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Las Vegas Shooting Leaves at Least 50 Dead, More Than 200 Wounded (wsj.com)
Readers share a report: At least 50 people are dead and more than 200 wounded after a shooting late Sunday at a music festival on the Las Vegas Strip (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternative source). Police said they were first alerted to reports of an incident at 10:08 p.m. and then determined there was a shooter on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino who was targeting the nearby Route 91 Harvest Festival. Joseph Lombardo of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said in a briefing that officers responded and shot dead the suspect. He said the suspect was a local resident but declined to identify him, citing the ongoing investigation. Police are also trying to locate a female companion, who they named as Marilou Danley, who was traveling with the suspect.
No, that's the old way. In a modern world, automated guns are placed at the corner of every street. It will open fire at everything that sounds like a gunshot. The only way to stop shootings like this. And it will make the excuse "guns don't kill people, people do" invalid. Developing, installing and maintaining such automated guns will also create a lot of jobs. It's gonna be great.
It doesn't have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
OK Mr Internet Tough Guy ..
If I was there and I had a gun, I would have stopped this after 6 people died. That's the magic number where I flip to Rambo mode and start randomly spraying bullets in a futile effort to stop the shooter.
You do know that the shooter wasn't in the crowd and was in fact on the 32nd floor of a hotel a good 300 to 400 yards away? Your puny hand pop gun (if you actually have one) would have done jack shit in this case.
I think we need to execute Mr Stephen Paddock.
You're too late.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
We can put an end to this controversy once and for all.
They said not to ban it. They said we needed more of it. They said not to limit our rights for the sake of a few.
Now look where we are.
It's finally time, once and for all, to put an end to country music.
It's amazing (but not surprising) how little the lack of meaningful background/facts on this dead guy, his act, his purported "companion" and his motivations matters to those who are already spinning up complex narratives to serve whatever agenda they're usually selling. Doesn't matter who we're talking about or which ax they're grinding. It's just remarkable how consistently the early period following something like this is full of what turns out to be misleading, or outright fictional information. But the speculation and misinformation (it's not even misinformation, it's something else ... just fabrications in the absence of anything solid to go on) now fills in all of the social and traditional media cracks so early and so thoroughly that whenever real information emerges, it can never shake off some of the "facts" that circulated early on.
That indelible quality to whatever gets said first (see, for example, the perfectly incorrect Ferguson story that's still impervious to reality) is well understood now, and creates a sort of awful race to get into that "first mover" narrative position because that's now all that matters. It's not a new observation to say that the 24 hour news cycle generates endless blathering by talking heads looking to fill broadcast time, but the social media frosting on that cake has added an even worse and in many ways far more toxic new layer.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
If I could mod your comment into the depths of hell I would. You are making assumptions where there is no information to make such, and showing your own political bias and agenda. And not a very hard attempt either, because the other side of the political spectrum could make the same assumption that he is a Trump support right wing second amendment loving nutjob, since we all know the left is anti gun and this guy had numerious firearms. We also know who he was, a 68 year old native resident of Nevada, which more than likely also makes him a Republican..
But unlike you, I won't jump to conclusions yet to, otherwise I would be a total dick... You should probably do the same else everyone will think you are a total dick.
And yes, while this is not exactly news for nerds, it is still an important event that should be covered.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
He said rifle. Do you have a reading comprehension problem?
No I don't. I also don't make up shit on the internet to sound tough.
The only type of person capable of taking out that shooter from the crowd at the critical moment would be a fully trained and equipped sniper with combat experience, and who was also expecting the threat and was in already position.
Now do you want to bullshit some more about how you can shoot into specific hotel room from 400 yards away with a civilian rifle, which you just happened to be carry to a music festival?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
I don't want to die because of your silly hobby.
Silly hobbies like driving vehicles or cooking pot roast with a pressure cooker? That sort of thing? I don't want to die in a crowd of 80 other people because someone who's been allowed to drive has decided today to run down a bunch of pedestrians. Or die because someone who thinks I'm insufficiently obedient to allah has decided to use $50 worth of kitchen tools and hardware store supplies to slaughter a crowd full of people. Prevention is the key. No more passenger vans or pressure cookers, obviously.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
And even if he did have a rifle.. at night, with hotels that are lit up like christmas trees, good luck figuring out which window in a hotel with 43 floors, and almost a hundred rooms per floor, the shooter was firing from. And even then, the security and the police on the ground would have more than likely assumed that you (the good guy with a gun) was actually one of the perpetrators.. so you (again, good misguided idiot with a gun) would likely have been killed.
