Mass Shooting, Las Vegas, 10/01/2017

[Lio]

10 hours ago, Dazey said:

The most telling thing about this latest atrocity is that this thread is two days old and only two pages long.

Yes, but what is there to say really? As long as we have no motive or a clue why he did it, we can't discuss that.

And the gun debate... What is there to say? I will never understand why anyone would defend the right to carry fire arms, no matter if you're in the country or the city. Guns are only there for killing people. People who would get one, scare me.

And after reading this thread I hope I never inadvertently stumble onto KK's property in rural Italy. If he's drunk one chianti or martini too many, he might blow my head off

I think it's slightly ironic how Americans were being so paranoid about Europe with the attacks in various countries, with musicians canceling shows and some people here worried about GNR being in big bad Europe at the time, when random shootings happen in the US all the time, it seems. Sure, it's not called terrorism, but you're dead either way.

[SoulMonster]

10 hours ago, Oldest Goat said:

Banning things has never and will never work.

I see that comment now and then, mostly in regards to gun control, and mostly followed by references to cases where the demand for a banned thing increases because it is banned. But that doesn't mean it is a rule. In most cases banning something works splendidly. We banned not using safety belts in car, and the fatalities in car accidents dropped. We banned certain carcinogenic additives in food, and we became healthier. We banned smoking on public spaces, and smoking became less popular. We have already banned most military grade weapons (fully automatic rifles, hand grenades, land mines, high explosives) and it is fair to assume that this has caused less killings of people. It is thus reasonable to assume that banning, or making less accessible, certain weapons like semi-automatic rifles, would work, too. Sure, it wouldn't remove all of them, but the black market simply wouldn't be able to disseminate them throughout US society equally effective as todays gun shops and shows are able to do. So it would be harder to get access to high capacity, military grade rifles, and hence there would be a reduction in their misuse. Like we have seen elsewhere.

Of course making guns less accessible won't fix USA. Haha, that takes a multipronged effort. It should go hand in hand with better treatment of the mentally ill, with reducing the friction between Islam and the west, with stabilizing worn-torn regions across the globe, with improving US international standing, with reducing the overall primitive gun culture in the US, with making people realize that they are actually safe, etc. 

[alfierose]

The gun culture in the US seems so entrenched in a way that other western countries aren't and it's going to be mind bogglingly difficult to change that. A ban would make a difference but I imagine it would take a few generations for the culture to change, that's assuming that any sitting president or congress could even get close to a ban (we know that they can't).

Look at us lot here, fanboy/girl-ing over arguably the biggest US rock band ever that is literally called GUNS whose most famous and beloved logo is two pistols and a bullet. So yeah... it seeps into everything and many of us aren't even American yet we've somehow bought into it in a small way.

[rock4eva]

Seems they are looking at ISIS again as he deposited a large sum of money into a Philippines account. It will be interesting to see what the girlfriend has to say, and why was she in a wheelchair being escorted out of the airport?  

[J Dog]

11 hours ago, Len Cnut said:

Its as easy as popping into ASDA in some places I'm led to believe, like the sports section, i think they have a two week period where you leave em ID and they check that you aint a nutter or something, a yank could probably better answer the question.

It's pretty easy if your criminal record and background record is clean. Where I'm at you can get one in about an hour. Gun shows you might can get it on the spot, but those shows get too much credit. They only come around every so often a year, are way overpriced, and most of the inventory is collectible type stuff. But yeah, a regular gun shop, you can get one quick.

[SoulMonster]

41 minutes ago, alfierose said:

The gun culture in the US seems so entrenched in a way that other western countries aren't and it's going to be mind bogglingly difficult to change that. A ban would make a difference but I imagine it would take a few generations for the culture to change, that's assuming that any sitting president or congress could even get close to a ban (we know that they can't).

Look at us lot here, fanboy/girl-ing over arguably the biggest US rock band ever that is literally called GUNS whose most famous and beloved logo is two pistols and a bullet. So yeah... it seeps into everything and many of us aren't even American yet we've somehow bought into it in a small way.

Yes, it will take time so they had better get cracking on it as soon as possible.

[Len Cnut]

28 minutes ago, J Dog said:

It's pretty easy if your criminal record and background record is clean. Where I'm at you can get one in about an hour. Gun shows you might can get it on the spot, but those shows get too much credit. They only come around every so often a year, are way overpriced, and most of the inventory is collectible type stuff. But yeah, a regular gun shop, you can get one quick.

