Rant #1,993: I Won't Back Down

Now, with some time to look back on what happened in Las Vegas, Nevada, the other night during a country music concert, we really don't know much more than we did when this horrid incident happened.

There is still no motive for the carnage, but what we do know is the number of dead, which now stands at 58 and will probably be higher when all is said and done with this.

But there is still no motive for this, and without a motive, we really cannot really even begin to understand what was going through this individual's head when he did what he did, so while we know more about the carnage, and we know more about the person that did this, we really don't know that most important piece of information: Why?

From what I had heard, the guy, who was 64 and lived in a retirement community, was a successful businessman, and most recently, something of a professional gambler.

He had never had any run-ins with the law--save a traffic ticket--but his father was once on our country's most-wanted list as a bank robber, I believe.

The man was not fully estranged from his family, although he only communicated with them sporadically over the past decades.

Experts say that this was a planned attack, an attack that was not only not spur of the moment, but may have been planned for not moments, minutes, or days, but years.

The man had an arsenal of weapons in his hotel room, and some of the guns were modified to shoot not just bullets, but rounds of bullets using clips that could be quickly engaged and then quickly discarded when they were empty.

A further search of the man's car and home found that he had an even greater arsenal of weapons at his disposal, and he also had the type of fertilizer that can be used to build bombs.

The arsenal of weapons that he had were purchased and owned legally by the man, by way of Nevada state law.

Yes, the man was sick, he was depraved, he was a mental case, but he still had the mental capacity to plan all of this, and then do it.

We many never know why, and that is where all of this hits a brick wall.

There were rumors that he was a convert to Islam and had joined Isis, and that terror organization has claimed responsibility for the attack.

However, officials claim that they have found absolutely no ties between that organization and the man.

That could be true, or that could be what they are telling us to calm our fears.

At this point, who knows?

I will bet that one byproduct of this whole thing will be that down the line, many hotels will employ metal detectors, and if you stay or even walk through that particular hotel, you will have to go through some type of check to make sure that you aren't bringing something nefarious into that environment, much like we have in airports.

How very, very sad.

And I know that this is a difficult segueway, but who knows what was going on yesterday afternoon when CBS reported that rocker Tom Petty had died of a heart attack.

By mid-afternoon, the Internet was abuzz with this story, and if a venerable news organization like CBS said he had passed, well, why question it?

The problem was that Petty was not dead yet.

Yes, he had suffered a massive heart attack that pretty much left him brain dead, but he had not yet passed when CBS reported that he had died.

TMZ, not always the most reliable source for information, later refuted CBS's claim, and evidently, they were right.

But Petty did pass away later on, but hours after CBS had labeled him a goner.

Petty's family was understandably upset at CBS's errant call, as were fans across the world.

The musician was the all-American rocker, hitting his stride in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s as a long-lasting presence on the hit single and album charts, propelled by him somehow becoming an MTV darling during the height of the rock video revolution.

Looking like a character out of "Alice in Wonderland," Petty, with his top hat in place, had numerous hit videos leading to hit songs, including the title of this Rant, words of wisdom that we all need today.

Petty was just 66, and he will be missed.

I know it was a poor segueway, but I guess the connecting point is "I Won't Back Down."

None of us should, not in the face of an incident that has hit the country where it hurts.

It made Petty's passing almost a footnote, but his loss is a great one.

We send our condolences to him, his family and to those who perished and were injured by that crazed gunman.

Again, I am blending two things together that really have nothing to do with each other, but again, in the face of such horror, that title of Petty's song still rings true.

"I Won't Back Down"--and none of us ever should.