Las Vegas attacks
OP note: I just wanted to make a post about this because it's so horrible and yet, will things *ever* change?
The article is behind the cut in case it might be triggering.
Las Vegas gunman may have used special device to fire faster, expert says
At least 58 people have died in the Las Vegas attack.
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Law enforcement officials have yet to confirm what kind of firearms Stephen Paddock used to shoot from his Mandalay Bay hotel room into a crowd of people at a country music festival in Las Vegas, killing at least 58 people, though early reports suggest he had as many as 10 guns, including some rifles.
The rapid pace of the gunfire suggested that the shooter was using either a fully automatic weapon, tightly restricted under US law, or that he had attached a device to a semi-automatic gun to make it fire more continuously, said Massad Ayoob, a firearms expert, instructor and author.
“It’s faster than almost any human being is going to be able to pull a trigger on a semi-automatic,” Ayoob said.
Fully automatic weapons, which fire multiple rounds of ammunition from a single pull of the trigger, are strictly regulated, taxed and tracked under US law. This makes them expensive collectors’ items, and comparatively rarely used in crimes. Semi-automatic rifles, in contrast, which fire only one round of ammunition with each pull of the trigger, are widely available.
Unlike some states, Nevada, which has laws generally friendly to gun owners, does not ban the sale of “assault weapons” - semi-automatic civilian guns built to resemble military weapons.
From listening to the footage of the attack, Ayoob said that the gunshots “did not sound as consistent” as he would typically expect from a fully automatic M-16 or AK-47. “The pace of fire is a little bit erratic. At one point it’s slower than it is at another point.”
Paddock could have used a Hellfire or a bump-fire device, which attach to normal semi-automatic rifles and allow them to fire more rapidly, Ayoob said. These devices are legal, but rarely used by serious shooters, he said.
“It’s hard to shoot accurately with them, and serious shooters want accuracy,” he said. He called them “not terribly popular” and “something a gun geek would want”.
For the Las Vegas shooter, though, the accuracy of these devices would not have mattered, since he was “hosing a two-acre area with 30,000 targets,” nearly every shot he fired would have hit someone.
On its website, Bump Fire Systems advertises the device as permitting “simulated full-auto firing” that is “absolutely legal”. It sells Bump Fire stocks for $99.99.
The Hellfire system uses a hand-operated crank to hit the trigger of the gun more rapidly than a person could fire it, Ayoob said, which could explain apparent changes in the pace of the fire.
Ayoob said he knew of only one previous incident in which a legally owned fully automatic gun was used in a murder. When fully automatic guns do show up in crimes, they have often been stolen, he said.
Semi-automatic weapons patterned to look like fully automatic M-16s have been a political flashpoint for decades, with Democrats arguing that these guns should be banned, and gun rights advocates arguing that semi-automatic weapons such as the AR-15 are no more dangerous than semi-automatic hunting rifles, which are not politically controversial.
The wide availability of large-capacity ammunition magazines, which allow shooters to fire dozens of rounds of ammunition without reloading, has also been a political battleground.
For 10 years, under the 1994 federal assault weapon ban, Congress did limit the production and sale of certain kinds of semi-automatic rifles, as well as higher-capacity ammunition magazines. Congress allowed the ban to expire in 2004, though some states do have their own assault weapons bans still in place. The 1994 law was written in a way that allowed gun manufacturers to market and sell very similar military-style guns with only a few tweaks to make them ban-compliant. The ban also grandfathered in as legal guns and ammunition in banned categories that Americans had already owned.
Following previous mass shootings, some Democrats have argued that Congress should reinstate a broader ban on semi-automatic rifles styled after military weapons. A justice department-funded evaluation of the ban found no clear evidence that it had reduced violence, and concluded that the live-saving effects of even a much stricter ban “are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement”.
Most gun murders in the United States are committed with ordinary handguns. Rifles of any kind were used in only about 3.5% of firearms murders from 2010 to 2014, according to a Guardian analysis of FBI data.
