Las Vegas Shooting Leaves at Least 50 Dead, More Than 200 Wounded (wsj.com) 1219
Readers share a report: At least 50 people are dead and more than 200 wounded after a shooting late Sunday at a music festival on the Las Vegas Strip (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternative source). Police said they were first alerted to reports of an incident at 10:08 p.m. and then determined there was a shooter on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino who was targeting the nearby Route 91 Harvest Festival. Joseph Lombardo of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said in a briefing that officers responded and shot dead the suspect. He said the suspect was a local resident but declined to identify him, citing the ongoing investigation. Police are also trying to locate a female companion, who they named as Marilou Danley, who was traveling with the suspect.
We need more guns (Score:4, Funny)
This is what happens when you don't have enough guns. If some of those poor people in the crowd had had rifles, they could have taken the shooter out before so many died.
Re:We need more guns (Score:5, Funny)
Re:We need more guns (Score:5, Funny)
Alexa, shoot that guy.
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Dear Alexa Support,
This morning I asked Alexa "Who's that Guy" and it misinterpreted what I said as "shoot that Guy". This is problematic for me because I now have a dead Jehovah's witness on my doorstep. I guess what I'm asking is... can I have a refund for my Alexa?
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taking out some shooting from high up on the ground is not easy.
Re:We need more guns (Score:5, Interesting)
The best news article I have seen so far come out of this tragedy is this guy [thesun.co.uk] who didn't duck down, and instead drank his beer and looked to spot the shooter, then gave him the finger.
Brave, stupid, and conveying a message from all of us.
Re:We need more guns (Score:4, Informative)
Let's assume you aren't joking. How many people would have to be killed before some local with a gun takes out the gunman and you would then consider this a success of more guns? What, maybe 1 or 2. With modern weapons, you can easily kill 10 people before some idiot with his own weapon guns you down and manages to miss all the other people s/he wasn't aiming at.
The problem for the gun advocates is they campaigning for a minimum level of gun violence, yet they never tell us what that minimum level is, or how to keep normal people from buying guns, losing their minds, and then killing off a bunch of the rest of us. And if you have ever spent time with the mentally ill, you'd realize a good many of them can come off normal for everyday life. There's a percentage that will go all the way down the rat hole. Some will even take their medication on the way down.
I thought a congress critter getting his ass shot off would change the atmosphere on Capital Hill towards gun control. Nope, it only made the gun nuts stronger.
Re:We need more guns (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:We need more guns (Score:5, Informative)
I think the problem with most laws that have been put forth for removing a person's 2nd amendment right, for reasons of such things as mental illness, spousal abuse, etc....is that they are set up such that it immediately removes the rights from the accused, and leaves little if no rights to due process for that person to either defend themselves against the charges or have those rights restored once remediation steps have been made.
But they way most of these laws have been written, mere accusation by a disgruntled spouse or any party that may have a grudge against the accused, causes the accused to immediately have their rights revoked and allow to have their property confiscated. Basically they laws proposed have made you guilty until proven innocent.
We don't like that with any other of the amendments in the constitution, why should we be so willing to allow it for the 2nd?
Re:We need more guns (Score:5, Informative)
The NRA has fought multiple lawsuits so that blind people could buy guns. And not "legally blind" where they just have very bad eyesight. People who can't even see light and dark.
On the mental health front, the NRA has fought to prevent any restrictions until the person is institutionalized or legally declared insane. Therapist is concerned about a patient's suicidal ideation and repeated statements that the patient want to "take out" people with their arsenal? The NRA has fought very hard against efforts to do anything with that arsenal. Including fighting against being able to go to a court in an attempt to get that arsenal away from the crazy person.
The NRA tells a story about keeping guns away from crazy people, and then fights very hard to prevent people from being declared crazy. You've only listened to the first part, and haven't looked at their actions surrounding the second.
Re:We need more guns (Score:4, Informative)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re:We need more guns (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets face it.. if killing 20 toddlers in a school did not change the laws, nothing will. It's a sad truth, but a reality because in the US, money reigns supreme, and the NRA has a metric shit ton of money that they throw around, not just to prevent changes to gun laws, but even to prevent research being done. Did you know that the CDC is not permitted to research gun violence (they did a study once a few years back by using some weird data gathering mechanism to avoid running afoul of some random rules the NRA has managed to get the Feds to agree to) because the NRA has effectively blocked federal funding into any gun research.
Yeah.. this country is currently fucked...
Re:We need more guns (Score:5, Insightful)
It is their members who show up without fail to every election. Especially the low turn out local elections.
Till Democrats motivate their base to show up in every little election, we will lose. Always.
It is not money. It is lack of motivation by our base.
Re:We need more guns (Score:4, Insightful)
Consistently high cortisol levels and an overactive amygdala turns people into joiners. It's a safety reflex to run with your own crowd.
My politics are the politics of less cortisol, and I'm not especially keen to sign up to anyone else's mindless, group-thinking base.
Fear is a weird thing. Having your gun taken away: soul destroying. Trump negotiating with North Korea: mild anxiety. Not only do you have to whip up fear to mobilize your base, but it also has to be fear of something puny, yet personal.
