If initial reports about the number of dead are correct, last night’s massacre in Las Vegas was the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. Via The Washington Post:
At least 50 dead, more than 200 injured in Las Vegas shooting
Gunman in a high-rise hotel on the Strip opened fire during a country music festival
In one of the worst mass shootings in modern U.S. history, the sniper-style gunfire rained down from the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino on Sunday evening, police said. The gunman, identified as Stephen Paddock, is believed to be a “lone wolf” and was killed after authorities confronted him on the 32nd floor of the hotel, police said.
If the gunman’s name were “Satam Panjwani” instead of “Stephen Paddock,” the attack would be deemed “terrorism,” and America would find deep national resolve to address the scourge. But the shooter was a 64-year-old white man, so it’s a “lone wolf” incident, and “thoughts are prayers” are activated instead:
My warmest condolences and sympathies to the victims and families of the terrible Las Vegas shooting. God bless you!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2017
Nothing will change.
rikyrah
As Chris Rock said years ago…
It’s Al Cracka that scares me.
Larime
The Strip was a militarized zone last night. Yes, I was out there working – I draw caricatures in front of the Bellagio fountains. No, Bellagio said NOTHING over their PA system. I knew there was an active shooter at Mandalay Bay, things were fine for over an hour. Then a stampede came running from Cosmo, saying there was a shooter at Planet Hollywood, others saying Cosmo, or even other casinos That’s when I decided to GTFO. It was all false alarms, thankfully. So surreal seeing police in armor and helmets with assault rifles on the Strip.
In moderation because I said casino. This thread will be fun with the filters.
rikyrah
So….we aren’t going to call him a DOMESTIC TERRORIST, Dolt45?
Uh huh
Uh huh ?
rikyrah
The likelihood that all his weapons of terror we’re LEGALLY bought?
Uh huh ?
ByRookorbyCrook
The lesson we Americans take from the story of Cain is that God doesn’t like it when you cover up your murder. If you own it, it is a proper sacrifice to the 2nd amendment, most holy of holies. More blood for the blood god!
rikyrah
Just by the event, you know that the overwhelming demographic of victims are young people.
Their parents are waking up to their child being gone ???
Caphilldcne
This is the goddam stupidest country in the goddam world. What other goddam place basically hands guns to people and more or less lets them shoot each other. and this will distract everyone from the ongoing disaster in PR. It’s a new low every f’in week.
henqiguai
Because I’m probably evil, I’m eagerly looking forward to the NRA’s position. Maybe if all those country music fans out in Nevada had been armed, they could have returned fire, or some such stupidity.
Yeah, “thoughts and prayers”. There’s a warm, dark, smelly place those can be jammed. How about some affirmative action on weapons and mental health in this progressively dark society.
Baud
So far.
Karen S.
Of course, he’s a domestic terrorist, but news readers will parrot what law enforcement officials say about the shooter being a “lone wolf.” They may even throw out that he’s mentally ill to boot, which he may have been. And, naturally, this isn’t the time to talk about lax gun laws.
Larime
Las Vegas local, was on the Strip. Can someone get my post out of moderation?
Karen S.
@henqiguai:
I must be evil as well because I wondered that about the NRA and this mass murder, too.
Shrillhouse
Why did Trump use an exclamation point in his condolence tweet? Friggin weird.
How long til he blames lazy first responders for the high death toll?
Jesus…
bystander
Have we heard from Roy Moore yet, or does the location of the shooting tell us all we need to know?
MSNBC seems to delight in doing the terrorist’s bidding by constantly repeating videos of people being terrorized. Who could not know what being terrorized looks like? And who would want their reaction filmed and widely distributed if you were unfortunate enough to be caught in those circumstances?
Davebo
First it was > 20 dead, now > 50. Hate to see where it finally ends up. Can’t imagine the panic in that crowd.
Matt McIrvin
@Karen S.: The current pattern is, they’re going to find some way in which he could be characterized as a liberal or leftist. Since these people tend to have a wild farrago of inconsistent, extreme beliefs, you can often find one.
Punchy
It was weird being 15 hrs ahead of the US, knowing that very few in the US knew what was breaking news here in AUS. I’ve had a head start on processing this and Im drawing a blank….just an incredibly sadistic, horrific, but entirely predictable event.
Aussies just cannot fathom so many peeps w/ so many guns in the US.
Shalimar
@henqiguai: Jason Aldean’s wife said they were unharmed because angels were watching over them.Too bad the angels didn’t give a fuck about the 50+ dead.
efgoldman
@Karen S.:
By the end of the day, someone in the RWNJ noise machine is going to decide that they guy drove past a mosque once, and was really an unwitting supporter of ISIS.
After all, we now have a major party senate candidate, and probably new senator, saying out loud that Newtown didn’t really happen.
Woodrowfan
@Shalimar: apparently Angels are rather picky about such things. It’s almost as if it was a matter of luck..
