Las Vegas Shooting

[Flagg]

The Pulse nightclub shooting last year was close, something like 50 people killed and a hundred or more injured. I expect many of the injuries in this case though came from stampeding and falls given the size of the crowd.

There probably were a bunch of injuries from that. Going by a statement from one of the performers at the concert, a lot of the injuries may have also been caused by shrapnel from bullets splintering.

Link to the full statement on Twitter (relevant part underlined in copy below)

I’ve been a proponent of the 2nd amendment my entire life.

Until the events of last night. I cannot express how wrong I was. We actually have members of our crew with CHL licenses, and legal firearms on the bus.

They were useless.

We couldn’t touch them for fear police might think that we were part of the massacre and shoot us. A small group (or one man) laid waste to a city with dedicated, fearless police officers desperately trying to help, because of access to an insane amount of fire power.

Enough is enough.

Writing my parents and the love of my life a goodbye note last night and a living will because I felt like I wasn’t going to live through the night was enough for me to realize that this is completely and totally out of hand. These rounds were powerful enough that my crew guys just standing in close proximity of a victim shot by this fucking coward received shrapnel wounds.

We need gun control RIGHT. NOW.

My biggest regret is that I stubbornly didn’t realize it until my brothers on the road and myself were threatened by it.

We are unbelievably fortunate to not be among the victims killed or seriously wounded by this maniac.

Obviously just another “Fucking idiot bitching and moaning and pretending to be on a soapbox atop a hill of moral high ground to make them feel better” right, Highlord Laan?

[Terralthra]

Even if you count the various Native American massacres as tenuous "acts of war", both this and the Pulse nightclub massacre are far exceeded by white supremacist violence during Reconstruction and Jim Crow. For example, the Colfax massacre resulted in an estimated 150 dead, while the Tulsa race riot resulted in an estimated 300 dead over 3 days. That's why the news stations are always qualifying it as "modern" history. Go back past 1950 and you have to start telling people about all the times white people murdered a bunch of black people for daring to want to own houses and vote.

[Dragon Angel]

Link to the full statement on Twitter (relevant part underlined in copy below)

I’ve been a proponent of the 2nd amendment my entire life.

Until the events of last night. I cannot express how wrong I was. We actually have members of our crew with CHL licenses, and legal firearms on the bus.

They were useless.

We couldn’t touch them for fear police might think that we were part of the massacre and shoot us. A small group (or one man) laid waste to a city with dedicated, fearless police officers desperately trying to help, because of access to an insane amount of fire power.

Enough is enough.

Writing my parents and the love of my life a goodbye note last night and a living will because I felt like I wasn’t going to live through the night was enough for me to realize that this is completely and totally out of hand. These rounds were powerful enough that my crew guys just standing in close proximity of a victim shot by this fucking coward received shrapnel wounds.

We need gun control RIGHT. NOW.

My biggest regret is that I stubbornly didn’t realize it until my brothers on the road and myself were threatened by it.

We are unbelievably fortunate to not be among the victims killed or seriously wounded by this maniac.

I guess the adage is always true, that to truly understand something happening, people who are opposed to measures solving it have to experience it for themselves. So many humans are just either unempathetic, or completely lack imagination.

Oh well. Glad he realizes it now.

[TheFeniX]

But they are reporting that there were 10 rifles in the hotel room, so it could be if he had 10 rifles with Bumpfires that's how he got around one breaking on the second mag. 10 rifles being there sorta swings it back to "bumpfire" territory to me, even if it didn't sound like it to my ears.

That and other reports of upwards of 20 rifles, 10+ handguns, and over 2000 rounds of ammo. This guy seem to have planned out for multiple contingencies, such as jamming and overheated barrels.

There's reports of illegally modified guns to fire full-auto. Scopes and tripods. Picking a high-vantage point and combining it with a packed arena to maximize lethality because he was firing at the maximum effective range of the firearms. However, being that high, gravity combined with ricochets did a lot of work for him.

Ammonia Nitrate was found in his home, though they haven't released how much.

