Las Vegas

[LisztesFerenc]

Highlighted the point that I agree with. We saw what happened when we tried to prohibit alcohol, and it led to a boom in organized crime.

  Alcohol and guns are a poor comparison. Alcohol is consumed, and then its gone. Its a risk to drink alcohol when its illegal, but you aren't constantly incriminating yourself by going to speakeasies. By contrast, if you keep guns when its illegal, they could be found. Plus, people don't know this because it isn't as amusing, but national alcohol consumption did fall under prohibition. I'm not sure massive changes in gun laws could work, but basing such speculation on how outlawing a completely different substance went seems flawed.

[WindFish]

I think Trevor Noah said it beautifully:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW-jDoW33ug

[Holly Marlow]

I live in Las Vegas. Most people here have been affected either directly or indirectly by what happened. The public schools canceled all after hours activities. The hospitals are jammed packed and not taking any new patients unless its an emergency. Post acute care hospitals are taking the overflow of patients. People are waiting up to eight hours in line to donate blood. The airport was closed for a while, and the Strip was shut down, and I'm not sure if its open again.

This hit my city hard. This hit me hard. I may not have lost anyone in the shooting, I am still losing someone. My aunt, who has had several health problems and been kicked from hospital to physical rehab centers since my mother died four months ago, was put on life support yesterday. We don't know why she stopped being able to breath on her own or why she is non-responsive. The post acute care that she is at cannot do the type of tests that would tell us what is going on, and her situation is not dire enough for a hospital to take her in. The facility she is at called every hospital yesterday, and they all turned her down because they are simply overwhelmed.

In the end, I'm not sure if it will help knowing that she had a stroke or not. I do not wish to see her suffer as my mother did for seven months.

When things like this happen, its normal to want to fix it, to make sure horror stories like this don't happen again. Most people see what happened here and go right to thinking about how to lock down the guns. I cannot say if that is the right or wrong thing to do. Smarter people than me will decide that. But I do know that guns were not the only problem, and I hope the other issues of this tragedy will not be ignored.

That monster had bombs. Where did he get them? Did he make them? How did he learn to make them?

Was this the final act of a suicidal man who was swamped in debt from gambling? Gambling is an addiction, and I've seen it ruin lives and tear apart families. We have so many places here in two to help with gambling addiction, but the success rate is low.

Could this have been stopped if we had better mental health care here? I don't know. I don't know if he ever sought mental health care, or if he had to see a psychiatrist when he was a youth because his father was a criminal.

I do know that Nevada has the highest rate of suicides in people over 60 in the nation, and is over double the national average. 80% of people who commit suicide in Nevada are men. More people in Nevada die by suicide then from homicide, AIDS, or car accidents. Guns are used in 53% of suicides here. (Reference: https://www.leg.state.nv.us/Session/77th2013/Exhibits/Assembly/HHS/AHHS205E.pdf)

Why do I care about the suicide so much? I may be wrong, but for now I believe he wanted to die, and he wanted to take as many people with him as possible. Maybe he could have been dissuaded from his horrific actions if Nevada had reasonable mental health care. But we don't. We are the lowest ranking state when it comes to mental health care.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mental-health-america-report_us_580a59b9e4b000d0b1567459 .

So many are suffering, and it feels like nothing is being done. It wasn't even that long ago that Las Vegas was dumping its patients in California, just leaving them on the streets.

So yes, the amount of guns he had must be addressed. But don't forget the other factors that surely played a part.

[Retribution]

I have insulated myself from politics and public opinion as I more and more find it is sides of the same coin. Suffice to say I am a second amendment proponent. Do not bother lecturing me, you will not change my mind nor will I change yours and that is fine. But this event has affected me on a personal level because there is just no visible motive. The fellow almost seems like a Manchurian Candidate type. Not associated with any group left, right, pink, purple.

Just plain creepy. While other such acts are vile at least one could see why on some level. This leaves me with a question of why not to mention no idea how to address such things that could possibly prevent another such event. Now that is a scary thought. But then I read this editorial, I suppose this sums up how I feel.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/02/opinions/the-best-way-to-respond-to-las-vegas-massacre-randazza/index.html

[LisztesFerenc]

This leaves me with a question of why not to mention no idea how to address such things that could possibly prevent another such event. Now that is a scary thought.

