Mass Shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada

[AlterEgo]

There are a lot of conflicting sources suggesting various things about the legality of the weapon.

 

[EM2]

The big counter argument that American gun lovers use against restrictions is that it would leave law abiding citizens at the mercy of criminal gunmen with no ability to fire back and defend themselves. People need guns to defend themselves against criminals with guns.

Yeah, that doesn't stand up (nothing against you, Tim!).

If you heavily restrict the sale of guns and have amnesties or buybacks for weapons that are currently held, the number of guns in circulation falls, meaning that it's much more difficult for criminals to get hold of them:

UK population: 65m
US population: 330m

UK gun homicides: 60 per year (approx.)
US gun homicides: 11500 per year (approx.)

Five times the population.
Two hundred and ten times the gun murders.

 

[Tim R-T-C]

There are a lot of conflicting sources suggesting various things about the legality of the weapon.

https://www.wired.com/story/las-vegas-shooting-automatic-rifle/

In short, the rifle could be a legally owned semi-automatic, with post-market modifications that allow for more rapid fire without being technically illegal. It could equally be an automatic rifle pre-dating the amended regulations, which are legal to own under grandfather rulings.

Gun enthusiasts are going to be very quick to jump onto this to show that if the man's weapons were illegal, there is no need to change the laws, expect to hear a lot about this in the coming days.

 

[DarloRich]

This interview says otherwise:

http://talkradio.co.uk/news/las-vegas-gunman-probably-prepared-his-attack-advance-17100219216

the interview is vague and talks about gun laws in America generally. Please go and look at the laws pertaining to the state of Nevada.

Also worth pointing our Talk Radio is part of the Murdoch empire. Weigh that as you like.

In short, the rifle could be a legally owned semi-automatic, with post-market modifications that allow for more rapid fire without being technically illegal. It could equally be an automatic rifle pre-dating the amended regulations, which are legal to own under grandfather rulings.

Correct.

In Nevada don't need a permit to buy or possess a rifle, shotgun or handgun nor are you required to get a license or register a firearm. There's no limit on the number of guns a person can buy at one time. It is legal to own assault weapons and large-capacity magazines for ammunition. It is also fair to say that all of these weapons may have been acquired criminally but I doubt that.

BTW The term rifle covers a multitude of sins. It isnt limited to what we might think of as rifle: some kind of bolt action, single fire, hunting rifle

 

[ainsworth74]

So if the Supreme Court has ruled it to be so, what would Congress and the Senate need to do to make those conditions much more stringent?

Pass laws making it so. The Democrats might do it if they had all three strands of Government. The Republicans never will as they're both ideologically opposed (particularly their voter base so even if an individual Congressman was opposed it's unlikely they'd vote for it for fear of losing their seat) to tighter regulation and deep in the pockets of organisations like the NRA.

As far as I'm aware the only block on tighter regulation is political not legal.

 

[Tim R-T-C]

BTW The term rifle covers a multitude of sins. It isnt limited to what we might think of as rifle: some kind of bolt action, single fire, hunting rifle

True, I suspect most people in the UK imagine a Great War bolt action rifle when the word is used, but the AR15 assault rifle, which the Vegas gunman almost certainly used, is a very deadly military grade weapon:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politic...became-mass-shooters-weapon-of-choice-w451452

 

[DarloRich]

Pass laws making it so. The Democrats might do it if they had all three strands of Government. The Republicans never will as they're both ideologically opposed (particularly their voter base so even if an individual Congressman was opposed it's unlikely they'd vote for it for fear of losing their seat) to tighter regulation and deep in the pockets of organisations like the NRA.

As far as I'm aware the only block on tighter regulation is political not legal.

The Republicans even got the Dickey amendment passed which forbids the spending of Federal funds “to advocate or promote gun control.” This prevents the government from working out:

• The scale of the problem (who gets shot, when, why and with what)
• Gathering data trends
• What are the causes
• Working out what prevention measures work
• Making policy on the back of measurable evidence

Bonkers.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

The pro-"right to ursine forelimbs" lobby love to trot out the argument that "the only thing to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun". Where that argument falls down (other than ALL the evidence from countries like Australia and the UK) is that the same lobby is opposed to measures that would at least try to determine whether the guy buying the gun is a "goodie" or a "baddie".

As the shooter in this case didn't appear to have had any reason he'd have failed any background check had there been one, background checks wouldn't have prevented this atrocity. But anyone who argues that there's a justification to hold the type of weapon used is simply wrong- there is NO need for such guns anywhere away from the battlefield.

 

[Tim R-T-C]

The pro-"right to ursine forelimbs" lobby love to trot out the argument that "the only thing to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun". Where that argument falls down (other than ALL the evidence from countries like Australia and the UK) is that the same lobby is opposed to measures that would at least try to determine whether the guy buying the gun is a "goodie" or a "baddie".