I'm not getting into the gun control debate here, but it's clear this guy wanted to kill a bunch of people, picked a way to do it, and planned accordingly. I don't know how you realistically stop a guy like this coming out of nowhere. If he's willing to take the time, he can cause the damage he wants one way or the other. We've seen just as terrible body-counts done with vehicles. He's smart enough to plan for multiple ways his attack could go awry, he's smart enough to make a whole bunch of other plans work out the way he wants.

Sidenote: I have to wonder if at some point we have to stop the press/people from focusing on the name and face of the killer(s), while still releasing the details on what they did, and instead focus on the victims. Because this consistent immortalization of the killers is something I've taken issue with since Columbine.

[Flagg]

Link to the full statement on Twitter (relevant part underlined in copy below)

I’ve been a proponent of the 2nd amendment my entire life.

Until the events of last night. I cannot express how wrong I was. We actually have members of our crew with CHL licenses, and legal firearms on the bus.

They were useless.

We couldn’t touch them for fear police might think that we were part of the massacre and shoot us. A small group (or one man) laid waste to a city with dedicated, fearless police officers desperately trying to help, because of access to an insane amount of fire power.

Enough is enough.

Writing my parents and the love of my life a goodbye note last night and a living will because I felt like I wasn’t going to live through the night was enough for me to realize that this is completely and totally out of hand. These rounds were powerful enough that my crew guys just standing in close proximity of a victim shot by this fucking coward received shrapnel wounds.

We need gun control RIGHT. NOW.

My biggest regret is that I stubbornly didn’t realize it until my brothers on the road and myself were threatened by it.

We are unbelievably fortunate to not be among the victims killed or seriously wounded by this maniac.

I guess the adage is always true, that to truly understand something happening, people who are opposed to measures solving it have to experience it for themselves. So many humans are just either unempathetic, or completely lack imagination.

Oh well. Glad he realizes it now.

Yeah, a bit too late. Luckily we have such brave sentinels out to smash anyone who realizes the problems and solutions beforehand and who can glibly ignore and shit upon those horrible few with empathy for pointing out the problems and suggesting solutions so that history can rhyme again and again!

Hail the glorious who cry “How dare you use the people killed to try and push an agenda to prevent such acts in the future?” For they are the true heroes!

[SCRawl]

You're all arguing about the same thing. Stop it now, it's pointless.

So, yes, illegal weapons are illegal. There's almost no grey here; either this guy legitimately owned automatic weapons (in which case it means that he's gone through the most extensive background checks available to mankind) or he got them illegally. So this isn't a gun control issue.

You would think that if the authorities have their hands on these weapons it will become clear where they came from, and I'm interested in knowing that myself.

That's pretty America centric there qnd also completely untrue given that this is a gun control issue. Mass shootings aren't an issue north of the boarder and automatic weapon ownership is virtually non-existent outside of heirloom weapons that basically cannot be transfered. Saying that gun control doesn't factor in is patently false and, in this specific case, I dare somebody to claim that this attack would still have happened if the suspect had a knife/car/some other non-firearm means of attack.

I'm among the least sympathetic person to gun rights here. If I could snap my fingers and remove all firearms that aren't for hunting from civilian hands -- yes, that's a problematic distinction, so it's just as well my finger-snapping doesn't have any special powers -- I'd do it today. So when I say that it isn't a gun control issue, I'm being very serious. Well, after reading a bit more about it, it *could* be a gun control issue. I will explain.

As has been discussed, it's practically impossible to obtain automatic weapons legally. Let's assume the shooter either obtained them illegally, modified existing firearms illegally, or used some other technique to get the results that he did. In doing so I think we're on reasonably safe ground.

If his weapons were obtained illegally by purchasing them from abroad and having them smuggled into the country, this is not a gun control issue. There is no gun control regime that can prevent this kind of activity; it is an issue of the smuggling of illegal goods.

If the killer was able to modify otherwise legal weapons to make them fully automatic, or even just even just shoot the things off as has been suggested via "bumpfire", then this is a big problem that only gun control can solve, and it seems to me difficult to solve without some actions the American people would probably think too draconian. I'd never heard of "bumpfire" before, but after having Googled the thing, it seems to me that if fully automatic weapons are too dangerous for civilians to own, then semi-automatic weapons which can be converted into fully automatic (or effectively simulate fully automatic fire) are too dangerous for civilians to own. I just don't know how to do that, other than say "Sorry, you can't have it."

