Mass shooting at Las Vegas music fest....50 dead and 200 injured(update-400)

Thank you! No civilian needs freaking assault rifles or machine guns. Hell, we need more regulations on WHO to sell weapons to, like block it from someone who has a record or is severely mentally ill.

You're right. People have never bombed a major event.

Felons are not allowed to own guns............

Clinton gets slammed by conservatives for "politicizing" the shooting.

Funny, because they would have no problems doing the same thing if a Muslim extremist was involved.

Because justification clause does not limit or expand the operative clause.
"Rhode Island's 1842 constitution, its first, provides

The liberty of the press being essential to the security of freedom in a state, any person may publish his sentiments on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty . . . .

Likewise, when it is said that 'any person may publish his sentiments on any subject,' a justification clause stressing 'the liberty of the press' can't limit the right only to members of the institutional press."

http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/common.htm

Holy shit I haven't seen you post in awhile. Welcome back?

The only thing that can stop another sense less tragedy like this is more thoughts and prayers.

We have to be tough. We have to thought and prayer harder, faster, and more ruthless.

You can talk about guns and mental health but that is all bullshit.

Thoughts and prayers is real tangible action.

You're thought and praying too hard. You might hurt yourself or someone.

First of all, actual assault rifles and machine guns are heavily restricted; the shooter doesn't own any legally. According to reports, he illegally modified his to fire either full auto or close to auto. Second, no amount of regulations could have prevented this shooter from buying guns since he had no record nor was he diagnosed mentally ill.

Been in here and there.

@n64dd: if you're not thought and prayering you are disrespecting the flag, our troops, America, Jesus, cracker jacks, grape big league chew, and Rocky balboa.

Just pick those nasty sons of bitches up and tell them you are fired.

Some people will tell you we are not doing s good job thought and prayering, but it's a tremendous effort believe me. There are a lot of challenges. Like water. Water. Big water. Cold water. Ocean water.

They are not doing enough thought and prayering themselves. They are waiting for the government to do it.

Anyone buying that many rifles and that much ammunition should raise some red flags unless he did it subtly over a long period of time which is possible. I think the main complaint is that he was able to buy so many rifles which serve no purpose other than to kill quickly from greater ranges. If he has a few hand guns, that injury total is not even close to what it is.

Now you're just being a racist bigot xenophobe.

Check your privilege.

Don't forget hashtags and moments of silence.

@vl4d_l3nin: you're not a real American without I stand and the American flag bordered around your Facebook profile pic. That just goes without saying.

@n64dd: I'm only allowed to feel and react how white people tell me too.

Now is not the time to talk about gun violence. That was a white man who was the shooter. We need time to process.

If it was a Muslim we simply need to add more countries to the ban list and it never would have happened.

You know, it is possible for it to be wrong of both parties to use tragedy to advance their agenda. Writing immigration policy in response to a terror attack is not magically more sane then drafting gun laws in response to one. Particularly when no one argues that such laws would have prevented such attacks.

You know.....I actually agree with you here. This guy was a domestic terrorist. The fact they're afraid to say it is kind of fucked.

From what I hear, a lot of the injuries came from people getting trampled on during the massive stampede of widespread panic.

American logic: The right to own a gun is an absolute right, and is more important than a person's right to live.

Nothing is going to come out of this because Republicans care more about their donor funds from the NRA than actual people.

So is Trump going to come out and make a statement, or does he deem 120 characters as a suitable for the worst mass shooting in modern American history?

No. The logic of an American invited to disarm looks more like: You first.

I actually think America will be fine with rolling back the second amendment. It will just be a generation after law enforcement goes 100% non-lethal. Oh, and the government stops droning civilians they dislike. Until then America spends insane amounts of money arming the government at the local, state, and federal level. Claiming the civilian population should lay down their already extremely regulated arms is a bit hypocritical.

@MirkoS77: Don't worry Republicans will offer the biggest thoughts and prayers they can muster. Doing anything else would otherwise be too hard for them.