Shalimar
@Matt McIrvin: Most liberals are fine with banning liberals from owning guns, as long as no one else has them either. All they are doing is deflecting the argument to something that doesn’t threaten their precious guns.
JPL
Wasn’t congress suppose to loosen gun laws this week? I know that they want silencers easier to buy, and approve the use of body piercing ammo.
JPL
@Larime: Can you post again… How close were you?
Karen S.
@Shalimar:
Those angels also didn’t care about the 200 plus who were injured either, apparently. Angels. Falling down on the job for a millennium.
TS
@Shrillhouse:
As I mentioned on a dead thread – Why did he offer “warmest condolences”? His language and grammar are off the planet weird.
Brachiator
So, we have a president who won’t be calling for introspection or consideration of stronger gun control laws. The NRA must be so happy.
Caphilldcne
And now we get to spend days of people doubling down on how guns are great for this country. I am beyond words to describe how angry I am.
Aimai
How soon before megan mcardle mourns that concert goers are not trained to climb multistory buildings to rush shooters? For those who mercifully don’t know she thought, after Newtowne, that kindergarteners should be taught to rush assailants and that this group hug would have disarmed Adam lanza.
henqiguai
@Shalimar (#18):
Or the 200+ injured. I’ve been shot; sh!t hurts!!! like all get out. That’s some serious trauma for a lot of people; the routine type of ‘counseling’ provided is about as effective as a conversation with a preacher.
Larime
@JPL: It’s out of moderation now. Comment #2.
Cermet
@Woodrowfan: And that many of the badly wounded will survive because of a miracle rather than the medical care they received;really, they would have survived on their own and medical intervention was a waste.
Wonder why this killer chose to do this? Surely this wasn’t random – such an automatic weapon isn’t at hand because most people with semi-auto guns don’t convert them to full; generally someone that has a strong reason & love of such weapons. Yet this person kept on shooting with the sole desire to kill as many people as possible. Also, maybe law enforcement will be more interested in gun control once they 1) realize a number of cops died 2) these weapons are unstoppable 3) cops are likely targets in future white terrorist attacks – there have been a few already even if this attack turns out not to be caused by militia member. Not holding my breath.
TS
And why is it that the US political media cannot handle more than one news item at time. Suddenly PR is irrelevant, football will carry on with or without people kneeling, Congress will pass the most regressive tax laws in history and the next 7 days will be spent examining why the 2nd amendment is so much more important than anyone’s right to go to a concert without being shot to death. The president* will be basking in the glory of no-one noticing what he is doing.
PaulWartenberg
“Those who worship hold the volcano in the palm of their hand. It’s filled with prayers in my name. The power of fire is firepower. Not God but god-like. And they believe.” – Vulcan, American Gods.
Repatriated
@Woodrowfan: Perfectly reasonable reaction from someone who is sincerely religious. Either it’s Divine Providence and angelic intervention, or God allows atrocities or simply doesn’t exist.
In a horrific situation such as this, it’d be astonishing if they didn’t process events that way. Trauma doesn’t generally make it easier to consider the larger picture in the moment.
Edits: spelling and punctuation.
randy khan
@TS:
Between “warmest” and the exclamation point, it feels like it’s written by someone who is not a native English speaker. But a lot of his tweets look that way.
Baud
@TS: Dude, the shooting is only a couple of hours old. I hate the media too, but your prognostications are ridiculous.
Shalimar
@Caphilldcne: Based on the early Rawstory influx of gun nuts, they aren’t even trying to admit they love guns or argue that more guns would have made any difference. This is strictly a “he got his gun illegally, laws are worthless, whatyagonnado?” rear-guard action.
Nina
It’s a straight white guy shooting straight white people. The logic will not compute.
Kay
@Aimai:
I wonder about that too- what’s the new plan now that the shooter was 500 yards away, and concealed? The “good guys with a gun” plan seems to have failed.
Shalimar
@Baud: He’s right about the way media, especially the news channels, have covered major stories in the past. You would think with all that time to kill, they would love being able to alternate between several huge stories. In actuality, viewers seem to have the attention span of ADHD toddlers and need to see immediate conversation about X whenever there is a breaking story.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@TS:
Or giving black power salutes. I haven’t seen anything about that in the media even before the shooting.
Kay
@Cermet:
Cops as a group could have turned this around years ago. They’re organized and the Right worships the ground they walk on. That one interest group could have gotten gun laws. Instead their tribal affiliation with the Right won out.
Shalimar
@Cermet: Cops have been specifically targeted in Las Vegas itself before, by the Joker and Harley Quinn cos-playing couple a few years back.
Baud
@Shalimar: Media is horrible. But that commenter was already predicting six different losses that would result from media coverage of the shooting. That’s defeatist.
Radiumgirl
Nevada is an open carry state and a must issue state for concealed carry. You can bet a fair no. of people at that concert were packing heat.
This is where open carry gets you — that guy could walk into a hotel lobby with a rifle and there is no legal basis to question him.
