Mass shooting in Las Vegas, 2/10/2017

[82_28]

Up the toll still goes. 50+ dead now. It's still dark here on the US west coast. A lot of people have and will see all of this in full view from their hotel rooms come sunrise.

[SonicG]

Apologies for the slight thread drift...

Pair of pro-gun bills on move in House
By Carolyn Lochhead October 1, 2017

WASHINGTON — The House could pass legislation as early as this week that would roll back decades-old restrictions on gun silencers, opening up the market for a device that critics say would make it difficult in a mass shooting to detect where gunfire is coming from.

The House is also expected to move this fall on separate legislation that would allow people to carry their legally concealed weapons across state lines into jurisdictions, such as California, that tightly restrict weapons concealment.

The silencer measure is part of the Sportsmen Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act, a broad-ranging gun bill delayed in June after House GOP Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and two Capitol Hill police officers were wounded by a gunman who opened fire on a congressional baseball practice session.

Critics say silencers — called noise suppressors by supporters and heavily regulated by the federal government for more than eight decades — would make it harder for police officers to locate a shooter in an attack.

...
“It isn’t a silencer because it still makes sound, but what it does is cuts the percentage of the noise down to make shooting sports a little nicer for people’s hearing,” said Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale (Butte County).

“There’s a lot of false narrative being driven by this,” he said. “Anything to do with making guns more available or more convenient for people is going to find opposition by the left.”
...
It would also legalize the sale of armor-piercing bullets so long as the manufacturer claims the ammunition is made for “sporting purposes.”
http://www.sfchronicle.com/nation/artic ... 243745.php

[seemslikeadream]

400 transferred to hospitals

the crowd was 22,000

brother of Paddock says ...he was just a guy

[JackRiddler]

supposedly this is the gunman - being described as a "leftist"

https://everipedia.org/wiki/geary-danley/

Politics Thread

I'm glad you got that. Can you believe these people? This everipedia.org put him down as the shot suspect before Paddock's name was announced! Why not, right? All these right-wing posts on Twitter called for leftist and anti-Trumpist blood. Seriously.

Soon as they said Marilou Hanley is a POI, I found Geary and his page through Marilou's page, and there was no evidence they were together any more (he's 74 and dweebish, she's 61 and quite youthful and fun-loving from all appearances). I saved his FB page and Marilou's before hers disappeared. I also pegged the Paddock guy as the one she is actually going out with from a picture on her page. (The picture of him on TV is a crop with her cut out, she was hugging him and he held a drink.) Her page was all about her mom, birthdays and Las Vegas concerts she went to (Elton John and lots of other name acts).

.

Confession: Yes, I was relieved. Not happy, this is a big tragedy. But I was relieved to see there was no way she's a believing Muslim, and there aren't going to be bombings of Whereveristan with this as the pretext. And now I'm relieved it's not the separated husband, the Sanders voter and Rachel Maddow fan. Fucked up of me? I don't think so. The socio-political consequences would have been very bad. The tragedy is equally bad, either way. Horrible.

But let's hear what story is told about Paddock now.

.

Grounded speculation: There are thousands of dead in Puerto Rico yet to be counted. Amy's show is all about P.R., all other channels are uninterrupted repeats of the Vegas horror.

.

[seemslikeadream]

The Mirror STILL has the wrong person pictured on the front page....the x of Danely

huge pic of him surrounded by all other photos of crime scene


brother says no warning signs....he gambled...went to shows

how can they say this was not an act of terrorism......oh that's right the guy was a white male



10 rifles in room Paddock killed himself

Danely was/is out of country/county?...not involved


We now have a new term so police don't use word terrorism for white guy: "sole aggressor"

all the hoaxes

https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/ ... .ybnoWvOW9


12. Far-right trolls are spreading a conspiracy theory that the shooter is actually a man named Geary Danley.

14. Conservative media personality Wayne Root tweeted that the shooting was a "coordinated Muslim terror attack" with shots fired at multiple hotels.

[stefano]

Turns out you can buy a kit for $150-$250 that lets you convert an AR-15 to fully automatic.


"every man's birthright"

[seemslikeadream]

Gun Sales Are Plummeting and Trump Wants to Help
The NRA’s new playbook includes guns for kids and open carry in every state.

[liminalOyster]

Hillary Clinton‏Verified account
@HillaryClinton
Follow
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The crowd fled at the sound of gunshots.