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We just have to resign ourselves to the fact that this is the trade-off we've chosen. The universe doesn't owe us solutions that make us completely happy. The best you usually get is some kind of utilitarian trade-off.
Events like this are the price of your enjoyment of your
being able to enjoy high-power semi-automatic weapons with large, interchangeable magazines. That doesn't make what happened here you fault in any way; given that what happened here is possible you might as well go ahead and enjoy yourse
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50 dead is 3.5 weeks in chicago.
Re:We need more guns (Score:5, Informative)
The ranking you have given Chicago is based on its membership in an arbitrary set of cities chosen for a wikipedia table. If you include *all* municipalities with a population of at least 25,000 (e.g. large enough that a small spate of murders doesn't have a big statistical effect) then Chicago does *not* crack the top 30.
Here are the top ten using the 25,000 cutoff:
10 Camden, NJ: 42/100,000
9 New Orleans, LA 42/100,000
8 Detroit, MI: 44/100,000
7 Flint, MI : 47/100,000
6 Petersburg, VA: 49/100,000
5 Baltimore, MD: 55/100,000
4 St. Louis, MO: 60/100,000
3 Gary, IN: 65/100,000
2 Chester, PA: 67/100,000
1 East St. Louis, IL: 71/100,000
Chicago, at 18 murders / 100,000 population isn't even close. However, while Chester PA is an extremely dangerous place to live, you can't maintain a media narrative of a murder epidemic with a city of only 34,000 people.
What sets Chicago aside from all the cities on this top ten list is that is larger; not only larger, but massively larger, 2.72 million. If you choose a large enough population it will generate a regular stream of murders, relatively consistently from year to year. It's like comparing the absolute number of murders in California to those in Louisiana; Louisiana is much, much more dangerous, but it has about 10% of the population. Some years will be more murder-y than others there, whereas California is statistically large enough it will produce over 2000 murders/year like clockwork.
Now Chicago has the highest murder rate among the largest cities in the US, but not by much:
New York 8.5 million 3/100,000
Los Angeles 3.97 million 7/100,000
Chicago pop 2.72 million 15/100,000
Houston pop 2.29 million, 13/100,000
Phoenix pop 1.56 million, 7/100,000
Now the interesting thing here is that the murder rate and absolute number of murders in Houston are very, very close to that of Chicago, but you never hear about the murder epidemic in Houston. It's because this is a narrative being pushed by Fox News, the propaganda arm of the Republican Party, and Houston is in a red state.
Re:We need more guns (Score:5, Insightful)
t's a sad truth, but a reality because in the US, money reigns supreme, and the NRA has a metric shit ton of money that they throw around
Actually, the NRA has two things. Money is one of them, as you have said.
The second is a rabid following who will vote for anything that the NRA says is gun control. No matter what else that particular politician does.
Politician A fights to keep your industry alive, lower your taxes, rebuild the roads you drive on every day, but wants concealed carry to require a permit.
Politician B fights to end your job, raise your taxes and destroy all infrastructure, punch you in the face every Tuesday, but wants concealed carry without a permit.
NRA supporters will always vote for Politician B. No matter how much they are hurt by all the rest of the policies.
Re:We need more guns (Score:4, Interesting)
There is one way to get more gun control in the US.
Hand out assault rifles to Black Lives Matter protesters. Gun control laws would suddenly become very, very important to many of the people who are horrified by gun control today.
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Re:We need more guns (Score:4, Insightful)
It's funny you say that, because the first gun control laws were aimed at disarming black people so they couldn't protect themselves from Klan violence.
And the wave of gun control laws after that was in response to the Black Panthers.
Heavily arm dark-skinned people, and suddenly gun control changes from "unthinkable violation of the Constitution" to "sensible idea".
Re:We need more guns (Score:4, Insightful)
Except that now he had two options. Truck and gun. Leaving him only one (like in most sane countries) is a good start.
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The cure is worse than the disease in America's case. There are three possible treatments:
1. Stronger controls on guns
2. Free, high quality mental healthcare
3. More guns
Number 3 is the least effective but also hated by fewer people than 1 or 2.
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Re:We need more guns (Score:5, Insightful)
OK Mr Internet Tough Guy ..
If I was there and I had a gun, I would have stopped this after 6 people died. That's the magic number where I flip to Rambo mode and start randomly spraying bullets in a futile effort to stop the shooter.
You do know that the shooter wasn't in the crowd and was in fact on the 32nd floor of a hotel a good 300 to 400 yards away? Your puny hand pop gun (if you actually have one) would have done jack shit in this case.
I think we need to execute Mr Stephen Paddock.
You're too late.
Re:We need more guns (Score:5, Insightful)
And even if he did have a rifle.. at night, with hotels that are lit up like christmas trees, good luck figuring out which window in a hotel with 43 floors, and almost a hundred rooms per floor, the shooter was firing from. And even then, the security and the police on the ground would have more than likely assumed that you (the good guy with a gun) was actually one of the perpetrators.. so you (again, good misguided idiot with a gun) would likely have been killed.
The whole good guy with a gun theory is completely asinine, it just adds to the confusion, and rarely if ever has a good outcome.
