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Gunman Kills at Least 58 in Mass Shooting in Las Vegas
Topic Started: Oct 2 2017, 08:52 PM (136 Views)
MacReadyOrNot
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LAS VEGAS — A gunman on a high floor of a Las Vegas hotel rained a rapid-fire barrage on an outdoor concert festival on Sunday night, killing at least 58 people, injuring hundreds of others, and sending thousands of terrified survivors fleeing for cover, in one of the deadliest mass shootings in American history.

Online video of the attack near the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino showed the singer Jason Aldean’s performance at the Route 91 Harvest Festival, a three-day country music event, being interrupted by the sound of gunfire. The music stopped, and as victims fell bleeding, concertgoers screamed, ducked for cover, or ran. “Get down,” one shouted. “Stay down,” screamed another.

• The police found the gunman, whom they identified as Stephen Paddock, 64, dead in his room at the hotel. Investigators were still combing through Mr. Paddock’s background and searching his home on Monday.

• Among the weapons authorities discovered were two rifles with scopes on tripods positioned in front of the two windows that had been broken out, a law enforcement official said.

• The Islamic State claimed that Mr. Paddock was one of its soldiers, but did not provide any evidence of its claim. The F.B.I. said there is no evidence so far that Mr. Paddock had ties to any international terrorist organization.

• Speaking at the White House, President Trump condemned the shooting as an “act of pure evil” and called for the country to come together, saying, “Our unity cannot be shattered by evil, our bonds cannot be broken by violence.”

Who was the gunman?

Mr. Paddock, 64, of Mesquite, Nev., had no significant prior criminal history, officials said.

Before dawn on Monday, the police searched Mr. Paddock’s house in Mesquite, a town on the Nevada-Arizona border. The police moved cautiously at first, evacuating surrounding homes in case there were any explosives, but none were found. The Mesquite Police Department said no one was in the house; at least one firearm and ammunition were found, they said, but they gave few other details about what the search turned up.

The gunman’s father, Benjamin Patrick Paddock, had a troubled history, according to Eric Paddock of Orlando, Fla., a brother of the suspect. Benjamin Paddock was convicted of serial bank robbery in 1961, according to news reports from the time. After he escaped from prison, he was on the F.B.I.’s “Top 10” most wanted list for much of the 1970s.

Eric Paddock said he had made a statement to the police. In an interview with CBS, he said that his brother was “not an avid gun guy at all,” adding, “if he had have killed my kids, I couldn’t be more dumbfounded.”

“The fact that he had those kind of weapons is just — where the hell did he get automatic weapons?” Eric Paddock asked.

“He has no military background or anything like that,” he added. “He’s a guy who lived in a house in Mesquite and drove down and gambled in Las Vegas.”

He said Stephen Paddock had recently texted him to ask how their mother was faring after Hurricane Irma.

Guests at the Mandalay Bay are in shock.

The hotel remained on partial lockdown late Monday morning, as it had since the shooting. The casino floor was largely empty, though a few gamblers played slots. Hotel employees were offering coffee, pastries and cases of water to stranded guests.

A bellman at the hotel said the gunman’s car was still in the valet, which had been shut down.

Melissa Ayala, 41, came to the country music festival with four friends from Orange, Calif. They were drinking and laughing when they heard what they thought was fireworks. She did not realize it was gunfire until a man near them was grazed by a bullet and fell to the ground, blood coming from his neck.

“It seemed like rapid fire,” she said. “There was blood pouring everywhere.”

“Where do you run to?” said her friend, Shami Espinoza, 38, as she wiped away tears.

“It’s either run and get shot and die or stay and get shot and die. Those were the choices."

What about the ISIS claim?

The Islamic State claimed on Monday that the gunman was “a Soldier of the Islamic State,” but the group did not provide any evidence for its claim. It has previously made false claims about its role in some terrorist attacks.

Aaron Rouse, the F.B.I. special agent in charge in Las Vegas, said that so far there was no proof that Mr. Paddock had links to any international terrorist organization...

How did the shooting unfold?

The first reports of the shooting came at 10:08 p.m. local time. Officers were overheard on police radio channels reporting that they were pinned down by gunfire. Shortly before midnight, the Las Vegas police reported that “one suspect is down,” and soon after, the police said they did not believe there were any more active gunmen.