SOURCE.
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OP: Al Jazeera had the following on the timeline of mass shootings in the U.S.
-------------------------
The deadliest mass shootings in the US
More than 50 people were killed in an attack in Las Vegas, making it the deadliest US mass shooting since 1949.
Las Vegas Metro Police and medical workers in Las Vegas.
---------------------
At least 58 people have been killed in a mass shooting at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. The suspect in the shooting, which took place at a music festival, was killed by police officers in the hotel room from where he opened fire on the crowd, authorities said. The Las Vegas attack is the deadliest mass shooting in the US since 1949, surpassing the 2016 attack in Orlando, in which 49 people were killed at the Pulse nightclub. Here's a look at the deadliest mass shootings in the US over the last two decades:
Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas (2017): At least 58 killed
OP really wants to know how Republicans (and those who vote(d) for them) can look at themselves in the mirror.
The article is behind the cut in case it might be triggering.
Las Vegas gunman may have used special device to fire faster, expert says
- Stephen Paddock, 64, named as suspect in deadly Las Vegas attack
- ‘It’s faster than any human is able to pull a trigger on a semi-automatic’
- Las Vegas attack - live updates
At least 58 people have died in the Las Vegas attack.
---------------------
Law enforcement officials have yet to confirm what kind of firearms Stephen Paddock used to shoot from his Mandalay Bay hotel room into a crowd of people at a country music festival in Las Vegas, killing at least 58 people, though early reports suggest he had as many as 10 guns, including some rifles.
The rapid pace of the gunfire suggested that the shooter was using either a fully automatic weapon, tightly restricted under US law, or that he had attached a device to a semi-automatic gun to make it fire more continuously, said Massad Ayoob, a firearms expert, instructor and author.
“It’s faster than almost any human being is going to be able to pull a trigger on a semi-automatic,” Ayoob said.
Fully automatic weapons, which fire multiple rounds of ammunition from a single pull of the trigger, are strictly regulated, taxed and tracked under US law. This makes them expensive collectors’ items, and comparatively rarely used in crimes. Semi-automatic rifles, in contrast, which fire only one round of ammunition with each pull of the trigger, are widely available.
Unlike some states, Nevada, which has laws generally friendly to gun owners, does not ban the sale of “assault weapons” - semi-automatic civilian guns built to resemble military weapons.
From listening to the footage of the attack, Ayoob said that the gunshots “did not sound as consistent” as he would typically expect from a fully automatic M-16 or AK-47. “The pace of fire is a little bit erratic. At one point it’s slower than it is at another point.”
Paddock could have used a Hellfire or a bump-fire device, which attach to normal semi-automatic rifles and allow them to fire more rapidly, Ayoob said. These devices are legal, but rarely used by serious shooters, he said.
“It’s hard to shoot accurately with them, and serious shooters want accuracy,” he said. He called them “not terribly popular” and “something a gun geek would want”.
For the Las Vegas shooter, though, the accuracy of these devices would not have mattered, since he was “hosing a two-acre area with 30,000 targets,” nearly every shot he fired would have hit someone.
On its website, Bump Fire Systems advertises the device as permitting “simulated full-auto firing” that is “absolutely legal”. It sells Bump Fire stocks for $99.99.
The Hellfire system uses a hand-operated crank to hit the trigger of the gun more rapidly than a person could fire it, Ayoob said, which could explain apparent changes in the pace of the fire.
Ayoob said he knew of only one previous incident in which a legally owned fully automatic gun was used in a murder. When fully automatic guns do show up in crimes, they have often been stolen, he said.
Semi-automatic weapons patterned to look like fully automatic M-16s have been a political flashpoint for decades, with Democrats arguing that these guns should be banned, and gun rights advocates arguing that semi-automatic weapons such as the AR-15 are no more dangerous than semi-automatic hunting rifles, which are not politically controversial.