The whole good guy with a gun theory is completely asinine, it just adds to the confusion, and rarely if ever has a good outcome.
But good luck getting the gun nuts to agree with that.. You cannot argue with a stupid person with a big dick.. I mean gun in his hand.
And for the record, I am not anti gun, I grew up with them, I enjoy shooting them at the range when I get a chance. I am however against stupid and irresponsible people with guns and am for major changes and strengthening of gun control laws.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
Lets face it.. if killing 20 toddlers in a school did not change the laws, nothing will. It's a sad truth, but a reality because in the US, money reigns supreme, and the NRA has a metric shit ton of money that they throw around, not just to prevent changes to gun laws, but even to prevent research being done. Did you know that the CDC is not permitted to research gun violence (they did a study once a few years back by using some weird data gathering mechanism to avoid running afoul of some random rules the NRA has managed to get the Feds to agree to) because the NRA has effectively blocked federal funding into any gun research.
Yeah.. this country is currently fucked...
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
Less than 12 hours and the political blame game already well underway.
Can we all just agree the guy was a fucked up human.... I just wish people that miserable would just use one bullet into their brain instead of killing innocent people as well.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
"Europe" is a continent made up of many countries - many European countries ban guns.
Many non-Europeans seem to have a problem understanding that Europe is not a single political entity - not even the European Union spans the entirety of Europe, and the EU doesn't regulate guns, that's down to member states at an individual level.
Traditionally, "terrorism" was violence or threats of violence intended to change nation-state policy. For example, an eco-terrorist attempts to change laws around deforestation by planting metal spikes, which halts deforestation and raises awareness of the issue. Middle east "you know what" terrorists try to alter policies around involvement in the middle east. The key is how the action relates to nation-state policy and public sentiment. So if for say the 9/11 hijackers had merely wanted a thrill ride, then the "exact" same act wouldn't be *terrorism.* Of course, the modern word has been thrown around so much, it has basically turned into a catch-all for violent acts.
tl;dr: I don't have the answer either.
It seems like a tricky area to do reliable research on. It's not like you have two virtually identical countries and can ban guns in one and not the other and see how it all pans out. Australia's changes to gun laws following their Port Arthur massacre might be cited to show restrictive legislation can work, but then again it's very difficult to control for other influences (IIRC gun related violence was already on a downward trend, but with the trend seeming to accelerate after the new legislation).
Then there are nations with both restrictive legislation _and_ high rate of gun ownership, that do not have these issues. So one could argue that might be the way to go. For example, in my own nation (Norway) we have a high rate of gun ownership, but "for protection" is simply not a valid reason to buy a firearm. You buy one for hunting, or for sports. For handguns you need to pass a safety course and be an active member of a club for a minimum of six months, at which point you can buy a safe approved for firearms storage (requirements being designed to prevent the firearm from being stolen) and then _apply_ for a permit to purchase a handgun. Typically you'll get approved, but the police does check with your club so if you've been behaving like an idiot and ignored safety protocols and such, they'll let the police know. In other words, this serves to instill a mindset of safety with regards to firearms.
Do I think that's the holy grail of how to sort out gun violence? To be honest, no. It works for us, because we are us. We're a society where people do not in general view firearms as something you need for protection. We don't sit on our back porch taking potshots at bottles (hey, I'm entitled to at least one stereotype here, I figured). Where police are still not generally armed. How can what works here be expected to work in a nation like the US, where the primary argument for gun ownership seems to be protection from your neighbors and your own government? Where there's a very real risk of a traffic stop turning into a shootout?
Now, I do think the US legislation and culture when it comes to gun ownership is nothing short of bonkers. That doesn't mean I can claim to know what might work to help solve it. Although I don't see many ways of making it worse, so just about anything seems worth trying.
Can we all just agree the guy was a fucked up human.... I just wish people that miserable would just use one bullet into their brain instead of killing innocent people as well.
Despite how divisive politics is these days, once you make the jump to go on a killing rampage the only real allegiance you have is to violent authoritarianism. Whatever perceived injustices that led one to commit that kind of atrocity is more like the window dressings that surround a deranged mind. People like James Hodgkinson, Stephen Paddock, and even Timothy McVeigh have a lot more in common than they do separating them apart. It's really important that we stop trying to project these people as extensions of the left or right. It makes it too easy for people to start demonizing anyone that doesn't agree with them.
As a European I fully agree with your core point, which is that people who're motivated to do harm will go to great lengths to achieve their goals. However, one slight thing to point out: in Europe getting any kind of gun is a lot more difficult than in the US, which means if someone planning an attack, they pretty much have to get their weapons illegally, and if one's already about to go to the black market to get a gun illegally, might as well make it an automatic.