[Jub]

I'll say the same thing to Flagg that I'm about to say to Jub.

Until we know how he obtained the guns, we do not and cannot know what, if any, legal oversights or errors or flaws were involved. Therefore, we cannot prescribe a solution until we understand the nature of the problem it's meant to solve. The fact that people are suggesting how to treat the problem before they know what the problem is does not speak well of the chances that said solution will actually do what it's supposed to.

Reducing the number of weapons in the United States significantly would make owning 20+ rifles and hundreds (possibly thousands) of rounds of ammo something to take note of. It wouldn't be perfect, after all, Canada still does have shootings though these shootings are often gang on gang violence along with unfortunate bystanders of such attacks.

What we don't have are mass shootings, this single attack equals the amount of deaths caused by mass shootings in Canada going back to '99 ('96 if we remove 8 deaths in a gang related mass murder). The worst firearms related instance of mass murder going back to the 1900's is 15 deaths in 1989. The lack of firearms likely plays some part in this even if there are other factors at play.

You know, mass shootings aren't an issue in a LOT of countries, including countries whose gun ownership rates are much higher than the ones in Canada.

Meanwhile, there are other countries in the world where berserk killing rampages are a documented phenomenon, countries that are by no means extraordinary in terms of gun ownership rates. And yet in many countries, these kinds of rampages do not occur normally, whether they involve guns or not.

The US is pretty much unique here in having both random crazy berserkers and a lot of guns. The guns might be influencing the type of violence, but it's debatable whether they're the actual underlying problem. Me, I think the problem is whatever is causing Americans to go murderously insane without psychiatric treatment or community support.. Maybe the US is more violent for other reasons, which are more fundamental and significant, and higher gun ownership rates are only responsible for a small fraction of the overall problem?

This is likely true, but why should the issue only be attacked from one angle? Why not nibble away from all sides taking away some guns here, patching the social safety net there, and so on?

...and automatic weapon ownership is virtually non-existent outside of heirloom weapons that basically cannot be transfered.

Until we know exactly how these automatic weapons were obtained, it is completely pointless to talk about how they should have been secured differently. For all I know, this guy literally made his own machine guns. People can and have done that with access to a set of metalworking tools. They might not be reliable, but that's why you carry ten of them I guess?

While this is true and it's also true that crimes with automatic weapons are vanishingly rare in most 1st world nations, the fact that so many automatic weapons exist in civilian hands makes buying or stealing them easier than it is in many other nations.

Saying that gun control doesn't factor in is patently false and, in this specific case, I dare somebody to claim that this attack would still have happened if the suspect had a knife/car/some other non-firearm means of attack.

This exact attack would not have happened. Some attack of comparable horribleness could still have happened. The same guy might have, oh, I don't know, gradually amassed a pile of fertilizer, then used it to blow up a federal office building. We know this because that exact thing happened just over twenty years ago when another lone nut (with an accomplice or two) decided to make his mark in the newspapers by killing people.
[/quote]

As Flagg noted that is more closely tracked ever since the attacks and has a far greater risk to the would-be killer. I don't know about you, but I think that if all spree shooters had to make bombs instead more of them would die or be caught before reaching their target location. Even the Boston Marathon attacks were far lesser in scale than this and left the attackers more open to capture after the fact.

-----

I'm among the least sympathetic person to gun rights here. If I could snap my fingers and remove all firearms that aren't for hunting from civilian hands -- yes, that's a problematic distinction, so it's just as well my finger-snapping doesn't have any special powers -- I'd do it today. So when I say that it isn't a gun control issue, I'm being very serious. Well, after reading a bit more about it, it *could* be a gun control issue. I will explain.

As has been discussed, it's practically impossible to obtain automatic weapons legally. Let's assume the shooter either obtained them illegally, modified existing firearms illegally, or used some other technique to get the results that he did. In doing so I think we're on reasonably safe ground.