Sounds great, when can i come round?   I'm finna fuck some trees up out this bitch

[J Dog]

5 minutes ago, Len Cnut said:

Sounds great, when can i come round?   I'm finna fuck some trees up out this bitch

Anytime cuz, we can do it. I can see you going all Rambo in the yard 

[Ace Nova]

5 hours ago, Lio said:

 

And after reading this thread I hope I never inadvertently stumble onto KK's property in rural Italy. If he's drunk one chianti or martini too many, he might blow my head off

 

No, lol...doesn't work that way.  I guess if you've never owned a gun of any sort, etc you would just assume that the first thing someone with a gun would do is just pick it up and just start shooting people.  Out of the millions of people that own guns, less than 0.1% probably ever actually shoot it at the direction of another human being.

  I can't speak for other gun owners but the way it works at my family's place in Italy is that they are used strictly as a deterrent. We have folks stopping by all the time over there so obviously we don't grab the guns and start shooting at them when they stop by unannounced.  

If an intruder came on to the property, he'd have to be brazen enough to get past the dogs, then the security systems and then actually pose some sort of threat.  Even then, he would have to continue to pose a threat after we fire a couple of warning shots in the air.  Pretty sure any wannabe intruder would be long gone after the warning shots. So no, you most likely would have nothing to worry about if you accidentally stumbled onto our property...;)

 

[downzy]

10 hours ago, Kasanova King said:

Oh, I still think it's a long shot, that somehow this wealthy, retired guy became radicalized all of a sudden....I'm just piecing together the latest rumours.  I think the FBI and the police know a lot more than what they are disclosing to the public atm...especially since they have yet to release any of his cell phone, personal computer information, video evidence from the hotel, video evidence from cameras he set up, etc....I think a lot more will come out within the next few days and we will get a clearer picture.  One thing I'm pretty sure of is that this wasn't just some "crazy guy" that went on a rampage....something had to set him off.

Apparently reports suggest that after searching the hotel and the shooter's home they still have not found any indication on motive.  

In the end, what does it really matter.  It won't change the fact that this guy had way too many guns and that there are 59 people dead and over 500 injured.  Motive almost seems irrelevant at this point.  

[Ace Nova]

3 minutes ago, downzy said:

Apparently reports suggest that after searching the hotel and the shooter's home they still have not found any indication on motive.  

In the end, what does it really matter.  It won't change the fact that this guy had way too many guns and that there are 59 people dead and over 500 injured.  Motive almost seems irrelevant at this point.  

I agree it won't change the fact that this tragedy happened but I think figuring out the motive is important.  If it's because he's a crazed guy with too many guns, etc then maybe we need to start focusing more on mental health, gun laws etc.  

If somehow ISIS infiltrated the US and radicalized this guy, then intelligence and Homeland security measures need to be improved upon, etc.  

Maybe all the above should be done regardless of motive but at least if we find out motive, we have something to focus on in order to try to prevent it from happening again. 

 

[downzy]

4 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

I see that comment now and then, mostly in regards to gun control, and mostly followed by references to cases where the demand for a banned thing increases because it is banned. But that doesn't mean it is a rule. In most cases banning something works splendidly. We banned not using safety belts in car, and the fatalities in car accidents dropped. We banned certain carcinogenic additives in food, and we became healthier. We banned smoking on public spaces, and smoking became less popular. We have already banned most military grade weapons (fully automatic rifles, hand grenades, land mines, high explosives) and it is fair to assume that this has caused less killings of people. It is thus reasonable to assume that banning, or making less accessible, certain weapons like semi-automatic rifles, would work, too. Sure, it wouldn't remove all of them, but the black market simply wouldn't be able to disseminate them throughout US society equally effective as todays gun shops and shows are able to do. So it would be harder to get access to high capacity, military grade rifles, and hence there would be a reduction in their misuse. Like we have seen elsewhere.

Of course making guns less accessible won't fix USA. Haha, that takes a multipronged effort. It should go hand in hand with better treatment of the mentally ill, with reducing the friction between Islam and the west, with stabilizing worn-torn regions across the globe, with improving US international standing, with reducing the overall primitive gun culture in the US, with making people realize that they are actually safe, etc. 