Imagine the deaths if the shooter had a silencer, which the NRA wants to make easier to get.

10:03 AM - 2 Oct 2017

https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/stat ... 5926639618

Say no to gun silencer bill. I survived Virginia Tech because I heard shots. (9/29/17)

House GOP set to approve bill that could make mass shootings deadlier
House GOP set to approve bill that could make mass shootings deadlier
After the hearing was delayed because of another shooting, the House will vote to deregulate gun silencers.
KIRA LERNER
OCT 2, 2017, 10:08 AM
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A silencer is displayed at Ed's Public Safety gun shop in Stockbridge, Ga. CREDIT: AP Photo/Lisa Marie Pane
A SILENCER IS DISPLAYED AT ED'S PUBLIC SAFETY GUN SHOP IN STOCKBRIDGE, GA. CREDIT: AP PHOTO/LISA MARIE PANE
As details emerge about the carnage at a Las Vegas country music concert, the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, the House is set to move forward with a vote on a gun lobby-backed bill that would deregulate the sale of gun silencers, which make it harder to detect the origin of gunshots.

Gunman Stephen Paddock killed at least 50 people and injured hundreds more using what experts say sounded like an automatic weapon from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel. Witnesses described chaos on the ground, with concertgoers and law enforcement running in all directions, unclear about where the shots were coming from.

The scene echoes other recent mass shootings like the one in an Orlando night club in June 2016 which left 49 people dead and was previously the most deadly shooting in recent U.S. history. In the early chaos of these attacks, it’s often difficult for law enforcement and the general public to discern the original of gunshots and whether there could be more than one gunman. The use of silencers would make that even more difficult.

The GOP-sponsored bill, the Sportsmen Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act (SHARE Act), would remove gun silencers from the list of items regulated by the 1934 National Firearms Act. Under current law, silencers , which reduce the noise emitted from firearms, are regulated as strictly as machine guns and short-barreled rifles.

The National Rifle Association’s top legislative priority this year has been to roll back the regulations on what they call noise suppressors. The gun lobby claims the restrictions are costly and unnecessary since silencers are rarely used to commit crimes.

Opponents, meanwhile, say the fact that silencers are rarely used to commit crimes means the regulation is working. They claim that deregulation would lead to more gun violence and to more death and injury when a mass shooting occurs.

David Chipman, senior policy advisor for Americans for Responsible Solutions and a former special agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified in September that the bill is an immense threat to public safety.

“Congress is promoting a bill that would make a [shooting] potentially even more dangerous by putting silencers in the hands of criminals, and making it difficult for people — including law enforcement officers — to identify the sound of gunshots and locate an active shooter,” he told Congress.

According to some reports, the House could vote on the bill as soon as this week, although it’s not yet on the official schedule. Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has said the GOP has the votes to pass it, although it could meet a filibuster in the Senate.

This is not the first time the GOP has been accused of poor timing related to its silencer bill. In June, the party scheduled a hearing on the legislation for the same morning that a gunman opened fire at a Congressional baseball practice, injuring Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA). The hearing was rescheduled for September.

In his testimony, Chipman noted the timing of the originally scheduled hearing.

“Lives were spared that day because people recognized the unique sound of gunfire and were able to take cover,” he said.

A silencer is displayed at Ed’s Public Safety gun shop in Stockbridge, Ga. For decades, buying a silencer for a firearm has been as difficult as buying a machine gun, requiring a background check that can take close to a year. Now the industry has renewed a push in Congress to ease those restrictions. CREDIT: AP Photo/Lisa Marie Pane
House GOP-led hearing on deregulation of gun silencers cancelled after shooting

Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC), who was at the baseball game, introduced a measure to make it easier to purchase gun silencers.

Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC), the lawmaker who introduced the Hearing Protection Act and then included that legislation in the SHARE Act, held a “members only” gun silencer demonstration for his colleagues in Congress at the U.S. Capitol Police Range in early June.

If passed, the legislation would be the first pro-gun bill Congress approved since President Trump took office, although the White House and Republican lawmakers have been pushing for weakened gun restrictions since they took control of Washington in January.

The Trump administration has already taken steps to make it easier for both fugitives and the mentally ill to buy guns. Republicans in Congress have also introduced other legislation to allow for concealed carry reciprocity, meaning people without permits or training would be permitted to carry firearms across state lines. The House is also set to move forward on that bill before the end of the year.