BlueDWarrior
@Radiumgirl: Yeah, but no amount of explaining that penetrates their heads.
Chyron HR
Has the junior senator from Vermont snarled at everyone to stop “going on about the gun thing” yet?
raven
My half sister was there, I texted her no answer so far.
Punchy
@Radiumgirl: This. Hard to return fire when the shooter is 32 stories up and barricaded behind a window opening. See also; fish, barrel, shooting.
Betty Cracker
@raven: Hope she’s okay!
AnderJ
@raven: Hopefully all will be as good as can be.
HeleninEire
@raven: Oh hell. Pls let us know when you hear from her.
Baud
@raven: Fingers crossed for you and her.
TS
@Baud: I certainly wasn’t being defeatist, no doubt exaggerating – I was pointing out all the things that will or could get ignored because this coverage will go on for days. For trump this is like war breaking out – turn the media away from his current disasters. No doubt he will soon tweet something so stupid that it can’t be ignored.
Beyond all that I don’t doubt that this is horrific, 50 or more families have lost their loved ones – many probably don’t even know that yet – and it seems this type of killing is going to be repeated over and over. I would love to have a solution & continue to hope that those with a voice to bring some calm and solutions to these events will do so.
And “that commenter” is a female nym TS, thanks
Mai.naem.mobile
I bet Dolt45 was getting a hard on thinking it was going to be Muslin shooter to distract from PR and then poof! Its a white guy. Also who says warmest condolences? Idiot.
randy khan
I have run out of words for this sort of thing. It’s just too awful and too common.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Shalimar:
God and its angels are like that – they save a few wingnut evangelicals while letting a lot of other people die (and given the concert crowd, some of the dead include wingnut evangelicals).
Baud
@TS: Thanks for the gender clarification. I’m frankly tired of the “distracted” theory. We’ve been hearing it from Day 1, and I don’t believe in it.
I frankly don’t think this will be covered for that long since it wasn’t “terrorism.”
clay
@Shalimar: She’s a survivor of a mass tragedy, taking what comfort she can. She’s probably in shock, and has (or will have) survivor’s guilt. What are you getting mad at her for? She didn’t cause any of this.
hueyplong
I can’t think of a thing we’d learn about this retirement community-dwelling mass killer that will impact the current political thinking that movement toward a more Wild West gun environment is not only preferable, but mandated by law, the Constitution, and the country’s seemingly most powerful lobbying entity.
bjacques
Is this an insensitive time to bring up global warming? In the aftermath of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, I was told that it was, so I raised the topic of mass shootings and lax gun laws instead and promised to let global warming wait until after a mass shooting.
Schlemazel
@Baud:
Beat me to it.
Worst Mass Shooting in U.S. History:
Update as needed
Repatriated
The part of this that I’m having trouble comprehending is how someone sociopathic enough to fire an automatic weapon into a crowd managed to avoid any prior run-ins with law enforcement.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
The NRA is awaiting the identity of the weapon so that they can watch the sales numbers for that particular rifle tick up.
MattF
I guess the police will figure out where this guy lived and then search for clues to a motive. Chances are slim to none that ‘letting crazy people have automatic weapons’ will be seen as a problem that needs to be dealt with.
Cermet
@raven: I so hope all is well with her and so very sorry for the extreme worry this must surely be causing you; maybe the confusion and other issues has caused her to forget to call or she lost her phone. Keep us informed and I am wishing for the best.
Shalimar
@clay: I’m not mad at her. You’re right, she has a much better reason for resorting to this flawed logic than most people who say similar things. It’s still dumb, though.
Betty Cracker
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Happens every time. Someone on CNN was saying that, from the rate of shots fired as heard on videos, it had to be an automatic rifle, either an illegally purchased automatic or a modified semi-automatic. I have no idea if that’s true or not. But if the latter, there will be a run on that type of weapon and a spike in online searches for how to make the modification. We’re a goddamn sick society.
Face
@Repatriated: this was exactly my thought too. How can a man so disturbed and effed up have no priors? Unpossible.
TS
@raven: Sending best thoughts – hoping you hear very soon.
Edit – good news from the post directly below
raven
She’s OK. she was at another show in LA and her friend thought she was in Vegas. I woke her up in Phoenix.
raven
@Betty Cracker: There is no question. If you hear the audio it is unmistakably auto, my guess is an AK.
Baud
@raven: Good news.
MomSense
@Larime:
Damn, I’m glad you are ok.
@raven:
Oh raven. I hope she is ok.
hueyplong
@Face: “How can a man so disturbed and effed up have no priors? Unpossible.”
Three words: Old white man.
Think of any of your older relatives just before they went into assisted living. Angry all the time. Dangerous as hell behind the wheel with no ramifications, even after accidents. Add any kind of military or good old boy gun training not yet forgotten and…
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So some entitled white male douch who decided he to special to die alone. Lovely.
Repatriated
@hueyplong: Alas, I concur.