Don't forget that 29% of Americans believe that in “the next few years, an armed revolution might be necessary in order to protect our liberties.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/02/poll-armed-revolution_n_3203315.html

 

[Darandio]

It's strange that there even needs to be an emphasis on the legality of a particular weapon. Legal or not, it has been used to kill many, many people.

They should all be illegal, it's really that simple.

 

[DarloRich]

True, I suspect most people in the UK imagine a Great War bolt action rifle when the word is used, but the AR15 assault rifle, which the Vegas gunman almost certainly used, is a very deadly military grade weapon:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politic...became-mass-shooters-weapon-of-choice-w451452

the AR15 - To all intents and purposes a civilian version of the M16. :roll:

By comparison could you imagine it being legal to purchase a civilian version of the SA80 for use in the UK?

 

[Tim R-T-C]

the AR15 - To all intents and purposes a civilian version of the M16. :roll:

By comparison could you imagine it being legal to purchase a civilian version of the SA80 for use in the UK?

Not just legal, but justified by a majority of politicians and the public and where calls to maybe limit the number of SA80s a person can own are considered political arguments and election pledges rather than common sense.

 

[GB]

By comparison could you imagine it being legal to purchase a civilian version of the SA80 for use in the UK?

You can purchase and own AR15 style rifles in the uk. The caveat being .556 versions must be straight pull and semi automatic.

.22 versions don’t need to be straight pull but still must be semi automatic.

Obviously no where near the same ball park as the USA but in the wrong hands can still have extremely deadly consequences.

 

[DarloRich]

You can purchase and own AR15 style rifles in the uk. The caveat being .556 versions must be straight pull and semi automatic.

.22 versions don’t need to be straight pull but still must be semi automatic.

Obviously no where near the same ball park as the USA but in the wrong hands can still have extremely deadly consequences.

agreed - but .22 ammunition has a shorter range and less destructive power. I doubt such a weapon could have been used in the Las Vegas incident. Still deadly mind. R F Kennedy was assassinated with a .22 gun. President Reagan was shot at with a .22 gun etc.

We would also, I hope, move to ban such weapons asap after such an horrific incident.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Don't forget that 29% of Americans believe that in “the next few years, an armed revolution might be necessary in order to protect our liberties.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/02/poll-armed-revolution_n_3203315.html

With a semi-sentient baboon in the White House, they might be right...

Problem is, it's more likely to happen over a perceived threat to the 2nd amendment rather than a perceived threat to the amendment which outlaws the ownership of slaves (I forget the number, but the fact that it's higher than 2 says it all really). :roll:

 

[EM2]

The pro-"right to ursine forelimbs" lobby love to trot out the argument that "the only thing to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun".

And it's never happened. There is no record of any mass shooting being stopped by another armed citizen. There are, however, a number of instances where the armed citizen has attempted to stop the perpetrator, failed and actually killed other innocent bystanders.

 

[Tim R-T-C]

And it's never happened. There is no record of any mass shooting being stopped by another armed citizen. There are, however, a number of instances where the armed citizen has attempted to stop the perpetrator, failed and actually killed other innocent bystanders.

Actually they do:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...r-stop-mass-shootings/?utm_term=.57922e53806b

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/arl...ded-arlington-restaurant-shooting-reports-say

Now some of these are criminals carrying guns, rather than people carrying out mass shootings (and you could argue that without the threat of gun toting home owners, criminals would not carry firearms either), although in at least one of the examples in the Washington Post article, the shooter had over 1,000 rounds of ammunition in their car - http://www.denverpost.com/2008/03/27/murray-obsesses-with-guns-shootings/

 

[61653 HTAFC]

And it's never happened. There is no record of any mass shooting being stopped by another armed citizen. There are, however, a number of instances where the armed citizen has attempted to stop the perpetrator, failed and actually killed other innocent bystanders.

One of the big problems with U.S. politics is the power of lobbyists distorting the level of debate. It isn't just guns either: the health insurance lobby, the fossil fuels lobby, the financial industry lobby, the private prison lobby... all of them back both horses in every election from small cities to presidential elections.

 

[Tim R-T-C]

From the BBC: Speaking at the White House, he said he would look at gun laws "as times goes by" but he did not elaborate.

So when it comes to people travelling from Muslim countries with no connection to terror attacks in the US, Trump insists that they need to immediately "stop all travel until we can figure out what is going on", but when there is a massacre within the country, laws that could help prevent future attacks are nothing urgent.

Trump was quick to jump on London Mayor Khan when a tweet of his was misread to imply that there was nothing to worry about with terror attacks, yet by nonchalantly dismissing claims that this attack was terrorism and making no moves to prevent further similar attacks, he is basically saying there is nothing to worry about.