  Of course there is, its the options you ruled out in your first paragraph. Saying "do not bother lecturing me" doesn't allow you to ignore reality and not get called on it. There are two possible answers for why mass shootings happen in the USA at a rate far higher than any other Western country:

  a. The access to guns
  b. US society uniquely breeds spree killers

Even if b plays an important part and introducing stricter gun control doesn't reduce the murder rate in the US to ones more comparable to other modern countries, it would still almost certainly help. Especially compared to the sadly popular tagline "this is unavoidable so let's not even try anything". Is there a third option I missed?

[Retribution]

Not getting into a debate man  as I said all the debates and acid out there today have left me terribly tired. You are certainly allowed your opinions as I am allowed mine. But I am working very hard at hearing or reading an opinion I do not agree with and then going on with my life. I think more of that practice would go a long way today. I actually do have some reform opinions, but I shall not share them as that leads to more of the dog chasing its tail that has gotten way too common.

I simply wished to share an article that I found interesting and that I think illustrates what I am trying to articulate above. If you do not like that okay, still I hope you have a good day.

~R~

[Lustful Bride]

The case has gotten curious as the shooter transferred 100K to the Philipines before the shooting.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/breakingnews/las-vegas-shooter-wired-dollar100000-to-philippines-last-week/ar-AAsRCGj?li=BBnb4R7&ocid=HPCOMMDHP15

[Oniya]

Are they tracing who it was wired to?

[Valerian]

His live-in girlfriend was born in the Philippines (and was there at the time of the shooting), and she is still considered a person of interest.

[Serephino]

http://beyondrealitynews.com/2017/10/03/this-cbs-exec-no-sympathy-for-vegas-victims-facebook-post-will-infuriate-you/

*plops this here and grumbles about stupid and hateful people*

[Cognitive Brainfart]

It's just the same as always. People using this to point fingers at each other and blame "those other guys and their politics". It turned into another political debate, first about guns, then about 'whiteness' for some reason. Just as WindFish said in the News topic, if I may quote that here,

It's just as sad that I've seen people more interested in playing the blame game than having any sympathy for the victims.

I was going to write something earlier, but then I found this short video by TJ Kirk that actually summed up what I think perfectly and a lot more briefly than I would have done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7732e6DTb_U

[gaggedLouise]

The depressing thing about those gun rights debates is that the whole issue of some kind of tightened fun control sems to have gone into a hard stalemate around the time of Columbine or a little after. Every time there's a new mass shooting there are heartfelt questions about why this kind of thing keeps returning, and (often) calls for at least some partial restrictions and improved control - and each time, the issue ends up politically stiff due to the power of the gun lobby (NRA etc), the polarization and some, well (if I may say so as a white outsider), archaic ideas holding that

1) the wordings of the second amendment were actually meant to include modern assault rifles and mass produced machine guns. As personal everyday weapons?? 

2) a *real* dictatorship that had overturned democracy in the USA, and had put its paws on the weapons resources of the modern US army, navy and air force, could be reversed with a bunch of Robin Hood-like guys sneaking around using rifles and handguns - or even any kind of modern rifles and machine guns in fairly small units. Sorry, I really think one would need a *lot* heavier weapons than that to stand a chance in fighting down a modern dictatorship that's got nukes, jet planes, satellites and the most powerful army in the world. It's not a realistic idea anymore. The real reason gun rights are cherished is because many people in the US use guns, or the right to carry a gun, in connection with their work, in recreation or in other important personal pursuits. The "armed rebellion" thing has become a red herring.

Back in the late 18th century, there wasn't even such a thing as modern revolvers where the next bullet is pushed into place at once. Most firearms were single-bullet; the shooter had to manually install a new bullet for each shot, THe idea of a modern hail of automatic bullets, or running around and shooting everyone you'll meet in the head, simply didn't exist. If George Washington had been shown a modern AK-5, would he have said "Every free man (and his wife) must have the option of owning and using one of these without any controls, even at his home or in the street"?

[Iniquitous]

The Second Amendment:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

People that keep screaming the second amendment was for single shot weapons only are the ones who believe that the framers never meant for semi-automatic weapons.  Thing is, there is no wording at all about what kind of arms.  Bayonets on guns were common then, so technically swords could be bearing arms.

The thing is, and the reason I am utterly pro-second amendment, that if we are no longer allowed to keep and bear arms, we become incapable of keeping a free state. Now, like Retribution, I am not going to debate this nonsense of 'omg assault rifles!' or the whole nonsense on what the framers meant - especially since no one is capable of knowing exactly what the framers meant because not one person can go back and talk to them.