If his weapons were obtained illegally by purchasing them from abroad and having them smuggled into the country, this is not a gun control issue. There is no gun control regime that can prevent this kind of activity; it is an issue of the smuggling of illegal goods.

If the killer was able to modify otherwise legal weapons to make them fully automatic, or even just even just shoot the things off as has been suggested via "bumpfire", then this is a big problem that only gun control can solve, and it seems to me difficult to solve without some actions the American people would probably think too draconian. I'd never heard of "bumpfire" before, but after having Googled the thing, it seems to me that if fully automatic weapons are too dangerous for civilians to own, then semi-automatic weapons which can be converted into fully automatic (or effectively simulate fully automatic fire) are too dangerous for civilians to own. I just don't know how to do that, other than say "Sorry, you can't have it."

If the guns were stolen that's still a gun control issue as one can't steal that which has been seized and destroyed. Canadian laws also restrict magazine sizes while encouraging people to lock up their ammo or store it well away from their firearms. This reduces crimes of passion and makes firearm theft less immediately dangerous. We also restrict weapons based on how easy it is to convert them into automatic weapons.

http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/fs-f ... ge-eng.htm

http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/faq/index-eng.htm#a3

http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts ... .html#h-37

Restricted and prohibited firearms

Attach a secure locking device so the firearms cannot be fired and lock them in a cabinet, container or room that is difficult to break into; or trigger locks.

Lock the firearms in a vault, safe or room that was built or modified specifically to store firearms safely.

For automatic firearms, also remove the bolts or bolt carriers (if removable) and lock them in a separate room that is difficult to break into.

Restricted and prohibited firearms

Unload the firearms; and

Attach secure locking devices to the firearms; and

Lock the firearms in a sturdy, non-transparent container; and

Remove the bolts or bolt carriers from any automatic firearms (if removable).

Obtain an Authorization to Transport (call 1-800-731-4000).

Yeah, if you want to drive your firearm from your home to the range you have to call it in. You're also highly discouraged from making stops between those points with said weapons.

So yeah, if you're willing to pay the political tax to restrict firearms you can sure as fuck do it and enforce it. Canada makes California look like Texas.

[His Divine Shadow]

The problem is as usual, cities and population density. Ban guns and ownership in all metropole areas. Leave the guns to people in the countryside and small towns and stop making city problems their problems too.

Sure people could smuggle them in, but so what it's not like an outright ban on everything wouldn't contend with basically similar issues anyway. Can always have trump build loads of walls.

[Flagg]

You could avoid the entire issue by limiting the amount of ammunition an individual is allowed to purchase and possess. When they want to buy more they have to turn in the expended casings. But that’s just too fucking simple, apparently. Plus the gun lobby is against it.

In fact they are busy trying to roll back regulations (you know, the ones the “Cold dead hand!” crowd are saying would solve “the problem” if only they were enforced ) by pushing legislation to make armor piercing ammunition legal and making it easier/legal to purchase suppressors/silencers. Because deer and elk are wearing body armor these days. I don’t even know where to start with silencers.

I’d say that the vast majority of peoples’ right to attend a concert/music festival is heads above the crazy assholes right to own armor piercing bullets and suppressors but this is America and that would somehow make me a shroud waving horrible person.

[Flagg]

The problem is as usual, cities and population density. Ban guns and ownership in all metropole areas. Leave the guns to people in the countryside and small towns and stop making city problems their problems too.

Sure people could smuggle them in, but so what it's not like an outright ban on everything wouldn't contend with basically similar issues anyway. Can always have trump build loads of walls.

Yeah, pay no attention to the fact that minorities are more likely to reside in cities. Do you want me to go into detail about the wall thing?

[Sidewinder]

The shooting has already been badly politicized.

October 02, 2017 - 03:49 PM EDT

CBS executive fired after saying Las Vegas victims didn't deserve sympathy

CBS fired a legal executive Monday after she wrote on Facebook that she was not "sympathetic" to the victims of the mass shooting in Las Vegas.

“I’m actually not even sympathetic [because] country music fans often are Republican gun toters," former executive Hayley Geftman-Gold wrote.