“A lot of this legislation is stuff written by lawmakers beholden to the gun lobby and they’ve just been waiting for a Republican president to sign it,” Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, told ThinkProgress earlier this year. “If loose gun laws and more guns made us safer, we’d be the safest country in the world. Instead, we have the highest rate of gun violence of any developed nation.”

https://thinkprogress.org/gun-silencer- ... 777b63eb0/

[thrulookingglass]

Anyone notice that this act of utter depravity (as are ALL these acts of violence) happened in the shadow of "the black pyramid"? The architects of our apocalyptic views sure know how to play on a meme. Welcome to the occupation. Accept no other Gods before me!

[seemslikeadream]

The horrifying events in Las Vegas on Sunday night mark the 273rd mass shooting in the U.S. in the 275 days that have passed so far in 2017, according to Gun Violence Archive.
http://www.newsweek.com/mass-shooting-a ... -us-675334

[8bitagent]

Up the toll still goes. 50+ dead now. It's still dark here on the US west coast. A lot of people have and will see all of this in full view from their hotel rooms come sunrise.

Just woke up, was watching NBC reporting from a hotel in Mandalay, saying the news media was already gathered in Vegas because OJ Simpson had just been released and now living in Vegas hours earlier. Had almost forgotten OJ was scheduled to be released today.

Obviously if Paddock was a "virulent leftist" as the DC Senator Baseball shooter or "Muslim", the narrative would be shaping to be different; but random American dude falls back to the classic random mass shooting weve seen since the 66' Texas Tower, 84 Mcdonalds and 91 Texas Church massacres and the ongoing debate over guns. Seeing footage on the news just now of dead concert goers slumped over in carts and the street is pretty traumatic, and the idea that in America truly anywhere can become a soft target when someone randomly snaps because of automatic weapons.

[DrEvil]

Watching from across the pond I have to say that American gun culture is completely, utterly insane. The only guns that should be legal are bolt-action hunting rifles with a magazine capacity of 4 or 5 bullets, double-barreled shotguns for farm work and bird hunting and the occasional handgun for sport. Anything else is bullshit. Open/concealed/any kind of carry laws should also be removed. The only sane way to transport a handgun is unloaded in a locked case, and then only back and forth to the range. Rifles should never be carried unless you're out hunting, and then only after passing a test that shows you're qualified to do so.

Getting your hands on a gun in the first place should also be a lot harder than it is today. At the very least a thorough background check with automatic bans for anyone with mental health issues, substance abuse problems or violent criminal records, and registration with the local police. I would even take it one step further and have people give a good reason why they need a gun before they're even considered, so if you're not an active hunter you don't get a hunting rifle, and if you stop hunting you lose your license to own a hunting rifle.

I realize this will never ever happen, but those are actually the laws (or variations thereof) in effect in most so-called civilized countries, and the gun violence statistics reflect that very clearly. If you want to stop gun violence you ban or restrict guns.

Gun culture in the US today is a cult.

Edit: some quick google-fu and mathemagic shows that even if this shooting hadn't happened, an average of 22 people would have been murdered today with guns in the US (using 2014 numbers), so that's about one gunshot homicide every hour, every day, all year long.

[Wombaticus Rex]

You don't silence an AR-15, though. Not possible. You attach a "suppressor" -- I actually have a friend here who manufactures some really good ones -- and it suppresses the amount of noise your rifle makes. It's still perfectly fucking obvious that you are firing a gun, it just makes you less obnoxious at the firing range.

[SonicG]

Yep, and it's a record year for gun violence...too depressed, going to watch Match of the Day...

[semper occultus]

OK so the "you're all going to die" woman is NOT Marilou Danley who wasn't even in the country at the time and....

no military background apparently but tenuous link to the MIC

He may have worked as an internal auditor at Lockheed Martin for some time, and managed an apartment building complex in Mesquite, Texas.

Paddock was also the son of Benjamin Hoskins Paddock, a serial bank robber who ended up on the FBI Most Wanted list back in 1969 when he escaped from federal prison in Texas while serving a 20 years sentence. The FBI kept him on the list for the next eight years but he was never found. The agency said that the fugitive had been 'diagnosed as psychopathic' and also had possible 'suicidal tendencies.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4940918/Details-Las-Vegas-shooting-suspect-Stephen-Paddock.html