WHY'D HE DO IT?

What caused Paddock to open fire, machine-gun-style, on a crowd of concert goers?  So far, no one knows.  Not yet anyway.  But they’re trying to figure it out.  Paddock’s brother, Eric, says “you’re not going to find a motive because he was a private guy.”  Maybe, but I think they might find a cause.

The Las Vegas Journal-Review says the massacre was the result of the 10-mg Valium tablets, taken once daily, that Paddock was prescribed over three months before the killings began.  That since ISIS laid claim to the event and since, reportedly, Paddock converted to Islam and since ISIS fighters have been found with Valium on them to make them more aggressive that it was the Valium that made Paddock aggressive and then execute the deed.

But then again the same newspaper says that Paddock probably quit taking the Valium as a result of being offended and stigmatized by online critics of people taking psychotropic drugs and thus moved him to become aggressive and violent.  [I’m glad this newspaper doesn’t practice medicine.]

Then someone asked the actress Kirstie Alley (maybe they didn’t) what she thought about it.  She tweeted that “all mass murders have the combination mix of drugs and guns”.  There, the end!  However, she did not offer an opinion about whether the mix of eating a lot of meat and guns mattered.  Or if it was consequential that Paddock, admitting in a law suit deposition, sat 14 hours every day for a year in front of a video poker machine.  But according to the Alley Theory of Mass Murders anyone who has prescription drugs and a gun in their house are potential mass murderers.  Alas, everyone has an opinion (and maybe a gun) – including doctors and actresses.

Then again maybe Paddock took too many Nugenix tablets.  You know, the new get-yourself-going-again testosterone product advertised by the very big, very virile, Frank Thomas who in the ad claims to the two ladies sitting at the next table “And you’re gonna like the difference too!” [Whatever that means :-)]  But this is probably not it either as I had two male patients recently tell me “the stuff ain’t worth diddly-squat!”   [I believe them.]

I think perhaps the answer to why he did it is going to probably be found, more likely than not, inside Paddock’s coconut.  We know from a study in 2012, the first of its kind, that violent video games materially change the brain cells in men and that this can be seen and measured on functional MRIs.  These changes were documented after only playing video games for 2 hours a day for two weeks. 

Is it possible that such intensive and cumulative electromagnetic exposure could change the brain cells in Paddock’s frontal and temporal lobes that diminished his emotional and affective state that prepped the cause for him to become aggressive?  I mean we know that our brain cells and heart cells emit electromagnetic impulses that can be measured with an EEG and EKG respectively.  The proposition isn’t really beyond the pale.

The brains of serial killers have been found to be atrophic in the areas of the orbital cortex making them free-wheeling types or sociopaths.  This was discovered by researcher James Fallon, who brain scanned serial killers and found that they have low activity in the orbital cortex, that part of the brain that governs and controls ethical behavior, moral decision-making and impulse control.   It’s also the part of the brain that suppresses impulsive behavior meaning there’s less normal suppression of behaviors like rage, violence, indulgent eating, sex, and drinking.

The overarching and broad reason Paddock was motivated is going to fall into one of four categories:  Obtaining money, experiencing the thrill, executing a sense of power, and the desire to rid the world of evildoers.  I’m guessing this prolific gambler might’ve been looking for a new and grandiose thrill.  And combined with the presumed brain pathology -- Voila!

So if I were asked to make a final diagnosis on why Paddock did it, I would have to go with something like “Aberrant behavior and disordered passions secondary to neuropathology of the brain”.  With the pathology most likely residing in the temporal (emotional) area, perhaps the right side which is associated with empathy for others.

Then again, just maybe the president was right when he said it was pure evil.  Maybe Paddock listened to the wrong angel -- the Fallen one.  It happens.