Betty Cracker
@raven: Glad she is okay!
hueyplong
@raven: Very good news. Sorry you had the experience of not knowing for what probably seemed like an eternity.
schrodingers_cat
Satam is not a first name, you were going for Satyam I think. Why Panjwani? Show me on the doll where a Sindhi person touched you.
ETA: Not Sindhi and my name is not Satam or Satyam, but WTF?
Kay
Anyway, I’m sorry for all of them- their families, all of them. I’m sorry for all of us, too, because no one seems capable of responding to this in any rational way. Obama is a really talented politician and he couldn’t move the needle after a mass slaughter of 1st graders.
schrodingers_cat
@raven: Good to know, thanks for the update.
Frankensteinbeck
@Face:
The ‘snapped’ phenomenon is real. So is radicalization. The biggest crime linked with these shootings is domestic abuse, which has a major underreporting or being ignored issue. It’s not especially weird this killer has no record.
Repatriated
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: It seems a bit ghastly and complex to be merely “suicide by cop”.
Cermet
@hueyplong: Hey, I resemble that!
@raven: So very glad
Mary G
This will suck up all the attention. The media seems to be completely ignoring the fact that Congress let CHIP expire over the weekend, depriving nine million American kids of health insurance, which could potentially lead to a lot more than 50 deaths.
SFAW
@raven:
Glad to hear she wasn’t there/near
Baud
@Mary G: I’ve seen several stories on CHIP. And the delay probably won’t be an issue if they pass something fairly quickly.
JGabriel
Betty Cracker @ Top:
The superlatives keep piling up for the Trump administration: Worst hurricane to hit Houston; Worst hurricane to hit Puerto Rico; Worst mass shooting …
raven
@SFAW: Thanks, I think I have to check out of here for a while. I know it’s normal to have the kinds of discussions that are going on but I’m not interested.
satby
@raven: glad to hear.
JGabriel
@Baud:
The GOP has been trying to repeal the ACA for 7 years. I don’t think there’s anything they can do quickly.
MomSense
@Kay:
The thing is the public overwhelmingly supported an end to secondary sales and improved background checks–even Republicans. The NRA lobby money was just too sweet for the GOP. They really are monsters.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: WTF right back at you: The obvious point is that if the name sounded like it might belong to a non-WASP from a region where Islam is practiced, folks would immediately assume it was terrorism.
Repatriated
@MomSense: It’s probably worth noting that some of the NRA’s sweet money came from our old friends in Russia.
Frankensteinbeck
@MomSense:
I honestly think the NRA lobby is a minor matter. Gun control is seen as a liberal/conservative issue. Gun nuttery is overwhelmingly driven by racism fears. The gun nuts are wildly zealous and politically motivated, and while most Republicans support gun control in theory, Cleek’s Law requires them to vote against any politician who pursues it.
Baud
@JGabriel: If they don’t, then it will be a story. It frankly isn’t one yet, except example ∞ of GOP incompetence.
JaneSays
Casualty count revised to over 400 injured.
My God. This may be the most horrific human-perpetrated tragedy this country has experienced since 9/11.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Nina:
Shows you how deep the paranoia is getting on the Right.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Betty Cracker:
I know the type of pathetic “man” who’d go and stick up and modify based on this story. If young and still partnered, he spends the mortgage and grocery money adding to the number of household guns. If he’s older (and inevitably split up), he’s behind on child support because he spends so much on guns and ammunition.
At any age, he speaks ominously of societal breakdowns and pats his gut. He’s paranoid and pathetic.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: It would be funny if T voters didn’t automatically look at immigrants (being Muslim is optional) and saw moochers and terrorists. But carry on.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Repatriated:
Shooting up a Country Western festival in Vegas is a hardly a political statement (assuming there is no InfoWars style conspiracy theory now out about Country and Western music) And Los Vegas is were people go to do bad stuff so it fits, as horribly insane as it sounds.
SFAW
@JaneSays:
I know you mean well, but I think the eventual body count in Puerto Rico might be slightly higher, unless Brock Long starts spending more time trying to help them, and less time talking as if he’s a Shitgibbon mini-clone.
ETA: Apologies if you were being snarky/ironic and I didn’t get it.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
So he was a good guy with a gun, until he wasn’t.
hueyplong
Totally ignorant about such things, so I’ll ask, does a place like Las Vegas have the capacity to absorb 400 or more wounded people hitting area hospitals at one time? Bed space, number of surgeons specializing in gunshot wounds, etc.?
Jeffro
@Frankensteinbeck:
Just another example of tribalism run amok.
I posted this in the downstairs open thread, but y’all should bookmark this and save it for later: Can Our Democracy Survive Tribalism? Great long read that I missed when it came out about two weeks ago.
If we’re ever going to move past stalemate in a peaceful, constructive way in this country, folks are going to have to be asked to look beyond their tribal lenses and think. Goes perhaps especially for solutions to gun violence.
prob50
@Brachiator:
Nah, that stuff is for wimpy liberals who hate America.