The wide availability of large-capacity ammunition magazines, which allow shooters to fire dozens of rounds of ammunition without reloading, has also been a political battleground.
For 10 years, under the 1994 federal assault weapon ban, Congress did limit the production and sale of certain kinds of semi-automatic rifles, as well as higher-capacity ammunition magazines. Congress allowed the ban to expire in 2004, though some states do have their own assault weapons bans still in place. The 1994 law was written in a way that allowed gun manufacturers to market and sell very similar military-style guns with only a few tweaks to make them ban-compliant. The ban also grandfathered in as legal guns and ammunition in banned categories that Americans had already owned.
Following previous mass shootings, some Democrats have argued that Congress should reinstate a broader ban on semi-automatic rifles styled after military weapons. A justice department-funded evaluation of the ban found no clear evidence that it had reduced violence, and concluded that the live-saving effects of even a much stricter ban “are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement”.
Most gun murders in the United States are committed with ordinary handguns. Rifles of any kind were used in only about 3.5% of firearms murders from 2010 to 2014, according to a Guardian analysis of FBI data.
SOURCE.
-------------------------
OP: Al Jazeera had the following on the timeline of mass shootings in the U.S.
-------------------------
The deadliest mass shootings in the US
More than 50 people were killed in an attack in Las Vegas, making it the deadliest US mass shooting since 1949.
Las Vegas Metro Police and medical workers in Las Vegas.
---------------------
At least 58 people have been killed in a mass shooting at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. The suspect in the shooting, which took place at a music festival, was killed by police officers in the hotel room from where he opened fire on the crowd, authorities said. The Las Vegas attack is the deadliest mass shooting in the US since 1949, surpassing the 2016 attack in Orlando, in which 49 people were killed at the Pulse nightclub. Here's a look at the deadliest mass shootings in the US over the last two decades:
Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas (2017): At least 58 killed
- Shooter Stephen Paddock opened fire on the crowd of concert-goers at a country music festival at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, killing more than 58 people and injuring 500 others.
- A heavily armed gunman killed 49 people inside a gay nightclub in the city of Orlando on June 12, 2016.
- The attacker, US citizen Omar Mateen, was killed in a gun battle with police. He had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, which later claimed responsibility for the attack.
- A 23-year-old student, South Korean national Seung-Hui Cho, went on a rampage at Virginia Tech University in April 2007, killing 27 students and five teachers before committing suicide.
- A 20-year-old American citizen, Adam Lanza, killed his mother in December 2012 before shooting and killing 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. He later committed suicide.
- In October 1991, 35-year-old George Hennard, a US citizen, shot dead 22 people in a restaurant in the town of Killeen before shooting himself.
- A newlywed couple - US citizen Rizwan Farook and his Pakistani wife Tashfeen Malik, who was a permanent resident - stormed an office party at a social services centre in San Bernardino, California in December 2015, killing 14 people and injuring 22 others. The couple was shot dead by police.
- In November 2009, US Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan opened fire at his military base in Killeen, killing 13 people and injuring 42 others.
- A Vietnamese immigrant, Jiverly Antares Wong, shot and killed 13 people at a civic centre in the city of Binghamton in April 2009, before killing himself.
- Former serviceman Aaron Alexis, a US citizen, shot randomly at workers at the Washington Navy Yard headquarters in September 2013, killing 12 people before he was shot dead by police.
- James Holmes, a US citizen born in California, wearing body armour stormed a cinema showing a late-night premiere of a Batman film in Aurora, Colorado in July 2012, opening fire and releasing tear gas. Twelve people were killed and 70 others wounded. Holmes was sentenced to life in prison.
- Two American teenage boys - Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold - shot and killed 12 classmates and a teacher, before killing themselves at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in April 1999.
OP really wants to know how Republicans (and those who vote(d) for them) can look at themselves in the mirror.