That being said, the US still has numerically a lot more (mass) shootings than Europe because the abundance of (legal) guns means that acquiring a gun of some description even illegally is far easier than in Europe. Thus you have a higher rate of gun crime and homicide than countries within the EU. That is, someone just wanting to get their hands on any kind of gun to go shoot up their school/workplace/etc. will have a much hgiher chance of success in the US than in here. Most mass shooters are mentally unstable, often depressed, so the difficulty of getting a gun illegally in here means the rates of mass shootings are much lower.
However, it should be noted that it's not about the plain amount of guns. There are plenty of countries in Europe that have high amounts of firearms, we (Finland) among them, Switzerland is another famous example where everyone that goes through the army keeps the rifle in their home, yet we both have several times smaller homicide rates as well as rates of mass shootings. Why then is this? Well it's because we do have regulations about how the guns must be kept and transported. And in Switzerland the ammo for the rifles provided by the army is strictly controlled. In here to get a hunting rifle you actually need to be part of a hunting club for a while and pass a psych exam, and it's illegal to transport the weapon in public without it being disassembled.
My point here is this: gun regulations do affect the amount of deaths by guns, but these regulations are too often thought of in the black and white mindset of 'less vs. more guns'. However, as I said we're both in agreement that even the most sensible regulation cannot stop all mass shootings or acts of terror. We've had a handful of mass shootings in the 2000s, all of them with the exception of a single case committed using stolen/illegal weaponry (and that case itself went to court that determined the police were guylty of dereliction of duty when they did not confiscate the weapon/license even though the perpetrator had been investigated based on his online writings idolizing violence). However, the only terror attack we've had which happened earlier this summer was done with a knife and the death toll was only 2 because of that.
So while you're right that this incident especially could not probably have been affected by more regulations, it's still good to keep in mind that the kind of regulations in place do affect the overall number of gun crimes and homicides significantly. One thing that is also a factor and I feel is too often sidelined in the american gun discussion is the availability of mental health services. Obviously it's too early to say what role if any that played here before knowing if he even tried to seek help, though it's rather that the guy was a nut of some description.
My heart goes out to anyone here with friends or family in Vegas, stay strong people!
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
It is their members who show up without fail to every election. Especially the low turn out local elections.
Till Democrats motivate their base to show up in every little election, we will lose. Always.
It is not money. It is lack of motivation by our base.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Speaking as an outsider, these days it feels as if all discourse in the USA exists only within the narrative of Red Team vs. Blue Team –and it doesn't actually matter what those teams represent or what they do. Even things like the well-being of the country are secondary to the question of which team "wins". That is deeply troubling –especially since the USA have nuclear weapons and a propensity to project their power wherever they want. An unstable USA is in nobody's interest.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
It's just downright scary as fuck anymore to go to any public event. I look at the school shootings from the late 1990's and 2000's, that 'joker' impersonator who took lives at the Batman movie premiere, Boston marathon bombings, the Ariana Grande concert in London as of late, and now at a fucking Country music concert at Las Vegas? Talk about wanting to just stay at home anymore. Living in the United States or not, I think anyone is going to start second-guessing
It isn't even remotely that scary. Your odds of dying while driving to a public event far exceed your chance of getting shot there. If you're afraid of going to a public event, then you probably shouldn't go anywhere near your automobile.
> Even things like the well-being of the country are secondary to the question of which team "wins".
This is the thing that irritates me the most about US-American politics. Where I live we just had a general election and though the party I voted for did not win the majority and will be in opposition I'm fine with other parties trying to form a (3-party) coalition. They will try to govern all of our country in a way that they perceive as possible optimum for all of the people. Even if I will disagree with some of those decisions they will be justifiable.
I guess my friends voted for at least 5 different parties in these elections, one even was the head of the local election campaign for a party I decidedly did not vote for.
Yet we don't beat each other up but have passionate discussions over beer and dinner.
What is wrong with "you" in the US?
The NRA has fought multiple lawsuits so that blind people could buy guns. And not "legally blind" where they just have very bad eyesight. People who can't even see light and dark.
On the mental health front, the NRA has fought to prevent any restrictions until the person is institutionalized or legally declared insane. Therapist is concerned about a patient's suicidal ideation and repeated statements that the patient want to "take out" people with their arsenal? The NRA has fought very hard against efforts to do anything with that arsenal. Including fighting against being able to go to a court in an attempt to get that arsenal away from the crazy person.