SFAW
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Waiting for Alex Jones to come up with an Obama-dictated (or maybe Hitlery-dictated) false flag operation theory.
Caphilldcne
@Shalimar: yeah, they’re backed into a corner but the occasional massacre is worth it so they can masturbate over their powerful guns. Ugh.
Joey Maloney
@hueyplong: University Medical Center in LV is the only Level 1 trauma center in the state. (I learned that early this morning.)
Betty Cracker
Now the cops are saying the shooter killed himself, had at least 10 guns in the hotel room.
JaneSays
@SFAW: I clarified my comment to “worst human-perpetrated tragedy since 9/11”. Clearly Katrina was worse in terms of total loss of life, and Puerto Rico very likely will be as well.
mai naem mobile
@JGabriel: Worst President evah!
rikyrah
@Radiumgirl:
I hardly believe if a Non-White walks into a hotel lobby that they won’t be questioned.
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
I’ve read that it’s quite easy to modify an AR-15 pattern semi-auto rifle and make it full-auto.
Honus
@Betty Cracker: from the sound of the shots definitely an automatic. Reasonable probability it is an AR-15 converted to full auto; it’s pretty easy to do. I used to get the Shotgun News and there were multiple ads for receiver kits to convert AR-15s to full auto, and it’s not a difficult procedure.
rikyrah
@raven:
I hope that she gets back to you soon.
Caphilldcne
@raven: oh no. I hope you hear from her. Good lord this is terrible.
rikyrah
@raven:
Oh, glad that she’s ok.
rikyrah
@JaneSays:
Casualty count revised to over 400 injured.
OMG
Honus
@Face: he’s a 60 year old white guy with a lot of guns. I can introduce you to a few dozen examples within a few miles of my rural Virginia home. The surprising thing is doesn’t happen more often than it does. If you have priors, you can’t pass a background check.
Suzanne
@hueyplong:
My company has built hospitals in Vegas, so that is my only connection here, but almost certainly not. Vegas is considerably smaller than Phoenix, and Phoenix doesn’t have anywhere near that kind of Level 1 trauma capacity. Even in a Level 1 trauma center, the highest number of trauma bays that I have seen in an ED is about eight, most around 2-4. And most hospitals are not Level 1 trauma centers.
This is an unbelievable tragedy. You may remember a few months ago that I posted a GoFundMe for a friend of mine (veteran, single dad) who was in financial trouble. He is a cabbie in Vegas. He checked in and let us know he was okay.
El Caganer
@Kay: Good Guy with a RPG.
Steve in the ATL
@Frankensteinbeck:
I’ll bet he has a record of following right wing media
O. Felix Culpa
@schrodingers_cat: Which was her point.
jonas
@henqiguai:
Here’s my bet: “Well, if he didn’t have access to military-grade assault weapons, he would have just mowed everyone down with a rented truck or something, so wev.”
mike in dc
The NRA, sometime later today or tomorrow: “If only some of the concertgoers had been wearing full body armor, carrying scoped rifles and had training in counter-sniper fire, this tragedy could have been averted. Also, Congress should immediately pass that law permitting more people to buy silencers.”
Ksmiami
@Suzanne: they’d be smart to helivac doctors in from Los Angeles – esp from County-USC they have a lot of experience with triage/shooting incidents
jonas
@Steve in the ATL: I’ll bet he has a record of following right wing media
Who knows? The Congressional baseball game shooter was a crazy Bernie supporter. The issue here is that radicals and crackpots, of whatever stripe, shouldn’t have open access to military-grade assault weapons.
gene108
@Jeffro:
We were there after 9/11/01. Then Bush, Jr decided to tear us apart to drum up a war to ouster Saddam.
Then Republicans exploited racist fears of Obama to further their political ends.
And here we are.
I don’t see how to move beyond this division, because it is not both sides contributing equally to it. And the side that contributes the most to the division benefits so much from it.
Steve in the ATL
@jonas:
Nor should non-radicals and non-crackpots!
jonas
@mike in dc:
Think of how much more fun this all would have been if the guy had had a flash suppressor and silencer on his rifles! Police/victims have no clue where the shots are coming from. Smell the freedom!
gene108
@rikyrah:
Gun ownership is largely about conservative whites imposing on others. Open carry is just an extension of this tradition, because the required deference will not be extended to non-whites.
japa21
Watching our local news broadcast in Chicago. They had an interview with an FBI profiler (ex) who was pretty good. The anchors tried to press her on the mental illness angle and whether that was it, or a medication issue or whatever. She responded that that seems to be a normal reaction, there had to be mental illness involved. However, that is the case in relatively few of these types of situations and, in fact, the amount of preparation going into this shooting, including the apparent planned shooting of self, indicates that mental illness is probably not an issue.