Suffice to say, I am in favor of reasonable gun control. I am most certainly not in favor of taking guns away. Nor do I believe that it would actually make the US a 'safer place'. It would just make the populace an unarmed victim.

[Retribution]

In the US there seem to be two ways of viewing the world. I happen to be of one that is less prevalent here on E but I will not get into that. But here is what I think is going on and would also be my SWAG [strategic wild ass guess] on part of why in the modern US people seem to feel enough rage to go on a killing spree for no apparent reason.

Those two view are split in the US at about 50/50. Each side thinks the other is a bunch of delusional idiots that are below contempt. Each side can produce of pile of factoids that may or may not be accurate to back up their claims. Of course neither side is convinced and only seem to take that as further evidence of the absolute lack of intelligence and or sophistication of the contemptible other side. These feelings are amplified on social media.

Over the last few years this 50/50 split in opinion has turned from disagreement to out and out hatred. Hell, I have been guilty of it myself. It all sort of reminds me of one of the original Star Trek episodes. A planet populated with a race that had black pigment on one side of their body and white on the other. But there were two components of this race. One had one color on the right and one had the other color on the right....hatred grew. The race enjoyed civil war until it exterminated its self.

I feel like in the US we are near that stage. If anything is going to happen on any of these political fronts there is going to have to be some compromise. It will make neither side happy, but that is the only way anything is going to change. The two halves of US society are just plain not going to like one another in the foreseeable future. At this point I would be happy if they could manage to tolerate one another.

That includes me and thus why I have fought the urge to correct pro gun control types that I think are horribly misguided. We got to meet each other in the middle someplace. I think that in my own SWAG way would do more to reversing the trend in such tragedies than any legislation we could ever hope to pass.

[LisztesFerenc]

The thing is, and the reason I am utterly pro-second amendment, that if we are no longer allowed to keep and bear arms, we become incapable of keeping a free state.

  Do you consider "The rest of the western world lacks the second amendment, yet has managed to keep a free state for longer than the US has existed politically" to be a nonsense argument as well?

[Oniya]

Please refrain from attacking individual members when framing your arguments.  Civility still holds in the PROC.

The thing that most people seem to overlook is the first four words in the Second Amendment.  'A well regulated Militia'.  That implies that 1) there are regulations and 2) that they are enforced.

[Skynet]

The thing is, and the reason I am utterly pro-second amendment, that if we are no longer allowed to keep and bear arms, we become incapable of keeping a free state. Now, like Retribution, I am not going to debate this nonsense of 'omg assault rifles!' or the whole nonsense on what the framers meant - especially since no one is capable of knowing exactly what the framers meant because not one person can go back and talk to them.

Suffice to say, I am in favor of reasonable gun control. I am most certainly not in favor of taking guns away. Nor do I believe that it would actually make the US a 'safer place'. It would just make the populace an unarmed victim.

And yet in spite of loose gun control, we're already becoming less and less free. Warrantless wiretapping goes unchallenged. Whistleblowers of abuses of power get their lives ruined (Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden) (1). Corporations like Warner Bros. can file false DMCAs against movie reviews they don't like on popular platforms like YouTube and suffer no financial penalties as a result in spite of Fair Use (2). The PATRIOT Act alone allowed for warrantless searches, and the United States legalized torture for a time in the form of waterboarding (3). And then there are cases like Philando Castile where poor decision-making by law enforcement ends up with dead civilians and the officers responsible get a slap on the wrist and even support from segments of the population (4).

Hate to do Godwin's Law, but gun rights in Nazi Germany were actually loosened for Non-Jewish, non-Roma, etc people. In fact, many of the early Nazis were more or less paramilitary thugs (5).

A well-armed populace is not enough to act as a counterbalance to the rise of tyranny, especially when most gun rights lobbyists in mainstream US politics are authoritarian on virtually every other issue. We need all the other freedoms, and to ensure minority protections so that said well-armed populace won't go around oppressing said minorities. Part of this involves changing the social conditions of systemic racism. If open carry is legal, but ethnicities viewed as "violent" are disproportionately targeted for lawfully carrying licensed firearms while the dominant majority are able to carry them with impunity, that doesn't make the affected parties feel safer and freer (6).