I was chatting with @gunsguy about this last night on Facebook and our conversation ran on similar lines.  He pointed out that the war on drugs and attempts to ban them have proven futile.  And while that might be so, I'm not sure if drugs and guns are as comparable as we might think.  I'm not a gun owner myself (surprise, surprise), so perhaps I'm uninformed on the dynamics of gun ownership, but I don't believe there is an addictive quality to owning a gun like there is with the consumption of booze or alcohol.  Drug abuse is really a matter of combating psychological or physiological issues whereby drug abuse provides temporary relief.  I don't see that same dynamic with guns.  Save for the truly mentally deranged, I've never heard of anyone "jonesing" for a gun.  

I do agree that tackling the gun problem in the US is akin to climbing a mountain and that where the country exists now is squarely at the bottom.  But the moral imperative is to at least try by using best practices employed by other civilized nations.  The argument that nothing can be done doesn't hold water.  It would take a real longterm commitment and success would be every elusive and always in the distance, but think of the number of lives that could be saved in the coming decades if America's priority was improving access to quality healthcare (which includes improved treatment for mental illness) while at the same time curbing access to firearms in the form of banning high-efficiency firearms, greater onerous gun ownership (training, storage, etc.) and limitations on gun efficiencies (banning high capacity gun clips/magazines).  I have a hard time taking anyone seriously who argues that those measures won't have any effect on gun-related violence.  It's a dynamic that has played out in every other developed nation.  America, despite its President, is not that different than England, Canada, or Australia.  

[downzy]

16 minutes ago, Kasanova King said:

I agree it won't change the fact that this tragedy happened but I think figuring out the motive is important.  If it's because he's a crazed guy with too many guns, etc then maybe we need to start focusing more on mental health, gun laws etc.  

If somehow ISIS infiltrated the US and radicalized this guy, then intelligence and Homeland security measures need to be improved upon, etc.  

Maybe all the above should be done regardless of motive but at least if we find out motive, we have something to focus on in order to try to prevent it from happening again. 

 

We've got a pretty good sense on the motives of previous mass shootings; our understanding for explaining the motivations of killers doesn't seem to be doing much to curtailing these kinds of events.  

How much more can the US really do to combat foreign or domestic terrorism?  It devotes a ridiculous amount of money to the issue already.  Perhaps I'm off on this but at this point it feels like we've reached the law of diminishing returns on that front.  

The low lying fruit in combating this problem, in my opinion, is to assume that bad people exist and making it easy for them to procure guns probably won't work out in the long run.  

[Len Cnut]

That fuckin' Stephen Paddock looks like someone...but I can't put my finger on who it is.  Someone famous.

[Ace Nova]

10 minutes ago, downzy said:

We've got a pretty good sense on the motives of previous mass shootings; our understanding for explaining the motivations of killers doesn't seem to be doing much to curtailing these kinds of events.  

How much more can the US really do to combat foreign or domestic terrorism?  It devotes a ridiculous amount of money to the issue already.  Perhaps I'm off on this but at this point it feels like we've reached the law of diminishing returns on that front.  

The low lying fruit in combating this problem, in my opinion, is to assume that bad people exist and making it easy for them to procure guns probably won't work out in the long run.  

I've said it many times, even on this forum, in response to other mass shootings, that "bad people do bad things".   But what type of society wouldn't at the very least try to protect its citizens any way they can from these "bad people"? 

 

[Ace Nova]

A lot of suspicious information is starting to leak about the girlfriend. (Not sure any of it is true...it's just what is starting to be reported).  Other than the 100k being wired to the Phillipines, then her bailing and going over there while this happened....they are now saying she used multiple ID's/social security numbers in the past, that she was married to 2 separate individuals at the same time...while living with Paddock.  She comes off the plane in a wheelchair....and basically immediately asks for an attorney before speaking to the FBI. At the very least, she's no "dummy"....

[Ace Nova]

Paddock's doctor said he was on a high dose of Valium.  Other witnesses reporting that he seemed to "degrade" physically (lost weight, etc) in the weeks before the shooting.  So mental health is starting to seem at least partially responsible for his actions. 

[Ace Nova]

As of now, doesn't seem like they got much out of the girlfriend....she basically said she had no idea any of it was going on and that the $100k was for her to buy a house for herself and her family in the Phillippines.  