Suzanne
@Ksmiami: It’s not just doctors/staff, it’s facilities. Traumas like this require giant ED bays and dedicated ORs and enough blood on hand in the blood bank. (I’m actually working on converting one of my client hospitals to a Level 1 trauma center right now, and the regulations are unreal.) All of these hospitals will be in a surge situation, which means that victims will be lined up in corridors waiting for care, which of course brings its own risks that I don’t want to type out because I don’t want to think about it.
jonas
Here’s what this comes down to: we are not living in a free country when we can’t go to public gatherings any longer without wondering in the back of our minds if some crazy asshole with a machine gun is going to open fire. How’s that different from wondering if a police state is listening in on your private conversations, or reading your mail, looking for indications of dissent? It’s meant to control you, make you afraid, make you compliant. The NRA and its gun-toting minions are a bunch of fascist brownshirts working to make us less free. The sooner that organization and everyone belonging to it are consigned to the dustbin of history, the better this world will be.
SFAW
@JaneSays:
OK. Saw the original, before the human-perpetrated was added/included.
Thanks.
Suzanne
@japa21:
Mental illness probably is an issue, but not a psychotic disorder. I would be shocked if the dude didn’t display signs of something like borderline personality disorder or extreme paranoia. “Mental illness” is a very broad category, and it’s good to be more precise about it when we discuss it.
Kathleen
@Karen S.: If only the angels had been armed…
That will be the new outcry from the NRA. Let God and the angels pack heat.
El Caganer
Dunno what kind of legal restrictions on guns would pass muster with the current Supreme Court. The Port Arthur massacre was a wake-up for Australia, and they took action, but we seem to be able to swallow this kind of thing without batting an eye.
Betty Cracker
@jonas: Exactly right.
prob50
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yes, I was going to write a long, windy comment about this but I saw yours first. Much more succinct than what I was about to conjure up.
Elizabelle
Some praise to FTF NYTimes. They have published a photo of bloodied white/pale concertgoers. Two young women, with what seems to be a guy behind them. Lying on the concert grounds.
Caption says “A woman covered with blood at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival. Credit David Becker/Getty Images”
They are receiving no treatment. I think you are seeing dead young people. I appreciate the Times’ courage in publishing this.
America. These could be your kids. Or you. Wise up.
Just One More Canuck
@Shalimar: angels are pretty callous
cosima
To give you a tiny bit of insight into how sane countries address gun control:
Our neighbour has just retired from the police force. For many years he’s been one of the few who go to homes where the owner is licensed to have a rifle/gun/etc, to ensure that they are following the law. So, basically, he is going to the home to ensure that weapons are kept under lock & key, and that the weapons that are registered to your name are accounted for (none have been sold on without permission, altered, etc). Anyway, for approx. 2 years this area has been hard-hit by the downturn in the oil industry, and approximately 30k in the area have lost their jobs. Our neighbour told us a story of a man who had been involved in a bankruptcy proceeding, his company having folded due to the crash, and neighbour & another police officer were sent to his house to get the guns. They went to his office to escort him to his house, the man was in tears, asked them to wait until his wife was gone, because he had not told her what was going on. Neighbour said he had to explain to the man ‘no, we’re taking the guns now.’ Gently, I’m sure, because neighbour is amazing, and I can’t imagine him being anything other than sympathetic but firm in a situation like this. The important thing, though, is that the system here is rational & reasonable about guns — plenty of folk have them (under lock & key) for hunting, if they are deemed fit to have them. And people who are recognised to be vulnerable, for whatever reason, have them taken away. I know plenty of folk who have guns, and I don’t feel threatened by that (in spite of my family’s tragic gun history), more importantly, though, I feel safe because I know that here there are a lot of reasonable steps that have been/are taken to ensure that gun ownership is managed as safely as possible.
Princess Leia
@jonas: THIS.
Suzanne
@jonas: Yes.
gene108
@cosima:
In America this would not be considered rational or reasonable by gun groups, this would be government run amock and destroying freedom.
We aren’t close to being rational on guns anytime soon.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah:
catclub
@Nina:
I wonder if the Vietnam Documentary will be found to have an impact on the guy.
Barbara
@Shalimar: That statement fills me with rage. If I were close to one of the people who died I would be contacting every kind of news outlet and screaming my rage.
Barbara
@raven: I hope she is okay and you hear from her soon. Fingers crossed.
cosima
@gene108: Can’t have rational or reasonable conversations, never mind laws put in place, about guns, health care or education. Which is why we upped sticks and moved to the UK. Now we are crossing fingers that we’ll be allowed leave to remain. I worked very hard, when we were in the US, to be part of the solution, but it was an uphill battle. I’ve got no answers, of course, but it is interesting to hear how it works here first-hand, and I hope someday the US will get to a similar sane place. I don’t have a lot of faith in that, but I can hope.
randy khan
@raven:
That’s a relief.
hedgehog mobile
@raven: Good to hear.
hedgehog mobile
@Larime: Glad you are ok.
cokane
disagree on the terrorism take. it’s not like the country found any resolve in the wake of the Orlando shooting. No price too high for having guns everywhere, apparently.