At least 59 people were killed and more than 520 were injured after a gunman opened fire at a country music festival in Las Vegas on Sunday night.

"This individual, who was with us for approximately one year, violated the standards of our company and is no longer an employee of CBS," the network said in a statement Monday.

"Her views as expressed on social media are deeply unacceptable to all of us at CBS. Our hearts go out to the victims in Las Vegas and their families,” the network wrote.

The Daily Caller first flagged Geftman-Gold's post Monday morning.

“If they wouldn’t do anything when children were murdered I have no hope that Repugs will ever do the right thing," wrote Geftman-Gold, who served as vice president and senior counsel of strategic transactions at CBS.

The post quickly went viral, with Geftman-Gold's name and "CBS Exec" both becoming top trending topics on Twitter.

[Agent Fisher]

I don’t even know where to start with silencers.

Because silencers aren't like the movies and aren't actually silent? Cause it's still noticeably a gunshot? Cause all that does is make it less loud so you don't need to wear ear protection? So yeah, why would someone want something that makes it more comfortable to shoot?

[His Divine Shadow]

The problem is as usual, cities and population density. Ban guns and ownership in all metropole areas. Leave the guns to people in the countryside and small towns and stop making city problems their problems too.

Sure people could smuggle them in, but so what it's not like an outright ban on everything wouldn't contend with basically similar issues anyway. Can always have trump build loads of walls.

Yeah, pay no attention to the fact that minorities are more likely to reside in cities. Do you want me to go into detail about the wall thing?

I don't really see the point. Living in a city comes with sacrifices, stop forcing them on the rest of the world outside the city bubble. That's all I care about.

[Jub]

I don't really see the point. Living in a city comes with sacrifices, stop forcing them on the rest of the world outside the city bubble. That's all I care about.

Just as many small-town hicks get drunk and shoot their wives/the other guy/etc. as happens in the city. You just get less violent career criminals in smaller towns.

[His Divine Shadow]

Then keep to the city where guns are banned.

[Jub]

Then keep to the city where guns are banned.

Or apply the rules to everybody with rare exceptions.

[His Divine Shadow]

*shrug* Fine then no further gun bans or rules beyond what is in place today.

[Formless]

If the killer was able to modify otherwise legal weapons to make them fully automatic, or even just even just shoot the things off as has been suggested via "bumpfire", then this is a big problem that only gun control can solve, and it seems to me difficult to solve without some actions the American people would probably think too draconian. I'd never heard of "bumpfire" before, but after having Googled the thing, it seems to me that if fully automatic weapons are too dangerous for civilians to own, then semi-automatic weapons which can be converted into fully automatic (or effectively simulate fully automatic fire) are too dangerous for civilians to own. I just don't know how to do that, other than say "Sorry, you can't have it."

Bumpfire is a poor facsimile of fully automatic fire. It can't really be done with a pistol (to my knowledge) because it takes two hands, its quite inaccurate even with stocks meant to facilitate the technique, and it really does take skill in order to perform more than a burst of a few rounds. Frankly, with practice and a gun with a hairpin trigger, people have managed before to achieve machinegun-like rates of fire with a semiautomatic weapon. I've even seen video where someone with a bumpfire stock and practice using it competed against someone with the same gun (an AR-15) and just firing normally, but quickly. The guy bumpfiring the weapon was just a hair slower than the trained speed shooter. And both weapons were going off like machine-guns.

As for modifying a gun from semiautomatic to fully automatic, in general that takes an entirely different set of skills the basis of which could allow you to just manufacture a gun from the ground up provided the right tools are available. The only exception I know of where the conversion is simple would be the old M-1 to M-2 carbine conversion, which can be done with a kit that just drops in a couple of parts made out of sheet metal. That's by design, by the way, the US military wanted the conversion to be as easy and cheap as possible because they had a lot of M-1 carbines after WWII. But its already illegal to possess both of those items at once even without actually modifying the gun. The ATF considers it "constructive possession of an automatic weapon." The law would almost certainly apply similarly to any other weapon with a simple drop-in parts conversion like that. So again, there are already laws on the books for what you are describing!