[Black Sabbath]

Mental health, liberal, conservative, hated country music - it doesn't matter. As far as I'm concerned, there was quite a bit of planning that went into this whole thing and it was done pretty well (unfortunately). Even if he "just snapped", he snapped with plenty of days (or weeks, months?) in advance to prepare for the whole thing.

"Now's not the time to be talking about gun control yet" - I'm sorry, but fuck off. When will be? The next massacre?

The whole thing is both unreal, yet unfortunately, not surprising, both the act itself as well as the response from the public and politicians.

[Len Cnut]

4 minutes ago, Black Sabbath said:

 hated country music -

We all know what he means about the modern stuff but bloody hell, could he not just post on a forum or something?   No need to be getting the machine guns out.

[Graeme]

14 hours ago, alfierose said:

The gun culture in the US seems so entrenched in a way that other western countries aren't and it's going to be mind bogglingly difficult to change that. A ban would make a difference but I imagine it would take a few generations for the culture to change, that's assuming that any sitting president or congress could even get close to a ban (we know that they can't).

Look at us lot here, fanboy/girl-ing over arguably the biggest US rock band ever that is literally called GUNS whose most famous and beloved logo is two pistols and a bullet. So yeah... it seeps into everything and many of us aren't even American yet we've somehow bought into it in a small way.

The way it's talked about, you'd think it was like a heroin addiction... Like, if we take their guns off them, they're all going to be sitting in the corner with a thousand-yard stare and a tremor, miming shooting things with their index fingers. If the rest of the world can do without them, so can the US.

[Bono]

The problem with guns in America is the pro gun crowd at large have such a  perverse attitude towards guns. The gun culture mentality is absurd. Nobody is saying ban all guns. Nobody says to take away all the guns. However some common sense needs to be implemented but holy fucking shit the second you even remotely start to talk about any kind of gun control of gun legislation no matter how minute, the pro gun crowd freak the fuck out as if you're not only attacking their "god given rights to bare arms" but attacking them personally. Only in America is Stephen Paddock's right to own all those fucking guns more important than the people he shot, killed and injured's right to universal health care to treat their injuries.  The argument that there are too many guns already  to do anything is flat out fucking bullshit. There is no easy fix and there is nothing that can be done to change things over night. It will be a long and tiresome process but changes need to be made and you gotta start somewhere. For anyone to sit back now and cling to the 2nd amendment and even remotely suggest changes are not needed is fucking asinine. The person who does that is an parasitic asshole straight up.  To give an example of how damn stupid and perverted the attitude towards guns in America is, the number of comments I've read online from people suggesting the answer is more guns and more people armed the safer everyone will be is astonishing. I've actually read numerous comments from people who genuinely believe if everyone in that crowd had been carrying this would have been far less catastrophic and possibly even prevented altogether. The stupidity of people knows no bounds. And like I said the funny thing is far too many of the people who think that way, who support a person's right to bare arms before anything else, feel that right is more important than a child's right or the rights of those injured in this inciddent to health care. It's unreal. 

I'm sorry to one of the people who looks from the outside and criticizes but honestly it's time for America to pull it's head out of it's ass when it comes to this topic. No longer do any of your thoughts and prayers mean a fucking thing if as a whole the country refuses to move forward and make drastic changes to at the very least experiment with possible solutions. 

**Note: Nowhere in my post did I say ban all guns and take all guns away from good law abiding gun owners but rest assured someone will counter my post with that type of bullshit. It always happens. Like clock work. And also cue the person who thinks because I'm not American I have no clue what I'm talking about. Yeah you're right. I'm only a  dumb Canadian who lives right next door. The rest of the world has no clue. America's attitude towards guns is probably the most effective way to go. 

[ZoSoRose]

Well said, Bono. People who refuse to even give an inch regarding proper gun control are scum imo.

[SoulMonster]

16 hours ago, downzy said:

I was chatting with @gunsguy about this last night on Facebook and our conversation ran on similar lines.  

Well, whaddya expect from the "Guns Guy"? 

[Ace Nova]

Paddock may have previously targeted Lollapalooza festival in Chicago over the summer.  Starting to look like the guy just wanted to target a large group of people....looking less and less "politically motivated".