 

[EM2]

Now some of these are criminals carrying guns, rather than people carrying out mass shootings (and you could argue that without the threat of gun toting home owners, criminals would not carry firearms either), although in at least one of the examples in the Washington Post article, the shooter had over 1,000 rounds of ammunition in their car - http://www.denverpost.com/2008/03/27/murray-obsesses-with-guns-shootings/

Which is why I was very specific in saying mass shootings.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...d4870a079da_story.html?utm_term=.6d394019731c

THE SOLUTION to a bad guy with a gun, it is often said, is a good guy with a gun. Yet according to Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings (D), there were 20 to 30 good guys openly carrying guns among the protesters whom Dallas police were supervising last Thursday night, when Micah Xavier Johnson began picking off officers. “In the middle of a firefight,” the mayor said Sunday, “it’s hard to pick out the good guys and the bad guys.”

In fact, the presence of so many guns could have made Thursday’s massacre worse. Officers did not know where the shooting was coming from, how many people were involved or what kinds of weapons they were facing. Innocent protesters publicly toting guns became immediate suspects. Their presence fed the confusion and amped up the danger.

And what happens when the bad guy with the gun had been, up until then, the good guy with the gun?
Licenced, no convictions, NRA member...who then 'goes postal'.

The main problem is, the good guy doesn't know that the bad guy is the bad guy until he shoots, and if the person he shoots is the good guy, then everyone is screwed.
The good guy might get lucky, see the bad guy shoot and manage to kill him before anyone else is actually killed. But it's unlikely.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

It worries me when the word "Evil" is bandied about after things like this. That's not to say that the perpetrator should be forgiven, or to make excuses for atrocities, but to brand the perp as "evil" is often a hand-wringing excuse for inaction. "Evil" is an abstract concept and to brand violent killers as such is like saying "well, some people are just bad, so we can't stop them", rather than looking at (a) what led a seemingly ordinary man in his 60s to decide to massacre so many people from his hotel window, and (b) how easy it presumably was for him to build an arsenal in order to carry out said massacre.

Nah, let's just brand him "Evil", mourn for a bit, then just carry on like nothing happened. :roll:

 

[najaB]

I remind you of john0844's post from earlier: 'No way to prevent this' says only nation where this regularly happens.

Edit: New story posted that summarises the situation quite succinctly (quoted in full):

Americans Hopeful This Will Be Last Mass Shooting Before They Stop On Their Own For No Reason

WASHINGTON—Expressing a sense of guarded optimism that the latest incident of gun violence that left 58 dead and 500 injured in Las Vegas would be a turning point for the nation, Americans across the country confirmed Monday they were hopeful this would be the last mass shooting before all such occurrences stopped on their own for no reason at all.

“After something as horrific as what happened in Las Vegas, we’re all just hoping that now these terrible shootings will stop once and for all without circumstances changing in any way or any of us taking even the slightest amount of action in response,” said Harrisburg, PA resident David Snyder, echoing the sentiments of tens of millions of citizens from coast to coast who told reporters they were confident that, after living through the most deadly mass shooting in modern American history and taking no material steps to change gun laws, reevaluate safety standards, increase access to mental health care, or even have a national conversation about how mass shootings could be avoided in the future, tragedies of this kind would at long last come to an end.

“Having seen acts of violence like this happen over and over again for years now, I’m really holding out hope that, despite every single factor that allowed them to occur remaining exactly the same, we won’t have to live through another day like today. I know everyone’s praying this will finally be the time this issue just disappears forever entirely by itself without anyone doing anything.” At press time, Americans nationwide agreed that years of taking no measures whatsoever to prevent mass shootings may finally be paying off.

 

[Bromley boy]

It worries me when the word "Evil" is bandied about after things like this. That's not to say that the perpetrator should be forgiven, or to make excuses for atrocities, but to brand the perp as "evil" is often a hand-wringing excuse for inaction. "Evil" is an abstract concept and to brand violent killers as such is like saying "well, some people are just bad, so we can't stop them", rather than looking at (a) what led a seemingly ordinary man in his 60s to decide to massacre so many people from his hotel window, and (b) how easy it presumably was for him to build an arsenal in order to carry out said massacre.

Nah, let's just brand him "Evil", mourn for a bit, then just carry on like nothing happened. :roll:

Precisely. What does "evil" even mean outside the religious context? Much easier to blame it all on the (quite possibly insane) perpetrator than look at the system that has allowed this to happen.

All societies will have a small number of individuals within them who, for whatever reason, will wish to commit acts such as this. The key is to put measures in place to prevent them obtaining the means to do so.