[Crazedwraith]

Shall we dust off the old Onion article? Let's dust off the old Onion article. ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

LAS VEGAS—In the hours following a violent rampage in Las Vegas in which a lone attacker killed more than 50 individuals and seriously injured 400 others, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded Monday that there was no way to prevent the massacre from taking place. “This was a terrible tragedy, but sometimes these things just happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them,” said Iowa resident Kyle Rimmels, echoing sentiments expressed by tens of millions of individuals who reside in a nation where over half of the world’s deadliest mass shootings have occurred in the past 50 years and whose citizens are 20 times more likely to die of gun violence than those of other developed nations. “It’s a shame, but what can we do? There really wasn’t anything that was going to keep these individuals from snapping and killing a lot of people if that’s what they really wanted.” At press time, residents of the only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past eight years were referring to themselves and their situation as “helpless.”

More true than ever, especially considering the 'well the gun was illegal so clear we don't need to talk about gun law' argument.


Other cracking headlines from them about this:
Americans Hopeful This Will Be Last Mass Shooting Before They Stop On Their Own For No Reason

NRA Says Mass Shootings Just The Unfortunate Price Of Protecting People’s Freedom To Commit Mass Shootings

And "commentary by Paul Ryan": This Shooting Isn’t About Gun Control We Refuse To Pass, It’s About Access To Mental Health Care We’re Continuing To Gut

[Flagg]

I don’t even know where to start with silencers.

Because silencers aren't like the movies and aren't actually silent? Cause it's still noticeably a gunshot? Cause all that does is make it less loud so you don't need to wear ear protection? So yeah, why would someone want something that makes it more comfortable to shoot?

So suppressors/silencers should be made legal so gun owners don’t need to wear ear protection? Why should armor piercing rounds be made legal?

[Flagg]

*shrug* Fine then no further gun bans or rules beyond what is in place today.

No, you can abide by the same rules as the rest of society. If not you get to live in a cage like all of the others who refuse to do so. That’s called “civilization”.

[His Divine Shadow]

Lol, that's what I'm doing and am gonna be doing, while you gnash your teeth in impotent rage.

[Agent Fisher]

I don’t even know where to start with silencers.

Because silencers aren't like the movies and aren't actually silent? Cause it's still noticeably a gunshot? Cause all that does is make it less loud so you don't need to wear ear protection? So yeah, why would someone want something that makes it more comfortable to shoot?

So suppressors/silencers should be made legal so gun owners don’t need to wear ear protection? Why should armor piercing rounds be made legal?

Yes, they should be made legal, and they are at the federal level, it varies by state by state. If you want, have the same process it is now, two forms, $200 check to the ATF, fingerprints, and then waiting for the background check to clear. Assuming your state allows them, you can purchase them.

Did I say that armor piercing rounds should be made legal? Currently, the only armor piercing rounds that are illegal are pistol ammunition. Rifle ammunition, by it's very nature of having higher velocity and when it's a full metal jacket, will be able to penetrate all the standard levels of soft armor in use by normal Law Enforcement. That's why SWAT teams utilize heavier vests and plate carriers, to be able to stop rifle threats. So, in summation, as someone who carries a firearm and wears body armor for work, no, I don't want armor piercing handgun rounds out there.

[Korto]

While speculating about what the weapon was to allow rapid fire, there's this from the Guardian.

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.
...
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.

This guy feels that these systems are legal, which, if true, leads to the question: If automatic fire weapons are so restricted to be almost banned, why would you allow a device that effectively simulates automatic fire?

[Mr Bean]

This guy feels that these systems are legal, which, if true, leads to the question: If automatic fire weapons are so restricted to be almost banned, why would you allow a device that effectively simulates automatic fire?

Because you can make these devices in a cave with a box of scraps or any machine shop can churn them out easily. Here is a video showing the basic idea and demonstrating the results. Two pieces of plastic and a tension arm and the recoil of the gun makes the device pull the trigger again. It's the gun equivalent of tying down a controller with rubber bands to hold the run button down. Not hard to make, dead easy to 3d-print and you can mount or unmount it in under five minutes, and I've seen similar devices have all sorts of secondary civilian use.