But good luck getting the gun nuts to agree with that.. You cannot argue with a stupid person with a big dick.. I mean gun in his hand.
And for the record, I am not anti gun, I grew up with them, I enjoy shooting them at the range when I get a chance. I am however against stupid and irresponsible people with guns and am for major changes and strengthening of gun control laws.
Re:We need more guns (Score:5, Insightful)
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Case in point is when a Sudanese immigrant shoots up a church in Tennessee and the usher goes to his car and gets his handgun.
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FYI, the shooter in that incident actually shot himself, the usher just went and got his and held the shooter till the police got there.. not the best example, but I will concede it is better than most come up with for a good person with a gun.
Re:We need more guns (Score:4)
So what you're saying is it would take more area-capable firearms to combat this problem. I agree.
If only Congress would allow concealed missile carry then someone could have launched a Tomahawk towards the general area of the shooter before he managed to kill so many.
Re:We need more guns (Score:5, Insightful)
He said rifle. Do you have a reading comprehension problem?
No I don't. I also don't make up shit on the internet to sound tough.
The only type of person capable of taking out that shooter from the crowd at the critical moment would be a fully trained and equipped sniper with combat experience, and who was also expecting the threat and was in already position.
Now do you want to bullshit some more about how you can shoot into specific hotel room from 400 yards away with a civilian rifle, which you just happened to be carry to a music festival?
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Are you starting to realize now how stupid it is to suggest more guns are the answer to every gun problem.
You still fail at reading by the way. He also already mentioned it would be futile...
OK Mr Reading Wiz .. care to comment about how I was replying to the AC who said:
If I was there and I had a gun, I would have stopped this after 6 people died.
Re:We need more guns (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, the AC also said "in a futile effort to stop the shooter" which kind of indicates they know it's a ridiculous reaction and that's the point they were making - I don't read the original ACs post as anything other than sarcastic and perhaps lightly trolling.
Re: We need more guns (Score:4, Insightful)
Except everyone is innocent until they're not. It's about prevention. Don't see why having stricter requirements is considered "punishment". I don't want to die because of your silly hobby.
Re: We need more guns (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want to die because of your silly hobby.
Silly hobbies like driving vehicles or cooking pot roast with a pressure cooker? That sort of thing? I don't want to die in a crowd of 80 other people because someone who's been allowed to drive has decided today to run down a bunch of pedestrians. Or die because someone who thinks I'm insufficiently obedient to allah has decided to use $50 worth of kitchen tools and hardware store supplies to slaughter a crowd full of people. Prevention is the key. No more passenger vans or pressure cookers, obviously.
False equivalence much? (Score:3)
One can't take a well defensible, higher ground, position, lock himself up there and keep lobbing cars or pressure cookers at thousands of people half a mile or more in the distance.
Nor can one ambush those thousands of people with a car. Or keep running over people once they realize that the driver of said car is running people over.
Purely based on a fact that a car is a lot more visible and avoidable than a bullet.
One can dodge a Dodge but one can't bullet a bullet.
And while one CAN ambush people with a p
Re: We need more guns (Score:5, Interesting)
Tell that to all the dead people in EU that have been victim of being killed by a terrorist using a motorized vehicle as a weapon.
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As the other poster said, it's not really easy to stop cars from running people over. Happens all the time (usually not intentionally).
Also, it's not hard to turn a pressure cooker into a bomb as you're claiming.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]: "Pressure cooker bombs are relatively easy to construct".
High explosives (like TNT, C4) are not required and low explosives can be used (gasoline, gunpowder), which is part of the reason for how easy they are to make.
Re: We need more guns (Score:4, Insightful)
So leave people, innocent civilians, who register their guns, alone please.
Re: We need more guns (Score:5, Informative)
Err....as far as I know, in most states you do NOT have to register a gun with the state.
If buying from an FFL dealer, you do go through a background check. But that is not registering the weapon.
And in many states, a private transaction between two private individuals, of the sale of a firearm, there is no need for a background check, just is pretty much the same as selling a used cell phone between two private parties.
Things that ARE registered with the Feds....fully automatic weapons. And the Hughes amendment in 1986 pretty much bans the sale of new automatic weapons. The only ones floating around for sale that were manufactured prior to May 19, 1986.
So, to get a full auto weapon, the supply is limited to what was manufactured prior to this date, AND you have to go through a pretty background check, and the cheapest you can get one usually is north of maybe $16K - $20K on the CHEAP side.
The audio sounded like he was somehow using a full auto.
If this were the case, then it would be pretty much the first use of full auto in the US for a crime like this in modern history.
Oh...and other types of arms that need to have special NFA registration, are SBS, SBR and suppressors....those require background checks by the Feds, and $200 tax stamp too..
But regular arms other than these, for most states, do not require registration with local, state or federal entities.
Most gun owners are not criminals.
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I find that the question isn't "can these things be completely prevented", the question is: "how can we greatly reduce the incidence of mass shootings"? Countries like the UK and New Zealand have low incidences of these kinds of events, whereas America's incidence is very high. Having sensible laws that make it difficult for lone nuts getting hold of large magazine weapons is pretty effective.