Sources:

1: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/08/edwards-snowden-us-government-spied-human-rights-workers

2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVqFAMOtwaI

3: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/08/hitchens200808

4: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/us/police-shooting-trial-philando-castile.html

5: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/26/ben-carson/fact-checking-ben-carson-nazi-guns/

6:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXv2Pjtc3Zk

[Iniquitous]

And yet in spite of loose gun control, we're already becoming less and less free. Warrantless wiretapping goes unchallenged. Whistleblowers of abuses of power get their lives ruined (Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden) (1). Corporations like Warner Bros. can file false DMCAs against movie reviews they don't like on popular platforms like YouTube and suffer no financial penalties as a result in spite of Fair Use (2). The PATRIOT Act alone allowed for warrantless searches, and the United States legalized torture for a time in the form of waterboarding (3). And then there are cases like Philando Castile where poor decision-making by law enforcement ends up with dead civilians and the officers responsible get a slap on the wrist and even support from segments of the population (4).

Hate to do Godwin's Law, but gun rights in Nazi Germany were actually loosened for Non-Jewish, non-Roma, etc people. In fact, many of the early Nazis were more or less paramilitary thugs (5).

A well-armed populace is not enough to act as a counterbalance to the rise of tyranny. We need all the other freedoms, and to ensure minority protections so that said well-armed populace won't go around oppressing said minorities as well as changing the social conditions of systemic racism. If open carry is legal, and yet ethnicities viewed as "violent" are disproportionately targeted for lawfully carrying licensed firearms while the dominant majority are able to carry them with impunity, that's not really freedom (6).

Sources:

1: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/08/edwards-snowden-us-government-spied-human-rights-workers

2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVqFAMOtwaI

3: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/08/hitchens200808

4: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/us/police-shooting-trial-philando-castile.html

5: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/26/ben-carson/fact-checking-ben-carson-nazi-guns/

6:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXv2Pjtc3Zk

None of those have anything to do with the Second Amendment, and from where I am sitting, is just an attempt to muddy the water. 

[Skynet]

None of those have anything to do with the Second Amendment, and from where I am sitting, is just an attempt to muddy the water. 

It was in response to your claim that gun rights are needed to ensure freedom. They're of no use when all other freedoms are chipped away at and said gun rights groups do nothing to oppose this. On the contrary, many organizations and politicians who fall into this field help spur things on. My last post in this thread shown how the National Rifle Association has involved themselves with right-wing groups who are authoritarian and/or hypocritical when it comes to other rights: https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=276216.msg13571457#msg13571457

I understand that not all gun rights begin and end with the NRA, but they and the Republican Party are the major 2 advocates. And this is not directed towards you, but I find said groups' claims tiresome when they repeatedly show they don't really care about freedom at all, and end up skeptical of those who use the claim as a result. Maybe if more left-wingers beyond anarchists and communists championed gun rights my attitude towards the slogan may soften, but until then it's more or less a slogan appropriated by authoritarians and the far right.

[Iniquitous]

Bringing this back to Las Vegas...

I am getting links from people that are indicating that there was more than one shooter and that it is being covered up.  Also seeing a map that shows where the festival was in relation to the hotel - and that looks to be a considerable distance.  Also have a recording of the police scanner that, at the 19:04 mark, says there is an 8 man team on the 32nd floor but needed more for the 29th floor and saying it sounded like a confirmed second shooter.

I try hard to steer clear of conspiracy theories, but when there are numerous people from different points in the area saying the same thing, you kind of have to go 'hmm...'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2119s&v=1xAcTKNpDeY&app=desktop









A real time posting from the night of ... further down the post the poster starts talking about other shooters at different hotels.

https://www.reddit.com/r/vegas/comments/73qwgq/gunshots_downtown_right_now/


Like I said, if it was just one or two people differing from the 'official' story, I'd not give it much thought.  But there are a LOT of different people from different locations on the strip saying the exact same thing.  Makes one scratch their head.

[stormwyrm]

Seems to be thoroughly debunked:

http://www.snopes.com/second-gunman-shoot-fourth-floor-mandalay-bay/

Well as they say, eyewitness testimony tends to be not quite so reliable, and is in fact not considered very strong evidence in a court of law. You might have been there, but it's doubtful that you really know and more importantly understand everything you thought you saw, especially in a confused situation like  that. Here's another link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/04/us/politics/fact-check-vegas-gunman.html

But well, conspiracy nuts are notably resistant to having debunking evidence that does not support their preconceived notions shoved in their faces, and doing this will in fact usually make them dig in their heels and double down on them more often than not. I remember well the conspiracy theories that flew around shortly after 9/11 and even partly believed some of them myself for a time, until looking around a bit more kinda made me feel sheepishly embarrassed.