The NRA tells a story about keeping guns away from crazy people, and then fights very hard to prevent people from being declared crazy. You've only listened to the first part, and haven't looked at their actions surrounding the second.
I think the problem with most laws that have been put forth for removing a person's 2nd amendment right, for reasons of such things as mental illness, spousal abuse, etc....is that they are set up such that it immediately removes the rights from the accused, and leaves little if no rights to due process for that person to either defend themselves against the charges or have those rights restored once remediation steps have been made.
But they way most of these laws have been written, mere accusation by a disgruntled spouse or any party that may have a grudge against the accused, causes the accused to immediately have their rights revoked and allow to have their property confiscated. Basically they laws proposed have made you guilty until proven innocent.
We don't like that with any other of the amendments in the constitution, why should we be so willing to allow it for the 2nd?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
t's a sad truth, but a reality because in the US, money reigns supreme, and the NRA has a metric shit ton of money that they throw around
Actually, the NRA has two things. Money is one of them, as you have said.
The second is a rabid following who will vote for anything that the NRA says is gun control. No matter what else that particular politician does.
Politician A fights to keep your industry alive, lower your taxes, rebuild the roads you drive on every day, but wants concealed carry to require a permit.
Politician B fights to end your job, raise your taxes and destroy all infrastructure, punch you in the face every Tuesday, but wants concealed carry without a permit.
NRA supporters will always vote for Politician B. No matter how much they are hurt by all the rest of the policies.
The best news article I have seen so far come out of this tragedy is this guy who didn't duck down, and instead drank his beer and looked to spot the shooter, then gave him the finger.
Brave, stupid, and conveying a message from all of us.
The ranking you have given Chicago is based on its membership in an arbitrary set of cities chosen for a wikipedia table. If you include *all* municipalities with a population of at least 25,000 (e.g. large enough that a small spate of murders doesn't have a big statistical effect) then Chicago does *not* crack the top 30.
Here are the top ten using the 25,000 cutoff:
10 Camden, NJ: 42/100,000
9 New Orleans, LA 42/100,000
8 Detroit, MI: 44/100,000
7 Flint, MI : 47/100,000
6 Petersburg, VA: 49/100,000
5 Baltimore, MD: 55/100,000
4 St. Louis, MO: 60/100,000
3 Gary, IN: 65/100,000
2 Chester, PA: 67/100,000
1 East St. Louis, IL: 71/100,000
Chicago, at 18 murders / 100,000 population isn't even close. However, while Chester PA is an extremely dangerous place to live, you can't maintain a media narrative of a murder epidemic with a city of only 34,000 people.
What sets Chicago aside from all the cities on this top ten list is that is larger; not only larger, but massively larger, 2.72 million. If you choose a large enough population it will generate a regular stream of murders, relatively consistently from year to year. It's like comparing the absolute number of murders in California to those in Louisiana; Louisiana is much, much more dangerous, but it has about 10% of the population. Some years will be more murder-y than others there, whereas California is statistically large enough it will produce over 2000 murders/year like clockwork.
Now Chicago has the highest murder rate among the largest cities in the US, but not by much:
New York 8.5 million 3/100,000
Los Angeles 3.97 million 7/100,000
Chicago pop 2.72 million 15/100,000
Houston pop 2.29 million, 13/100,000
Phoenix pop 1.56 million, 7/100,000
Now the interesting thing here is that the murder rate and absolute number of murders in Houston are very, very close to that of Chicago, but you never hear about the murder epidemic in Houston. It's because this is a narrative being pushed by Fox News, the propaganda arm of the Republican Party, and Houston is in a red state.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
How about this, then? Allow the CDC to study gun violence in the US? Currently, they are prevented from doing so. This leads to any gun control legislation being well intentioned but reactionary at best. If the CDC were allowed to study the issue and issue a report, that could be used to craft gun control laws that wouldn't impact the vast majority of law abiding gun owners while decreasing the incidence of mass shootings like these. Or the report might show that no amount of gun control law would solve this, in which case, we could move on to other possible solutions.
To use your Equifax example, we don't just shout "Put up more firewalls" if a company is hacked. We examine how the hack occurred. Did software not get patched? Did employees fall for phishing scams? Was a laptop with passwords left in an employee's car? Once we figure out how the hack happened, we can take measures to prevent future hacks. In fact, oftentimes companies will pay people to "hack" into their systems. These intrusion detection companies will find the holes in your computer defenses so you can address them before a hacker exploits them just as the CDC could find the "holes" that are allowing mass shootings to happen so that we can fix it.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.