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Guns are not a silly hobby, they are an enshrined RIGHT. You are asking for something the government does not have the power to do.
I see plenty of people cheering Trump on for trying to curb the enshrined right of freedom of speech of NFL players protesting. They seem to forget that symbolic speech is protected by the 1st Amendment. And while the government doesn't have the power to completely remove these rights, they do have the power to put reasonable checks on the exercise of those rights (it's ok to protest, but don't block streets; felons can't own firearms; automatic weapons should be heavily regulated, etc). Mandatory initia
Free speech of NFL players (Score:5, Insightful)
This is bullshit. There is no such right [thewrap.com]. The 1st Amendment protects them from government prosecution — one can not be jailed for making a statement. It does not protect them — nor anyone else — from the disgust of their fellow citizens. Private employers may fire assholes — indeed, just the other day y'all were celebrating [washingtonpost.com] firings of the folks (accused of) taking parts in KKK marches [theatlantic.com]...
Consistency much?
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Re: We need more guns (Score:5, Insightful)
How about this, then? Allow the CDC to study gun violence in the US? Currently, they are prevented from doing so. This leads to any gun control legislation being well intentioned but reactionary at best. If the CDC were allowed to study the issue and issue a report, that could be used to craft gun control laws that wouldn't impact the vast majority of law abiding gun owners while decreasing the incidence of mass shootings like these. Or the report might show that no amount of gun control law would solve this, in which case, we could move on to other possible solutions.
To use your Equifax example, we don't just shout "Put up more firewalls" if a company is hacked. We examine how the hack occurred. Did software not get patched? Did employees fall for phishing scams? Was a laptop with passwords left in an employee's car? Once we figure out how the hack happened, we can take measures to prevent future hacks. In fact, oftentimes companies will pay people to "hack" into their systems. These intrusion detection companies will find the holes in your computer defenses so you can address them before a hacker exploits them just as the CDC could find the "holes" that are allowing mass shootings to happen so that we can fix it.
Re: We need more guns (Score:5, Informative)
Except your silly idea means we do not take any preventative action
Yeah, systems that protect innocent people have that drawback. Totalitarianism is much more straightforward -- you just do whatever you want, prevent anything, without considering innocence or guilt.
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Witholding access to firearms from unstable people is too much to ask?
As long as there's legal due process, no.
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The difference is that computers are designed for innocent use
Self defense is innocent use.
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True, but if it's incredibly difficult to get a gun, they won't have one when they want to use one. Look at the difference in numbers of people killed - that tells you the complete story, as opposed to comparing two single events.
Perhaps finally we can put an end to this (Score:5, Funny)
We can put an end to this controversy once and for all.
They said not to ban it. They said we needed more of it. They said not to limit our rights for the sake of a few.
Now look where we are.
It's finally time, once and for all, to put an end to country music.
I don't the answer to this... I really don't (Score:3, Interesting)
As a first responder, this is the kind of stuff we train for and pray we'll never have to respond to. I was doing active shooter training at my town elementary school just last month, and our typical gallows humor was on wide display, the only way we can deal with what would be a horror show in the best possible circumstances and only goes downhill from there.
This kind of thing never happened when I was a kid. How have we as a society come to this? And more importantly what's the answer. Ban guns? I don't personally own a gun and have little thoughts about them one way or the other, but with millions of guns on the street would this ever make a difference? If you ban automatic weapons, are not many regular weapons relatively easy to modify? And much like the war on drugs, I can't help but feel that a war on guns would have much the same effect - people who want them can still readily get them and our prisons are filled to bursting with low-level offenders. Maybe we ban all brown people from coming into the country, except this guy in Vegas wasn't brown, has lived here all his life, and from his profile it seems unlikely he is a jihadist (further information pending). Perhaps this is the fault of our frayed medical safety net which leaves people with serious mental illnesses more or less to fend for themselves, but you can't force people to get mental help or take their medication regularly when they do - as a guy with a bipolar sister, I can swear to that.
Meanwhile politicians will go on TV and spew whatever talking points support whatever their tracking polling tells them, and people out for a night on the town will continue be shot en mass. Anyone have any new ideas, or can convince me that something old will sound somehow new and fresh this time around?
Re:I don't the answer to this... I really don't (Score:5, Insightful)
tl;dr: I don't have the answer either.
It seems like a tricky area to do reliable research on. It's not like you have two virtually identical countries and can ban guns in one and not the other and see how it all pans out. Australia's changes to gun laws following their Port Arthur massacre might be cited to show restrictive legislation can work, but then again it's very difficult to control for other influences (IIRC gun related violence was already on a downward trend, but with the trend seeming to accelerate after the new legislation).
Then there are nations with both restrictive legislation _and_ high rate of gun ownership, that do not have these issues. So one could argue that might be the way to go. For example, in my own nation (Norway) we have a high rate of gun ownership, but "for protection" is simply not a valid reason to buy a firearm. You buy one for hunting, or for sports. For handguns you need to pass a safety course and be an active member of a club for a minimum of six months, at which point you can buy a safe approved for firearms storage (requirements being designed to prevent the firearm from being stolen) and then _apply_ for a permit to purchase a handgun. Typically you'll get approved, but the police does check with your club so if you've been behaving like an idiot and ignored safety protocols and such, they'll let the police know. In other words, this serves to instill a mindset of safety with regards to firearms.