Mel
Las Vegas PD is repoorting that there were “multiple firearms” including “long rifles” found in the shhoter’s room. Then, they stated that they have “cleared” his companion (a person apparently named Marilou), and that she is not considered a person of interest in the crime.
How??? How can a person see another person loadfing up multiple semi-automatic or automatic weapons, loading up ammunition, all to take to a hotel in a vacation destination, and supposefly not have any clue that anything is amiss?
C. Shroedinger
“Worst Mass Shooting in U.S. History” ?
Look up East St. Louis Massacre, 1917.
Look up Colfax, La., 1873.
“Worst Mass Shooting in recent US History” would be more accurate.
David Rickard
500 quatloos that Orange Julius is bragging by the end of the day that the biggest mass shooting ever happened during his presidency
300 quatloos Twitler or the Confederate Elf find a way to spin this into justification for more policing in non-white neighborhoods
thewesson
@TS:
Yes … Who the hell says “warmest condolences”? That’s like “happy, positive feeling about your pain”.
Kind of sums up Trump actually.
Elizabelle
@Larime: Please keep us posted, on the local reaction as this settles out.
raven
@Mel: You have no fucking idea, what’s the point?
justawriter
@Mel: From what little information is available, I got the impression that the shooter used the woman’s identity to book the room.
justawriter
@C. Shroedinger: White guy on a reservation here, and my social media contacts are reminding me that this is the biggest since Wounded Knee.
Ithink
@justawriter:
Nice historical parallel!
henqiguai
@Mel (#158):
Um, because, according to the authorities, she was and is out of the country? Just spitballing on that, but…
Greg
@Baud:
Modern history. Needs qualifiers. I assume in reference to a single assailant because this.
https://twitter.com/AsteadWH/status/743512172551110656
Suzanne
To follow up on my earlier comment….
I heard on NPR this morning that the entire state of Nevada has ONE Level 1 trauma center, which is in Las Vegas. They have three ORs. Some of the victims died in the facility. The facility was able to take approximately 30 of the victims.
Our healthcare system does not have the capacity for these kinds of events.
gbbalto
@Mel: I understand that she was out of the country; they located her and questioned her
Elizabelle
@Suzanne: Excellent comment. No capacity for large capacity shooting. Please pop it into the spanking new thread. Bird on a Wire.
Clue: it’s us.
Matt McIrvin
@Shalimar: I was slightly wrong, anyway: they just made up a story about how the guy was a liberal.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mel:
Apparently the cops got the ID wrong on the suspect at first and this woman has nothing to do with the shooter.
joel hanes
@gene108:
Republicans exploited … and the side that contributes the most to the division benefits so much from it.
Repeated for cogency.
If this site had upvotes, you’d have all of mine.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@justawriter: Actually this out did Wounded Knee – 458 dead or wounded in Vegas and 351 dead or wounded at Wounded Knee.
Elie
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
My guess is that even this guy’s brother didn’t really know him in any depth. His pattern of life — gambling and staying in hotels in Las Vegas, sounds pretty alienated and disconnected. He may have been superficially polite, but probably very few people actually talked to him to get to know his fixations or thoughts about himself or living. His brother said he wasn’t into guns, but clearly, he knew how to shoot and may have practiced at gun ranges. He could have kept guns anywhere. I bet his brother was more or less a stranger. In any case, there are a lot of lonely folks out here and we have heard goo gobs about the “angry white male” — we’ve even put a crown on their heads politically so that everyone from Bernie to Trump think that they should be driving our political agenda… I am sick of it. 99% of the mass killings in the US are due to white males. Why is that? WHY IS THAT???
Jack the Second
My deepest sympathies to the victims of the Las Vegas shooting and their families.
My half-pained, sarcastic comment is “now the time has finally come to ban high-rise buildings”. A failed shoe-bomber and I’ve got to take off my 1/8 thick, topless huaraches at the airport, dozens dead and hundreds wounded and we won’t do one fucking thing about guns.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Elie:
I am old white guy myself and it beats me. Ending up like that is a bit of a nightmare for me. The only thing I can speculate on is white men are expected to be these Conan the Barbarian figures and if you don’t do anything like sports or martial arts, you end up a mental mess because you never “proved” your white manly manlyness.
Mel
@raven: My point is that these things very rarely happen suddenly, in isolation, with no behavioral patterns, behavioral changes, statements, or actions to give those close to the individual a heads up. My point is that some, if not many, of these tragedies could be prevented.
Maybe I didn’t make myself clear, because I am absolutely sick with anger and frustration over this senseless damn loss of life.
So let me clarify: I have lost people that I cared about very much to gun violence. Former students, and a beloved former mentor. Each time, there were clues. Each time, people close to that person or their family, people involved intimately in their current daily lives saw clear signs that things were going off the rails, and they chose to not act, chose to turn away from the obvious.
