Conspiracy peddlers still profit off tragedy

It’s been one year since the tragic shooting in Las Vegas that claimed 58 lives and left more than 500 were wounded when a shooter armed with rifles modified to shoot on full auto opened fire on a crowd of thousands at a country music festival.

The shooter, Stephen Paddock, 64, unlike his victims, chose his time to go by shooting himself before he could be arrested.

A year later, we still don’t know much about why he did it. We probably never will.

As it is with most mass shootings, the usual debate over gun control began the next day and wasn’t unexpected. There was lots of earnest emotion from people across the world expressing sorrow for the victims and their families. We unfortunately seem to only see the best of humanity come out when there is a massive tragedy like this.

Of course, that was followed by political opportunism from many politicians and self-righteous bloviating from social media. It’s an unfortunate side effect that springs from the natural discussion of “how could we have prevented this?” and “what can we do to make sure it doesn’t happen again?”

While opportunists and narcissists may be annoying, they don’t induce rage like the conspiracy theorists — or maybe to be more accurate, conspiracy peddlers.