Shoot at me all you like. You are not going to stop me from seeing my favorite band. I just hope the promoter has somebody ready to shoot back at you when the time comes.