He made a prepared statement this morning and followed it by a moment of silence in the White House garden a few hours later. Where have you been all day?

Where? I've been searching the news and haven't seen it.

Edit: my mistake. Good on Trump then, carry on.

lol at the "semi-auto rifles with 30 round magazines aren't assault weapons" crowd.

Semi-auto is arguably even more deadly than full auto. It still allows the shooter to fire very rapidly, but it also conserves ammo, so every shot counts. Soldiers tend to leave the selector switch on their weapons on semi for this reason. Semi-auto rifles are also trivially easy to modify to full auto.

There's no legitimate reason a civilian needs to own something like an AR-15. You wouldn't hunt deer with it. You wouldn't defend your home with it (not that guns are actually good for protection, but that's a whole other discussion). The only use for an AR-15 is mass killing. Ban the things already.

Good on Trump!?

His stupid press lady Sanders came out and said "Now is not the time to make this political" and then turned right around and was like "...but if you look at Chicago--which has the strictest gun control laws--it has the higest gun crime rates in the country"

No, I am not joking.

Yes, this is our president and his administration.

A reporter had a really, really good follow up question and it was along the lines of policy change, and Sanders was like "We don't make blind policy change after tragedies like this" and the reporter said "But Trump made massive immigration changes following the Orlando shootings, why not make policy changes following this shooting?"

OOoooh burn. Tragedy burn. But still burn.

Why would that raise red flags? According to numerous polls and studies, majority of gun owners own multiple guns and good segment of them have a collection of over 10 guns. I own many myself and have roughly 10k rounds combined because I routinely attend classes that run through 2k rounds in couple of days. So no, simply owning many guns and ammo is not an at all accurate indicator for criminal intent.

Also I don't understand your logic, it's one thing if the shooter provided guns to a group of criminals but as far as we know, he did it all by himself. Whether he had 1 rifle versus 10 is a moot point since you can only shoot one at a time. And large caliber long guns are far more popular due to caliber restrictions for hunting (law prohibit shooting small calibers at deer or larger games), so again, guns that "serve no purpose other than to kill quickly from greater ranges" are very commonplace.

@mrbojangles25: Was she talking about the travel ban? That's hardly massive reform. He was using policies put in place by Obama.

she was, and fair enough.

The point is, he did something then, he can do something now.

No, the logic is the right to defend oneself is a natural right, especially when it's established that protection NOT a legal responsibility of the government (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-police-do-not-have-a-constitutional-duty-to-protect.html). Exercising the right to arming oneself does not violate anyone's right to live, it might violate your delicate sense of perceived safety but that isn't something the constitution afford you.

If gun grabbers cared for actual people instead exploiting times of tragedy for empty political victories, they would focus their attention on larger issues killing more Americans every day than an entire year of mass shootings.

That why the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban was such a success and no mass shooting ever took place during the 10 years that law was in place. Nope, there was no school shooting in Columbine, Colorado in 99.

Also there are no case where AR15 was successful employed as a self/home defense weapon. https://mic.com/articles/64663/5-people-who-used-an-ar-15-to-defend-themselves-and-it-probably-saved-their-lives#.OAfUxEHgv

Using one mass shooting as an example instead of looking at overall trends is pretty dumb. Mass shootings have skyrocketed since the ban expired. We are averaging one mass shooting a day in 2017. The mass shootings are also getting worse. Columbine with its 13 casualties seems relatively minor compared to something like Pulse Night Club (49 dead, 58 wounded) or the Vegas shooting (59 dead, 500+ wounded).

Also those AR-15 cases you mention seem pretty suspect. Other non-assault weapons could have been used. Or no weapons. It's hard to say whether having a gun even prevented anything at all in several of those cases.