[Doomblade403xxx]

  Of course there is, its the options you ruled out in your first paragraph. Saying "do not bother lecturing me" doesn't allow you to ignore reality and not get called on it. There are two possible answers for why mass shootings happen in the USA at a rate far higher than any other Western country:

  a. The access to guns
  b. US society uniquely breeds spree killers

Even if b plays an important part and introducing stricter gun control doesn't reduce the murder rate in the US to ones more comparable to other modern countries, it would still almost certainly help. Especially compared to the sadly popular tagline "this is unavoidable so let's not even try anything". Is there a third option I missed?

If memory serves didn't a dude from Switzerland get 75 kills in a spree shooting a few years ago? I also seem to remember a guy in China flipping a switch and killing dozens with a knife. In Canada a few days ago a guy killed several with the combo of car and knife. Evil people will commit evil acts and they don't need guns to do it.


I was a law enforcement officer for 10 years. An avid shooter. I used to own an AR-15 in A2 configuration and logged a lot of range time because shooting was something I enjoyed doing. I spent time with people who were experts in weapons and tactics. That said I am a trained shooter and it boggles my mind that this man could cause so many casualties. We are talking about a senior citizen with no military training. On those bump fire stocks, sure you are firing something like full auto, but firing full auto causes muzzle climb. An untrained shooter is going to land a lot more shots outside the killzone than a marksman.

Why bring so much ordinance into the hotel? Seriously with an AR rifle you can reload in seconds. You are a spare mag away from being ready to rock and roll again. In the time it's gonna take to pick up another rifle you could be reloaded and firing again. There is no reason to have a dozen weapons in that room.

Now they are saying he fired alot of rounds at a jet fuel tank. Now are you telling me, a pilot, doesnt know that a 5.56 will never punch a large fuel storage tank. It's inches thick of metal. I dont care what you saw in walking dead, you would need AT LEAST a 308 or 30-06 to punch a hole in a propane tank. A large fuel tank is even thicker. You probably couldn't punch it with a 50 cal. While we are on that subject, bombs in the room. If you wanted to blow those tanks explosives would be the better option. You couldn't beat the tank most likely but the pipes.

Finally we are expected to believe this millionaire has never ran afoul of the law before, and he chooses now with a mass shooting to break bad? People really selling that he is the lone shooter? Really? There are full squads who couldn't pull off a better ambush than this guy did. I am very entrenched in the opinion that he did not act alone. There were other shooters, and I think as more information is released we will find this was something bigger. There is some talk of him becoming radicalized. I've seen some pictures and tweets saying he is a member of Antifa. We might never know, but its my opinion he wasn't alone.

[LisztesFerenc]

If memory serves didn't a dude from Switzerland get 75 kills in a spree shooting a few years ago? I also seem to remember a guy in China flipping a switch and killing dozens with a knife. In Canada a few days ago a guy killed several with the combo of car and knife. Evil people will commit evil acts and they don't need guns to do it.

  If not simple binary "happens" vs. "not happens", you also need to look at frequency. There were 372 mass shootings in the US in 2015. There were not 372 mass shooting in the combined Western World excluding USA in 2015, and US has a very high homicide rate compared to other Western countries, and the number of guns involved in such crimes heavily suggests a link there.

  Yes, some evil people will find another way, but less will, they will fail more often, and they may kill less. Guns are really useful for killing people. Take that away and the evil people be less able to harm others. This is common sense and everyone will understand, just imagine someone is coming after you and then think if you'd rather they had a gun or a knife. Pretty sure everyone would rather the latter.

[Doomblade403xxx]

Well I have a gun in order to deter someone from coming after me at all. I would also like to point out a bullet can be relatively quick. A knife artist will in all scenarios likely have to cut you several times and then you die painfully bleeding out from a stab or a cut.

It has nothing to do with the volume of guns here. I'm 47 years old. I grew up around guns my entire life and learned not only to use them but also respect them. I was also taught to respect people. The primary issue in this country is the lack of values. STL, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, are all shooting galleries. Also this was not the largest mass shooting in United States History as the media is claiming. Wounded Knee ring a bell?

[LisztesFerenc]

Well I have a gun in order to deter someone from coming after me at all.

  Not a knife? If that because guns better suited for the task?

It has nothing to do with the volume of guns here.

  So the US high murder rate within the Western world, (and the high %-tage of guns in that figure), and the ease of access to guns within the Western world is purely coincidental? That's a mighty big coincidence. Other Western countries are grappling with values and mental health, but they don't have a problem with gun violence.