The Route 91 Harvest Festival bills itself as “three days of country music on the Vegas Strip,” and Sunday night’s performance was the last of the festival. The site of the concert, the Las Vegas Village and Festival Grounds, operated by MGM Resorts, sprawls over 15 acres and has a capacity of 40,000 people. The festival’s website said this year’s three-day concert was sold out.

Tenaja Floyd of Boise, Idaho, said many of the people around her in the concert crowd thought at first that the sounds came from fireworks, but “I knew immediately, that wasn’t fireworks.” She said her mother, Jennifer, threw her to the ground and lay on top of her to protect her. As people started running out of the venue, she said, they thought they might be trampled, so they decided to join the rush to leave.

Video of the shooting captured nine seconds of continuous rapid fire, followed by 37 seconds of silence from the weapon and panicked screaming from the crowd. Gunfire then erupted again in at least two more bursts, both shorter than the first.

In the confusion after the shooting, the police also descended on the Ali Baba Restaurant, about a 10-minute drive from the Mandalay Bay, and investigated reports of a shooting at the New York-New York Hotel and Casino, not far from the concert ground.

The police reported clearing out the Mandalay Bay’s 29th floor and then working their way up to the 32nd floor. A police Twitter post described reports of an “active shooter” near or around the Mandalay Bay casino.

SWAT units swarmed the upper floors of the Mandalay Bay, closing in on the source of the shooting, a room on the 32nd floor where they found the gunman with “in excess of 10 rifles,” the sheriff said. “We believe the individual killed himself prior to our entry.”

Video from the shooting showed Mr. Aldean, the final performer of the night, running off the stage as the gunfire erupted.

Jake Owen, a country singer who was on stage with Mr. Aldean when the shooting began, told CNN on Monday that it was like “shooting fish in a barrel from where he was.”

“This is not an exaggeration: This shooting was going on for at least 10 minutes,” he added. “It was nonstop.”

Concertgoers described hearing round after round of gunfire. “Everyone was running, you could see people getting shot,” Gail Davis, one of the witnesses, said. “I’ve never been that scared in my life,” she added. “To have this happen, I can’t wrap my mind around it.”


Source: The New York Times
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MacReadyOrNot
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This . . . is . . . Wow.

My heart goes out to those who were there. All the victims, alive and dead. Their families. Their friends.

*heavy sigh*

Wow.


(rip)
Edited by MacReadyOrNot, Oct 2 2017, 08:55 PM.
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The Shadow
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The fact he didn't shoot it out with SWAT. What a bitch. You can open fire from your ivory tower but you can't deal with it when it comes to your doorstep. (thumbsdown)


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Vanessa
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My best friend in high school was there with her family. My friend injured her shoulder, but everyone was okay. I'm only just now catching up on what happened. I couldn't keep myself from picturing her when watching the news before I heard that they were okay.
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Baby Firefly
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I have several friends who were in that area and close enough to hear shots. None were injured though. There's one girl no one has been able to get in touch with. I'm hoping she just dropped her phone.

I've been arguing with quite a few people about this. I'm sick of all these fucking gun nuts saying that we need assault rifles and that if they had been there they would've used their rifles to take down this monster. PUHLEESE. There were DOZENS of people with guns and literally hundreds of guns on buses and elsewhere. They were all useless. People fail to realize thst this was a bizarre event that would not have been solved by random people pulling out guns and firing blindly. Most people didn't even know exavtly where the shots were coming from. A friend of mine who was in the area was terrified, assuming as it was happening that there were multiple gunmen in at least four different locations.

I am just sick of this and I hate that I can honestly say that I know people who witnessed the two worst mass shootings in modern American history and that I know others directly impacted by the Sandy Hook shooting and several others.

I kept panicking at work earlier and repeatedly making sure that the emergency exits and fire exits were unlocked at all times. Just in case. I dont want my grandmother leaving the house by herself. Just in case. I feel nervous about my mom being at work in a crowded building dealing with large sums of money, environmental planning, and the health department.
Edited by Baby Firefly, Oct 3 2017, 06:50 AM.
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Lon Of The Dead
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"Guns don't kill people, people kill people" is, always has been, and always will be the most inane bit of rationale that has ever existed. Yes, people kill people. But without guns -- which are so ridiculously, scarily available that you can literally walk into a Wal-Mart empty handed and walk back out with a shotgun -- it wouldn't be near as easy, and not near as many people getting killed.