Do I think that's the holy grail of how to sort out gun violence? To be honest, no. It works for us, because we are us. We're a society where people do not in general view firearms as something you need for protection. We don't sit on our back porch taking potshots at bottles (hey, I'm entitled to at least one stereotype here, I figured). Where police are still not generally armed. How can what works here be expected to work in a nation like the US, where the primary argument for gun ownership seems to be protection from your neighbors and your own government? Where there's a very real risk of a traffic stop turning into a shootout?
Now, I do think the US legislation and culture when it comes to gun ownership is nothing short of bonkers. That doesn't mean I can claim to know what might work to help solve it. Although I don't see many ways of making it worse, so just about anything seems worth trying.
Re:I don't the answer to this... I really don't (Score:4, Interesting)
The pattern I've noticed in the U.S. is that densely populated areas with relatively fast police response times (a few minutes) generally favor gun control. Sparsely populated areas with slow police response times (15+ minutes) generally favor individual gun ownership. The "you don't own a gun so you call someone with a gun (police) to protect you" argument has very different connotations depending on which type of area you live in.
I'm not sure what sort of solution this suggests, if any. Increased police presence in rural areas (to maintain the same number of cops per square mile and thus the same response time) is probably unfeasible. Just pointing out the pattern I've noticed and why some of the pro/anti gun control arguments which ring true in one location may sound like total nonsense in another.
Re:I don't the answer to this... I really don't (Score:4, Interesting)
Lack of information doesn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
That indelible quality to whatever gets said first (see, for example, the perfectly incorrect Ferguson story that's still impervious to reality) is well understood now, and creates a sort of awful race to get into that "first mover" narrative position because that's now all that matters. It's not a new observation to say that the 24 hour news cycle generates endless blathering by talking heads looking to fill broadcast time, but the social media frosting on that cake has added an even worse and in many ways far more toxic new layer.
Re:Lack of information doesn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
You are absolutely correct, so I'll make a stab at an indelible fact....
The guy was crazy.
There, I said it. Crazy dude gonna do crazy dude stuff. The fact that he was a big fan of "Blood Drive" on SyFy might sidetrack some folks, but I'm gonna put my chit down on uncontrolled schizophrenia. Others might dig into his political affiliations. But even if he's been to see Milo and has a Bernie T-shirt with a white power pin, I'm still going with crazy. Everything else is a symptom.
I can tell because the "not crazy" bucket includes "people who don't shoot at large crowds". And the "people who shoot at large crowds" bucket doesn't really include "not crazy".
I'll also make a prediction: nobody cares. HuffPo is already on record calling for gun control and talking politics. (that was when the death toll was 20, BTW) Remember the "bath salts" guy who ate the dude's face in Miami? Yeah, nobody remembers that he wasn't on any sort of drugs. He was crazy. Crazy dude gonna do crazy dude stuff. That's how they roll.
So you are right. And nobody cares..... because they have an ax, and they intend to grind it.
Re:Lack of information doesn't matter (Score:5, Interesting)
You are absolutely correct, so I'll make a stab at an indelible fact....
The guy was crazy.
There, I said it. Crazy dude gonna do crazy dude stuff. T
It is probably worth remembering that one of the first (and only) things this Congress did was to overturn Obama-era rules that restricted gun sales to people with certain severe mental illnesses. Now granted those rules wouldn't have caught this guy, because they only applied to people with very severe and obvious delusions. Statistically your likelihood of running into one of these people toting a gun is practically nil, but eventually someone is going to.
Congress did this in the same act that repealed the rule that required coal mines to monitor water quality in adjacent streams.
Re:Lack of information doesn't matter (Score:5, Informative)
It is probably worth remembering that one of the first (and only) things this Congress did was to overturn Obama-era rules that restricted gun sales to people with certain severe mental illnesses.
Not quite. The repeal does not change any actual firearm regulations; there have been (and still are) laws on the books that prohibit the sale of guns to some groups of people based on mental illness. All they did was remove a questionable reporting requirement from the Social Security Administration that tried to equate "has trouble handling finances" with "potentially dangerous mental defect"
When the ACLU agrees with the NRA on something, it might be worth digging deeper...
Not an off the shelf weapon (Score:4, Insightful)
The weapon was fully automatic, which is very tightly regulated. It is likely the shooter either modified a weapon illegally or obtained one on the black market. That is no normal "assault rifle".
I slowed down one of the eyewitness videos and used a tap-counter to count how many rounds were fired. I counted 80 rounds in a single burst. He was either using a belt-fed automatic weapon, or some specialized extremely high capacity magazine. The standard magazine you can buy for an assault rifle is 30 rounds.
For all of the commentators saying this is what America gets for guns being legalized, I would like to point out that in Europe there have been far more attacks using fully automatic, illegal weapons like what just happened in Las Vegas, than in the USA. In fact, Europe still holds the record for the most people killed in mass incidents of this kind. This was a premeditated attack using specialized weapons by someone so incredibly deranged and unhinged that they would obtain several thousands of dollars of gear ahead of time, then open fire on a crowd of innocent people over and over with a fully automatic weapon.