 

[Groningen]

Maybe already said here, but because it is hot in Las Vegas Donald Trump had to use the phrase "warmest condolences". Warmest does not mean anything. What if it was a black man or even worse a Muslim; well maybe they never had entered the hotel. And there was some kind of guncontrol. Remember this person had 42 guns + explosive (and more).

In the UK i can only remember Hungerford (1987) and Dunblane (1996). Already more than 20 years ago, but not forgotten.

 

[HSTEd]

The shooter was wealthy enough to afford a wide variety of firearms and multiple houses.

He could easily have sold most of his collection and bought a pre 1968 legal MG. like a Vickers Gun.
With that firing from the hotel he could have killed hundreds.

Or since he had no criminal record he could have obtained a suppressor easily, that would have muffled the report and more importantly hidden his muzzle flashes, making it harder to see his position.

A ban onf semi automatic rifles of 'modern military style' would have been unlikely to stop him

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Maybe already said here, but because it is hot in Las Vegas Donald Trump had to use the phrase "warmest condolences". Warmest does not mean anything. What if it was a black man or even worse a Muslim; well maybe they never had entered the hotel. And there was some kind of guncontrol. Remember this person had 42 guns + explosive (and more).

In the UK i can only remember Hungerford (1987) and Dunblane (1996). Already more than 20 years ago, but not forgotten.

We also had the Cumbria shootings in 2010, but you're quite right to point out the rarity of such events in countries where laws make it much harder for those wishing to do harm to obtain the means to do it. I eagerly await the response on his weekly show from the aforementioned Jim Jefferies, an Australian comedian resident in Los Angeles. He has spoken before about Australia's response to their last mass shooting- the government introduced strict laws about firearms and they've had NO mass killings where firearms were the principal weapon since. The gun lobby will no doubt resist any calls for controls, citing government overreach among other things. :roll:

 

[Bromley boy]

The shooter was wealthy enough to afford a wide variety of firearms and multiple houses.

He could easily have sold most of his collection and bought a pre 1968 legal MG. like a Vickers Gun.
With that firing from the hotel he could have killed hundreds.

Or since he had no criminal record he could have obtained a suppressor easily, that would have muffled the report and more importantly hidden his muzzle flashes, making it harder to see his position.

A ban onf semi automatic rifles of 'modern military style' would have been unlikely to stop him

Not sure about that.

The lethality of the WW1 vickers style guns came from a number of them being concentrated over a small area at a predetermined angle, against an advancing wall of men. They were crewed by three men, by no means an accurate weapon and hardly something one person could smuggle into a Las Vegas hotel without raising questions.

A modern assault rifle is just as powerful, easily concealed and immeasurably more accurate! And no doubt available on a “buy one get one free” offer in your nearest wall mart if you live in Nevada...

 

[HSTEd]

Not sure about that.

The lethality of the WW1 vickers style guns came from a number of them being concentrated over a small area at a predetermined angle, against an advancing wall of men. They were crewed by three men, by no means an accurate weapon and hardly something one person could smuggle into a Las Vegas hotel without raising questions.

Whilst a vickers Gun is normally crewed by three men, in this situation one would prove easily sufficient - all that is required is a spray fire belt-dump. Followed by reloading and dumping another belt.
The target area is large and is extremely full of people.
The first firing cycle of 250 rounds would be over in under 30 seconds.

With the help of a couple of duffle bags it can likely be moved from a parking garage to your room without raising too many eyebrows, there will be huge numbers of people moving around in the parking structur and hotel anyway, a nondescript man with a carry all is not unusual.. The only thing that might be slightly of an issue is the tripod mount.
The man did after all have a large number of weapons in the room with him, how did he get all that into the room without anyone seeing him?

A modern assault rifle is just as powerful, easily concealed and immeasurably more accurate! And no doubt available on a “buy one get one free” offer in your nearest wall mart if you live in Nevada...

A modern assault rifle can't dump 250 rounds into an area target in 30 seconds or less!
And accuracy is irrelevant in this situation - we have evidence that the shooter was bump firing anyway, good luck hitting individual people at 500 yards like that!

 

[Tim R-T-C]

The gun lobby will no doubt resist any calls for controls, citing government overreach among other things. :roll:

Yet I suspect they will be cheering the White House's current priority - not gun control, or Puerto Rico, but bringing in prison terms for abortions after 20 weeks.

Government shouldn't control guns, or healthcare, but should be in charge of women's bodies... :roll:

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Yet I suspect they will be cheering the White House's current priority - not gun control, or Puerto Rico, but bringing in prison terms for abortions after 20 weeks.

Government shouldn't control guns, or healthcare, but should be in charge of women's bodies... :roll:

Quite. The eye-roll smiley is getting a good work out on this thread...
:roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll::roll: