THIS IS A SOMEWHAT MISLEADING HEADLINE: Explosive possessed by Stephen Paddock may have been used in NYC bombing.
The lede makes a bit more sense:
An explosive compound like the one found in Las Vegas mass shooter Stephen Paddock’s car and home is believed to have been used last year in an alleged terrorist bombing in New York City.
Authorities say they recovered an undisclosed amount of the compound known as Tannerite from Paddock’s home in Mesquite and 50 pounds from his car parked at Mandalay Bay, where he used firearms to mow down concertgoers at the adjacent Route 91 Harvest festival on Sunday.
Police have not said why the 64-year-old Paddock possessed Tannerite, which is unregulated and legally used by marksmen to create targets that emit a small cloud of smoke when they are struck. Authorities also found ammonium nitrate, another ingredient that can be used to build bombs, in his vehicle at the site of the shooting.
Yes, as the Las Vegas Review-Journal article goes on to note, Tannerite was used by an Afghan immigrant in a Chelsea district bombing last year in Manhattan that injured 31. It was also used by this guy a decade ago who created a viral video in the early days of YouTube of his Appple G4 blowing up:
So very unlikely an ISIS connection based on that alone, but that isn’t stopping their Twitter account from quadrupling down on their claims. However, at this point, as Rita Katz of the Insite on Terrorism Website writes, “Regardless of Paddock’s motivations, his attack in Las Vegas was a tragic act of evil. But ISIS has come too far to walk back its claims for the Las Vegas attack. Unless it wants its future claims to be dismissed, it will need to provide what it did for flight KGL9268 and other events: proof.”
And more puzzling early details emerge, via NBC:
The investigators are puzzled by two discoveries: First, a charger was found that does not match any of the cellphones that belonged to the gunman, Stephen Paddock.
And second: Garage records show that during a period when Paddock’s car left the hotel garage, one of his key cards was used to get into his room.
There are several possible explanations for these anomalies, the investigators say, but they want to get to the bottom of it.
They are also examining his finances. IRS records show that Paddock was a successful gambler, earning at least $5 million in 2015. Some of that could be from other investments, but most of it was from gambling, officials say.
On Wednesday, Mark Steyn spoke with Tucker Carlson about how, in an era of endless social media, weirdly blank Paddock’s Internet profile is. There’s video of the interview at Mark’s Website, to which he adds:
Whether or not he sat at gaming tables regularly, a thought occurred to me during the Sheriff’s press conference that this man’s “weirdly blank” public profile (as I put it) is closer to something like a contract killer than a mentally disturbed guy who suddenly snaps. I’m not saying this particular accountant is literally the eponymous accountant of Ben Affleck’s recent movie, but there is a level of efficiency and organization here that separates Sunday night’s carnage from almost all other single-shooter attacks.
So as the days go by this seems less and less like a lone wacko who suddenly cracks up.
Today, Steyn adds:
It is also interesting to note that Stephen Paddock apparently cased the “Life is Beautiful” concert in Las Vegas, headlined by the rapper Chance. The victims at that event would have been very different from those at the country music festival, and the press coverage would have been, too: Democrats would have stampeded down the “white supremacy” track rather than “gun control”. One senses that the killer, in his cold calculations, was aware, for whatever reason, of all these factors.
True, but as Allahpundit notes, the type of venue may have played a larger factor. “My theory for why he might have passed on an attack on the Life Is Beautiful festival was the sheer sprawl of the event, which spread out over 18 blocks. People might have been able to flee in all directions fairly quickly…It’s not the *event* that was key to his decision to attack, perhaps, but the site from which he staged it.”