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The weapon was fully automatic, which is very tightly regulated. It is likely the shooter either modified a weapon illegally or obtained one on the black market. That is no normal "assault rifle".
You can buy a fully automatic weapon for the price of a less than mid-level new car, perfectly legally. You only have to get certain licenses and stamps and follow certain regulations related to storage, but really anyone can get if you can find one. Hell, I know one person that has one and I know of at least one local gun range that allows you to rent one (it's a ripoff though, an MP5 but you can only use their pre-loaded magazines that they charge $50 each for). The recent legalization of silencers is
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The recent legalization of silencers is kind of concerning as well. I'm surprised someone hasn't used any of those in a mass shooting yet-a couple silenced pistols in a loud venue means you can shoot for a lot longer before people notice what's going on.
So, you've never actually used a gun with a silencer? They don't go "PEW! PEW!" like in the movies. There is no way a pistol with a "silencer" would not be heard very distinctly in a large and crowded venue. The primary use of "silencers" is for hearing p
Re:Not an off the shelf weapon (Score:5, Interesting)
As a European I fully agree with your core point, which is that people who're motivated to do harm will go to great lengths to achieve their goals. However, one slight thing to point out: in Europe getting any kind of gun is a lot more difficult than in the US, which means if someone planning an attack, they pretty much have to get their weapons illegally, and if one's already about to go to the black market to get a gun illegally, might as well make it an automatic.
That being said, the US still has numerically a lot more (mass) shootings than Europe because the abundance of (legal) guns means that acquiring a gun of some description even illegally is far easier than in Europe. Thus you have a higher rate of gun crime and homicide [wikipedia.org] than countries within the EU. That is, someone just wanting to get their hands on any kind of gun to go shoot up their school/workplace/etc. will have a much hgiher chance of success in the US than in here. Most mass shooters are mentally unstable, often depressed, so the difficulty of getting a gun illegally in here means the rates of mass shootings are much lower.
However, it should be noted that it's not about the plain amount of guns. There are plenty of countries in Europe that have high amounts of firearms, we (Finland) among them, Switzerland is another famous example where everyone that goes through the army keeps the rifle in their home, yet we both have several times smaller homicide rates as well as rates of mass shootings. Why then is this? Well it's because we do have regulations about how the guns must be kept and transported. And in Switzerland the ammo for the rifles provided by the army is strictly controlled. In here to get a hunting rifle you actually need to be part of a hunting club for a while and pass a psych exam, and it's illegal to transport the weapon in public without it being disassembled.
My point here is this: gun regulations do affect the amount of deaths by guns, but these regulations are too often thought of in the black and white mindset of 'less vs. more guns'. However, as I said we're both in agreement that even the most sensible regulation cannot stop all mass shootings or acts of terror. We've had a handful of mass shootings in the 2000s, all of them with the exception of a single case [wikipedia.org] committed using stolen/illegal weaponry (and that case itself went to court that determined the police were guylty of dereliction of duty when they did not confiscate the weapon/license even though the perpetrator had been investigated based on his online writings idolizing violence). However, the only terror attack we've had which happened earlier this summer was done with a knife and the death toll was only 2 because of that.
So while you're right that this incident especially could not probably have been affected by more regulations, it's still good to keep in mind that the kind of regulations in place do affect the overall number of gun crimes and homicides significantly. One thing that is also a factor and I feel is too often sidelined in the american gun discussion is the availability of mental health services. Obviously it's too early to say what role if any that played here before knowing if he even tried to seek help, though it's rather that the guy was a nut of some description.
My heart goes out to anyone here with friends or family in Vegas, stay strong people!
Re:Not an off the shelf weapon (Score:5, Informative)
My point here is this: gun regulations do affect the amount of deaths by guns
Maybe. I think there's also a significant cultural aspect. One telling statistic: There are more knife murders per capita in Chicago than in Toronto. That can't be blamed on guns, and neither city has any knife restrictions.
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My point here is this: gun regulations do affect the amount of deaths by guns
Maybe. I think there's also a significant cultural aspect. One telling statistic: There are more knife murders per capita in Chicago than in Toronto. That can't be blamed on guns, and neither city has any knife restrictions.
Toronto is in Canada, which does have knife restrictions [wikipedia.org]. See also some of the better knife forums where this question comes up a lot [bladeforums.com].
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Re:Not an off the shelf weapon (Score:5, Informative)
"Europe" is a continent made up of many countries - many European countries ban guns.
Many non-Europeans seem to have a problem understanding that Europe is not a single political entity - not even the European Union spans the entirety of Europe, and the EU doesn't regulate guns, that's down to member states at an individual level.
Re:Not an off the shelf weapon (Score:4, Insightful)
Some Europeans have trouble understanding this same fact about the United STATES of America.
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This is the first attack in the USA I'm aware of using a fully automatic military weapon. The specific incident I'm aware of that (to this point) has claimed far more lives in Europe is the 2015 Paris attack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This stuff needs to END - whats wrong with ppl? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just downright scary as fuck anymore to go to any public event. I look at the school shootings from the late 1990's and 2000's, that 'joker' impersonator who took lives at the Batman movie premiere, Boston marathon bombings, the Ariana Grande concert in London as of late, and now at a fucking Country music concert at Las Vegas? Talk about wanting to just stay at home anymore. Living in the United States or not, I think anyone is going to start second-guessing
It isn't even remotely that scary. Your odds of dying while driving to a public event far exceed your chance of getting shot there. If you're afraid of going to a public event, then you probably shouldn't go anywhere near your automobile.
Re:This stuff needs to END - whats wrong with ppl? (Score:4, Informative)
Changing your behaviour or beliefs is letting terrorists win. The secret is to figure out why a terrorist is terrorising, and tackle their grievances (perceived or otherwise). This is how the Brits severely curtailed the IRA, for example.
For the home of the brave, there seem to be a fantastic amount of scaredy cats in the US.
But is it terrorism? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's pretty obvious if Stephen Paddock's name was something like Abdul Fatah, the entire right would be screaming "Terrorist!" (which is how Breitbart started their coverage). It looks like it was an old white guy with an Anglo name, though, which complicates things. If it turns out Paddock was a lefty...Terrorism!!! If Paddock was a conservative, the blame will fall on mental health issues which weren't addressed because Obamacare.
I'm betting on a different motive: the guy was a music lover.
For some perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
I know it's going to be pointless debating anyone online/here about this, but I just wanted to drop some points for thought.
Not all liberals are anti-gun. This liberal owns several. But that's because I also own fire-extinguishers, and not because I'm trying to play fireman/cop. I own them because I recognize and accept that it's my personal responsibility to control an immediate emergency as best I can until the pros arrive. Which can be 30-45 mins in rural areas. I hope I never have to use either.
I also recognize that I have a 1-in 110,000 chance of dying in a mass shooting, as terrible and sad as events like this are. Meanwhile I have a 1-in-113 chance of dying in a car accident. So I try to live my life with some perspective and control my fear/paranoia.
According to ISIS, he was a recent convert (Score:3)
Re:So is this called Terrorism? (Score:4, Funny)
I do hope there is a travel ban on every white male over the age of 50! That will stop any future terrorist attacks right!
Re:So is this called Terrorism? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, this is not terrorism (yet). There is no ideological or political separation for discriminating between the victims and the perpetrator(s). If the shooter has left some manifesto or similar behind it may be classified as an act of terrorism later, but nothing of that sort has as of yet been discovered.
Why would you call this terrorism? Why is it relevant?
Re:So is this called Terrorism? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, this is not terrorism (yet). There is no ideological or political separation for discriminating between the victims and the perpetrator(s). If the shooter has left some manifesto or similar behind it may be classified as an act of terrorism later, but nothing of that sort has as of yet been discovered.
Why would you call this terrorism? Why is it relevant?
If Trump can call anything terrorism without waiting for any facts showing it to be so, why can't we? Because the perpetrator is white? As a white gun owner myself (also a freely admitted anti-Trumper since the birther days), Trump's (relative) silence on this attack speaks volumes. He's sent out what, 2-3 condolence tweets? No stream of tweets decrying terror and how we have to act now, how great the first responders are, etc.
This attack can cause big trouble for Trump. If he takes steps to prevent acts like this he angers his base (even though we sorely need some practical gun control), if he does nothing then he shows the rest of the country and the world he cares only about his base, in which case his ability to govern and compromise, already damaged, ends up beyond repair. Best case for Trump at this point is the shooter turns out to be a registered Democrat, in which case the right-wing media plays up their favorite talking point of how Democrats have been violent since Lincoln was assassinated, conveniently forgetting the ideological shift in the mid 20th Century.
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If he takes steps to prevent acts like this he angers his base (even though we sorely need some practical gun control),
what gun control that you are advocating for would have stopped this particular incident? The guy had a machine gun. Machine guns are banned i.e. illegal. We don't know where the gun was obtained and in this case it doesn't matter because the machine gun in and of itself was illegal. It is not legal to transfer a machine gun anywhere, gun show or not. Obviously this guy does not obey gun laws. I honestly would like to hear your suggestion on what "practical" gun control would have stopped this situatio
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They support gun control because gun owners are the other -- people not like them.
It's a common reaction to things like this to blame minorities and people who are different than you in some way. It's based on ignorance and fear.
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Blaming innocents based on skin color is not the answer. Actions against innocents are never the right answer.
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[Blaming innocents based on skin color is not the answer. ] Actions against innocents are never the right answer.
Actions against innocents are quite often the rightest of all answers.
So you're in favor of police actions targeting innocent minorities then. Because they're different than you.
Re:So is this called Terrorism? (Score:5, Insightful)
Traditionally, "terrorism" was violence or threats of violence intended to change nation-state policy. For example, an eco-terrorist attempts to change laws around deforestation by planting metal spikes, which halts deforestation and raises awareness of the issue. Middle east "you know what" terrorists try to alter policies around involvement in the middle east. The key is how the action relates to nation-state policy and public sentiment. So if for say the 9/11 hijackers had merely wanted a thrill ride, then the "exact" same act wouldn't be *terrorism.* Of course, the modern word has been thrown around so much, it has basically turned into a catch-all for violent acts.
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The reason stories like this make it to the front page is because we give it a hell of a lot of comments and even more views. As of this response the story has been on the page for nearly an hour and a half has already broken more than 135 comments while the actual tech story about a backdoor in Cisco's Umbrella platform has been up nearly two hours and....there's 10. 10 comments.
The Slashdot editors are simply responding to the communities actions as to what stories to pull to the front page and ignoring
Re:Pipe bombs would have killed thousands. (Score:5, Insightful)
If I could mod your comment into the depths of hell I would. You are making assumptions where there is no information to make such, and showing your own political bias and agenda. And not a very hard attempt either, because the other side of the political spectrum could make the same assumption that he is a Trump support right wing second amendment loving nutjob, since we all know the left is anti gun and this guy had numerious firearms. We also know who he was, a 68 year old native resident of Nevada, which more than likely also makes him a Republican..
But unlike you, I won't jump to conclusions yet to, otherwise I would be a total dick... You should probably do the same else everyone will think you are a total dick.
And yes, while this is not exactly news for nerds, it is still an important event that should be covered.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: Pipe bombs would have killed thousands. (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we all just agree the guy was a fucked up human.... I just wish people that miserable would just use one bullet into their brain instead of killing innocent people as well.
Re: Pipe bombs would have killed thousands. (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we all just agree the guy was a fucked up human.... I just wish people that miserable would just use one bullet into their brain instead of killing innocent people as well.
Despite how divisive politics is these days, once you make the jump to go on a killing rampage the only real allegiance you have is to violent authoritarianism. Whatever perceived injustices that led one to commit that kind of atrocity is more like the window dressings that surround a deranged mind. People like James Hodgkinson, Stephen Paddock, and even Timothy McVeigh have a lot more in common than they do separating them apart. It's really important that we stop trying to project these people as extensions of the left or right. It makes it too easy for people to start demonizing anyone that doesn't agree with them.
Re: Pipe bombs would have killed thousands. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Pipe bombs would have killed thousands. (Score:5, Interesting)
> Even things like the well-being of the country are secondary to the question of which team "wins".
This is the thing that irritates me the most about US-American politics. Where I live we just had a general election and though the party I voted for did not win the majority and will be in opposition I'm fine with other parties trying to form a (3-party) coalition. They will try to govern all of our country in a way that they perceive as possible optimum for all of the people. Even if I will disagree with some of those decisions they will be justifiable.
I guess my friends voted for at least 5 different parties in these elections, one even was the head of the local election campaign for a party I decidedly did not vote for.
Yet we don't beat each other up but have passionate discussions over beer and dinner.
What is wrong with "you" in the US?
Re: Pipe bombs would have killed thousands. (Score:4, Insightful)
These people are lost to reason. There can be no compromise.
I'm stuck in the middle, however we're such a minority now and also relatively soft spoken that our opinions are washed out. The talking heads want controversy.. if the people are too busy fighting with each other we'll never see how terrible our elected officials are. If Trump wants to drain the swamp, term limits are needed for Congress.
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I own a tiny hybrid and a HUGE pickup truck. I worry about not seeing small vehicles sometimes while driving the truck. I don't worry much about trucks seeing me.
You worry too much about political statements. We're not all on edge, but you are. Step away from the media. They make money by glueing you to themselves for profit. Rob them of the profit and have a more relaxed life.
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"which more than likely also makes him a Republican" and then " I won't jump to conclusions yet"
Sounds like you already did, bro.
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You are picking an choosing statements from a sentence and taking them out of context. That's a no no.
That particular aspect of course, I should have backed up, which say a link. https://www.nytimes.com/electi... [nytimes.com]
You will note that the majority of the state is red, so that backs up my statement "which more than likely", which is a guess based on statistical data. Then again, at the same time the individual was from Misquite NV, which is in Clark County, same county as Las Vegas, which went blue. But like
Re:Pipe bombs would have killed thousands. (Score:4)
Because they already identified the shooter, there is no assumption. The guys name is Stephan Paddock from Misquite NV.
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No one is calling for an outright ban... okay some are... fine a good majority are, but in many cases that is a knee jerk reaction to a heinous crime like this. Many sane people that are anti gun in their own homes (like my wife), are more for better control, and meaningful regulations. Would that eliminate all gun violence, of course not, but it would cut down on it to a major extent, and make those who are too stupid (read: irresponsible) to own guns more liable to the damage and death caused by them.
Re:Racial profiling (Score:4, Insightful)
We don't know yet.
Yes [cnn.com] we do. 64 years old, lived in Mesquite, no currently known political affiliation despite what some AC trolls on here are saying. Over 400 sent to hospitals, roughly 10 firearms found in his hotel room, apparently killed himself before police arrived.
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"We have an unfortunate loop-hole in the law that allows conversion parts to be sold legally, as long as you do not posses the weapon they can be used to convert. "
That is not true either. Anything that can be used to convert a weapon to full-auto falls under the NFA and must be registered as well. A full-auto seer, for example is a trivial $2 part that now sells for $20k if properly registered.