Take it from a former infantryman and combat veteran: Guns are for the weak and cowardly, and to insist every American be allowed to purchase, own and/or carry a firearm is akin to saying every American should be allowed their own personal nuclear launch button.

Outlawing firearms works. Back in the mid-00s, there was a mass shooting in Australia. Thirty-six people killed. The Aussie prime minister banned guns. How many mass shootings have there been in Australia since? Zero.

The second amendment is a primitive law, written during a more primitive time in our nation's history, and it takes a primitive mentality to champion it. Taking away guns doesn't remove a person's intent or desire to kill, but it does take away one of the most easily accessible means to act on that intent or desire. But that's just simple logic, and simple logic isn't a common trait among gun enthusiasts.

Any of you who had friends/family there, I hope they're safe.
Edited by Lon Of The Dead, Oct 3 2017, 05:49 PM.
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The Shadow
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I think the second amendment should stay, but it needs to be drastically altered. You should by right be allowed to own a handgun. A hunting rifle etc. (a basic class of firearms). We're selling weapons of mass destruction like candy though.. and one could argue someone with skill can tally up mass casualties with a couple handguns and pockets stuffed with clips (and it's happened) but let's make it harder for someone to accomplish 50+ kills than make it easier.
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Kevin R.
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If now is "not the time" to talk about gun control, then what is? I say this as somebody who owns two guns himself: here in my home state, at least, it is embarrassing how easy it is to get a gun, or a CCW permit. This shooting was practically the Brady Foundation's nightmare vision of gun culture run amok -- a lone nut firing on a crowd of people with an automatic rifle from an elevated vantage point where no "good guys with guns" could shoot back -- and we're still saying that this is "not the time"?

The thing about gun control, though, is that while the mass shootings get the headlines, most firearm-related deaths are suicides or petty crime. Bringing back the Assault Weapons Ban would merely be a band-aid on a bigger problem, especially given how many loopholes such laws have. I think Chris Rock had it right. We don't need gun control, we need bullet control. Specifically, background checks for ammunition purchases and a high tax on ammunition, especially of the sort that the guns most commonly used by criminals are chambered in -- i.e. handguns. There are already too many guns to get enough of them off the street to matter... but as former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynahan pointed out when he proposed just such an ammo tax, America only has about a three-year supply of ammunition. The high tax on ammo might give sticker shock to some folks looking to kill themselves or those who pissed them off, and convince them to back out. Gangsters wouldn't be able to spray ammo recklessly in drive-by shootings, because now that costs money. It's a solution that countless old survival horror games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill implemented without even realizing it: restrict the ammo supply, and guns are suddenly a lot less menacing.

And for the sake of sport shooters and hunters, you can waive the tax in some instances. For instance, any ammo that's purchased and used at a shooting range won't be taxed (though you cannot bring it out of the range), and those who have a hunting license may have the tax waived on purchases of rifle and shotgun ammo. Law enforcement and private security officers also get to buy all the ammo they want, tax-free, given the needs of their job. You've gotten rid of the main thing that makes guns deadly, and you've done it without taking away anybody's AR-15s.
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Vanessa
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Baby Firefly
Oct 3 2017, 06:48 AM
I've been arguing with quite a few people about this. I'm sick of all these fucking gun nuts saying that we need assault rifles and that if they had been there they would've used their rifles to take down this monster. PUHLEESE. There were DOZENS of people with guns and literally hundreds of guns on buses and elsewhere. They were all useless. People fail to realize thst this was a bizarre event that would not have been solved by random people pulling out guns and firing blindly. Most people didn't even know exavtly where the shots were coming from. A friend of mine who was in the area was terrified, assuming as it was happening that there were multiple gunmen in at least four different locations.
I really liked that Jason Aldean's guitarist came out and talked about how he used to think that way but was wrong. (Especially because a ton of country artists are prostituting themselves to the NRA and aren't going to say anything.) I think that if someone can't be convinced by this that there isn't much hope for them. Even if they could tell where the shooter was, they would be firing at a hotel full of people. They're not Deadshot. They'd just be adding to the danger and chaos.
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