Las Vegas

KingstonGraham wrote:

We don't yet know if this was a legally owned weapon. Legally owned by anyone, that is, not just the shitbag who did the shooting.

Pross wrote:

KingstonGraham wrote:

We don't yet know if this was a legally owned weapon. Legally owned by anyone, that is, not just the shitbag who did the shooting.

That kind of misses the point that such weapons and ammunition are readily available. Even allowing for the supposed 'constitutional right' to bear arms some states are way more lax in their controls than others. I assume there have been studies showing correlation between lax regulations and mass shootings, it would be interesting to see.

crispybug2 wrote:

This is the largest mass shooting in American history and it's worth noting that the state of Nevada has some of least stringent gun laws in America

KingstonGraham wrote:

Pross wrote:

KingstonGraham wrote:

We don't yet know if this was a legally owned weapon. Legally owned by anyone, that is, not just the shitbag who did the shooting.

That kind of misses the point that such weapons and ammunition are readily available. Even allowing for the supposed 'constitutional right' to bear arms some states are way more lax in their controls than others. I assume there have been studies showing correlation between lax regulations and mass shootings, it would be interesting to see.

Are they? That depends on what sort of weapon it was.

Tangled Metal wrote:

They're more readily available. A former work colleague used to shoot stuff with a Florida based friend he used to visit a lot. Each time he'd photograph a table containing the guns they were playing with. Serious firepower! He was a close protection specialist I believe so had a concealed weapon license anyway. Some of those guns were work related apparently but others were not

There's other things you can get that over here are banned. Shotgun rounds that fire out special projectiles. From turning the shotgun into a flamethrower to two linked ball bearings that spin around and can cut through a fence post or leg. Plus loads of other exotics.

Americans really can get some interesting weaponry. The shotgun pellets are available mail order from shooting and hunting magazine ads BTW.

Texas and Nevada are pretty lax states wrt guns. Others are more strict. It's a lottery really. The same work colleague was in Texas for business and went into a restaurant in town / city. The cloakroom wasn't just for coats but also cowboy hats, spurs, shotguns, rifles and handguns. He got asked for his guns but n didn't have any obviously. The lass behind the counter seemed surprised. Seems most in that expensive restaurant had handguns to check in, many had rifles as well. The spurs thing made me laugh. Apparently he saw men getting out of big trucks in an urban location wearing spurs. I think he said the spurs were blunt so they didn't cut things up.

I have never been to Texas but quite a few I've worked with in the past have. I've spoken to enough native Texans in the past to believe more than half the stories my colleagues told me. They're nuts by UK standards!

Nevada natives I can fully believe are almost as bad.

My family partly came from Michigan, they all seemed fairly normal. I think it's the southern states, mid western and western states that are worst.

mfin wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

https://t.co/L79J6iLuqU worthwhile being fairly choice about what source you use...

Source I was quoting was BBC News 24

Jason Burke, the Guardian’s Africa correspondent and author of The New Threat, a work on the Islamic State and other terrorist groups, writes that the public and the press need to be skeptical of claims that the Las Vegas shooter converted to Islam or was somehow linked to an international group.

The Isis claim of responsibility for Las Vegas shooting appears to have been first published on Amaq news agency, an ISIS communication channel which has seen many previous such statements. We need to be very prudent assessing this one. The profile of the attacker alone urges extreme caution, and US officials have already said they have no evidence of any link to the group.

Until around a year ago, Isis claims tended to be reliable. The group used carefully calibrated wording to indicate its degree of involvement of the group, and, if there was some exaggeration, there was limited outright fabrication. The group often provided proof of its involvement through videos recorded by attackers before an incident.

Isis also started quoting “security sources”, which are thought by security officials to be close friends or relatives, contacted by the group, who confirmed an individual’s motivation and loyalties. Sometimes of these appear to have been “interviewed” by Isis after an attack to back up its claim.
But in recent months Isis, facing military defeat and the loss of territories, have repeatedly made claims which have been shown to utterly unjustified. Isis claimed a role in the Westminster attacks in March – and an exhaustive investigation found no link. The group claimed a shooting in a Philippines casino in June, where the attacker was an gambler with large debts and a drinking problem. There are many other examples.
This claim today describes the shooter in Las Vegas as a “soldier” of the Isis, who converted to Islam several months ago. This is theoretically possible of course but seems far fetched, not least because he committed suicide.

Islamic militant groups launch “fedayeen” actions in which death is a near certainty, thus becoming “martyrs”, but they do not ever take their own lives in this way, which is seen as a terrible sin.

Dinyull wrote:

Do we think that this could be the incident that finally makes them take gun control seriously?

If (at least) 500 injured in the space of 5-10 mins doesn't do it I don't think anything will.