Deadly Shooting at Las Vegas Country Music Festival; Over 50 Dead, 200 Injured

[Khan]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/us/las-vegas-shooting.html

 

This town holds so many warm memories for me.  It truly breaks my heart to know that this has happened.  May God be with everyone affected, and with the rest of the LV community.

[JaneAusten]

I was watching the footage before I left this morning and the screams with the gunfire was just horrifying. Heartbreak for the victims and the families and friends. I don't want to politicize this, but why  is it everytime something like this happens, now, it's always the worst in history?

[Roman]

from what the sheriff said, 50+ were killed and 406 are wounded. the killer is dead. there is another person in custody. no motive right now....this is just crazy. apparently he was in a hotel room in the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino. 

[DramatistDreamer]

The one person I know from Vegas avoids the strip and thankfully is alright. 

 

This news is terrible and my sense of being unable to do anything is palpable. 

 

Hearing about how many automatic rifles the gunman had access to, I feel fatigued with hearing the same 'thoughts, prayers and wishes' sentiment being exhorted over and over every time one of these tragedies occur, knowing, in the end, no action will be taken to stop the delivery of heavy weaponry into the hands of people who have no business getting access to a gun, let alone ten high-powered guns.

 

 

Apparently, that person is the perpetrator's wife. I don't know if she's a witness, a suspected accomplice or what...?

[Juliajms]

I agree. I actually feel pretty numb. At least at this point in history our society has decided these shootings are worth it to have free access to guns. I've know that since Sandy Hook.

[reallyhateskateonlost]

As usual, family members had no idea what was going on.

He got guns, planned this out without no one knowing about it.

It makes me sick. And he kills himself.  He could have done just that and leave everyone

else alone.

[Juliajms]

Looks like Isis has claimed responsibility.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/las-vegas-isis-shooting-claims-stephen-paddock-responsibility-latest-a7978941.html

[DramatistDreamer]

Those folks want to claim every f&ckin thing! Their enterprise is running out of steam, decaying from within and they now glom onto each international tragedy to try to boost their numbers. I'm going to see something more than some member's word.  I'm surprised Al Qaeda didn't try to stake their claim, I guess ISIS beat them to the punch.

[JaneAusten]

This is why the media is so irresponsible. The AP actually did report this but was clear it was a claim and has not been verified.

 

 

Thoughts and prayers and it will end here.  No matter who ultimately helped radicalize this guy, how many of these incidents have happened where these people were able to acquire guns without any type of check.  And seriously WHY are semiautomatic weapons legal. I hear the media talking about hotels having bag checks now after this incident. How many checks and such are we going to put in place as we continue to allow our politicians to avoid the real issue and the real domestic terrorist threat. THE NRA. Nothing will happen. We watched 20 babies get murdered and nothing.

[JaneAusten]

 

[Khan]

Here's what we know (so far) about Stephen Paddock.

 

Speculating about WHY someone would fire (possibly) automatic weapons indiscriminately into a crowd of people can be dangerous unless we have the proper information.

 

Another piece to the probably insolvable puzzle: Paddock had made "large gambling transactions".

[DramatistDreamer]

This is why we cannot dismiss politics from the conversation.

 

[Khan]

Repubs: "We don't know whether Stephen Paddock was mentally ill or whether he would have been included in that ban."

 

Me: "Common sense would tell you, though, that if a man will go to the trouble of acquiring weapons in order to shoot at and kill possibly hundreds, if not thousands, then he has checked out from sanity."

 

But, go ahead, keep your damn guns.  Let's see if you know how to use one when YOU are being attacked, or if you'd do what the rest of us would do: scream like a girl, piss your pants, and then run with arms flailing, as the assailant fills your buttocks with buckshot.

[cassadine1991]

This was a terror attack. People were terrorized

[DramatistDreamer]

 

I believe so too. Just like I believed that those children and teachers were terrorized at Sandy Hook elementary. Also the people at Pulse nightclub. 

 

The regulations that the Obama administration put in place were mainly for preventing the mentally unstable from access to weapons but, given time, they may also have netted domestic abusers as well as people who were obsessed with wreaking havoc and death and others who were/are functioning at a level that is not considered to be at a normal baseline.

Yet another safeguard that had been stripped away by the Trump administration.