They chose not to seek mental health care for the person exhibiting behavioral changes or issues, or not to report escalating patterns of violence, or not to act when a firearm appeared in the household, or was obtained by a person whose grip on reality was slipping and whose statements /behaviors clearly indicated that they were seriously considering doing harm to themselves or others.
I spent a large portion of my adult life working in jobs that involved teaching and / or advising and counseling kids and adults who were fighting an uphill battle. Many had experienced domestic abuse or sexual abuse as a child or adult. Some were veterans with PTSD, who had experienced things most of us can’t even begin to comprehend. Many had been through the prison system. Some had spent their young lives being bounced from one foster care home to another, or from one barely known relative to another. Most had experienced gun violence in one form or another.
So, yes, I get the reasons, psychological, social, cultural, and physical, why someone might not speak up when they see a dangerous situation building. I know that, especially in cases of domestic violence, the victims are often truly trapped, and that seeking help can put them in great danger of brutal reprisal from the abuser. I know that the systems in place often fail those who need help the most.
But get it, in my heart, why people who are NOT at risk don’t pay attention to something like a person stockpiling ammo and automatic weapons and then planning to transport large quantities of those weapons to a hotel room with no good reason? No. I don’t get that. Just like I don’t get why my mentor’s neighbors didn’t report to her or to anyone else when her troubled son asked to “borrow” a loaded gun. Just like I don’t get why family members or close neighbors didn’t seek intervention in the case of a teenager and his father engaging in increasingly violent domestic disputes, while loaded firearms were openly accessible to anyone entering the household. Just like I don’t get why a cop with a cop with a history of excessive force and racial violence is allowed anywhere near a badge, much less a service revolver or a Taser. And the list goes on and sadly on.
It seems like what I said upset you, and if that’s the case I am truly sorry. I should have been substantially clearer in my initial comment. At the time, all I could think about was all those lives lost or forever changed, and how the shooter’s whatever she is (“companion”? “roommate”?) couldn’t have been blind to this man stockpiling semi-automatic weapons and ammunition. It does not sound (at least upon initial reports) like this is a case of her being constrained by financial dependence upon the shooter, or a case of her being involved in a relationship where her abilities to travel freely and move around independently and to maintain contact with friends and family are being curtailed by a significant other.
So, yes, my initial reaction was that one phone call could have at least inititated a mental health status check, or clued in long distance family members that something was brewing. Maybe it would have staved off this tragedy. Maybe it wouldn’t have. But I have seen way too many instances where the writing was on the wall, and people not in danger chose to not speak up.
Mel
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Just saw your comment. Thank you for the info. I appreciate it. This whole situation is just heartbreaking.
Another Scott
@henqiguai: Nothing on their Twitter feed yet.
Lots of stuff last week about little old ladies protecting their homes with their guns, FL FOP guy saying cops haven’t had a problem with silencers (wonder why), “Full Auto Friday” retweet, How Obama is Still Coming After Your Guns, etc., etc.
Don’t expect anything reasonable from them. They live in another universe.
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
Elie
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Is this a gun problem or a gun problem and a white man problem? There is a sick sense of ongoing entitlement that is disgusting… why should just white men have this issue? Of course there are sick black, brown and other men but it just seems that particularly American men are deeply lethal and unconnected to their own humanity. Its not just the self hate as evidenced in their high suicide rates, but their willingness to take others with them. What is happening to the boys being raised in white American families? 63% of white males also voted for the bully mean guy, Trump. This is sick and only white people can know this well enough to do something about it. If they will not allow gun control, what are they gonna do to their angry, violent men?
Mothra
@Shalimar: just an absolute atrocity of a religious view.
Mothra
@Just One More Canuck: They’re American angels, they love famous people.
LanceThruster
A slight correction regarding the superlatives here.
Alan Barney
Congress do your job! Pass that silencer bill already! Good grief, crowds are in a panic from the sound of gun fire out here.
Dmbeaster
Two thought: the meme “now is not the time to talk about what should be done” – imagine that as a response after any terrorism strike. “We shouldn’t talk about what we are going to do about the terrorism threat – now is the time to look after the victims and their families”. Never going to happen, and brings out the fact that they don’t care about home grown terrorism and gun violence.
Second, this guy lived in Mesquite which was the hot bed of the Bundy BLM stand off in 2014. Wonder if Paddock rubbed shoulders with that crowd.
ExpatDanBKK
@Suzanne: Both my daughters are medical professionals in Las Vegas, #1 a 1st year resident cardiologist and #2 a just a year out of school RN w/ED experience, both at University Medical Center. I literally just got off the phone with #1 daughter who told me about the chaos and working almost 21 hours straight. Too much to say here, but I am proud of them and the staff at UMC as it sounds like they did as well as they could given the available resources.
As an Aussie mentioned above, it was a bit surreal to know all about it and have time to process the reality before nearly anyone in the US did. It was certainly all over the local and international news here in Thailand less than an hour after it happened.