Owning a gun for protection is a pretty dumb idea anyway. Out of 33,000 gun related deaths in the US every year, the majority are suicides, murders, or accidents. Legitimate self defense cases are exceptionally rare at only about 200 cases a year. That's .6%. You are buying something based on Dirty Harry fantasies about a self defense scenario that will probably never happen, and that will far more likely be used for the suicide or murder of someone in your household.

I have to agree about the buying a gun for self defense. No amount of training can prepare you for an actual life threatening situation. I have NEVER heard of anyone actually defending themselves with a gun, unless you carry it everywhere you go, and have it by your bedside where you can easily grab it, you will never be able to fend off a threat with a gun. Like you said, it's all dirty harry fantasies to people. I'd be way to concerned about getting the hell out of said situation, then even thinking about grabbing a gun.

What a disheartening article.

"The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the police did not have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm..."

I thought the police were supposed to protect and serve the public?

Your home is your castle, I regularly recommend to people to own a shotgun or handgun to use for home defense. My 870 is easily accessible from my bed, along with my conceal-carry handgun on my nightstand. If anyone kicks in my door to attempt a home invasion, buckshot or 9mm rounds will say hello to them. It's different if you have small children in the home, for then an easy-access safe is recommended. I have a handgun safe near my garage entry that simply requires a thumb-print to open. I've tested it many times, and works flawlessly. (Helpful if you have little ones in the house)

While a single bullet can kill or seriously injure a man. You have to factor in misses as well.

Hell in wartime, at least as of 2005, the US used roughly 250000 bullets per insurgent killed.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-forced-to-import-bullets-from-israel-as-troops-use-250000-for-every-rebel-killed-314944.html

The reason I strongly dislike how people try to politize this in particular is more how they choose to politicize it. Instead of trying to come up with reasonable conclusitions they use the event as ammunition for a pissing contest to piss on the other side.

And that is truly disgusting.

Like I said before though, and what has been shown, he owned that gun more or less illegally, modifying a weapon illegally. I live in sweden, which has tighter gun control than the US. But I could easily get my hands on a firearm if I were so inclined to.

Great post. And I agree, we should focus on the victims, not martyrize the aggressor. That is how copy cat killers are made.

Agreed on universal healthcare as well.

@mrbojangles25: that's Sanders, not Trump. It's Trump's responsibility to address the nation, and he did.

To clarify "if this was a muslim" bs I 've seen all over the internet. Terrorism is an act of violence used for political or other ideological motives. So if a muslim did commit this act it would have been in the name of Islam a religous ideology. Now until the authorities can find a motive political or religous it cannot be deemed a terrorist act. The fact there does not seem to be a motive feels worse.

It’s a Supreme Court decision from 2005 and it´s not quite that simple as the NY times wrote.

@bmanva: Why are you telling me about the liberty of the press. I didn't address the press at all in my post.

Muslim extremists want everyone in the West dead which some how you fail to understand.

Do you live in a war zone? All those guns seem like overkill unless you live in south side Chicago and even then it's unlikely you'd ever have to use them. I'd rather just get a big dog if I needed home protection.

No, I get it. It just doesn't justify the hypocrisy whenever someone says something to "politicize" a tragedy.

@perfect_blue:

Owning 42 firearms is pretty ridiculous and only perpetrates the toxic gun culture in our country. However, I think having a home defense weapon is perfectly valid.

A few years back, a felon tackled a forest ranger, grabbed her gun and shot her about 2 miles from my house. He then took off and shot a man on the front lawn of his home a block from me.

I didn't live in a war zone or some shitty neighborhood. Just a rural community that this lunatic happened to be passing through.

So the forest ranger had a gun and it got used against her, and then on an innocent bystander. And you still think having a gun is useful for self defense?

The news headlines are so kind to this guy. He was a country music fan, who people remembered fondly. I guarantee if he wasn't an old white dude it would be "terrorist thug who represents his whole demographic"

That situation sounds like it happened because this forest ranger had a gun in the first place. Doesn't exactly paint a picture as an effective home defense tool if it can be so easily taken away and used against the person.