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Las Vegas Shooting Kills More Than 50

33 points by thesanerguy 9y ago

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
hahamrfunnyguy 9y ago
What does it take for something to be done about these mass shootings that just keep happening?
- taytus 9y ago
  Courage. If nothing happened after Sandy Hook, nothing will happen unless someone really decides that enough is enough.
  - naskwo 9y ago
    Out of curiosity: how are Norway's gun control laws: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks All it takes is one dangerous idiot and/or fanatic.
    - onion2k 9y ago
      Australia banned guns after a mass shooting in 1996. They've haven't had a mass shooting since.
      - ntw1103 9y ago
        so what would you say happened June 6th 2017? certainly not a mass shooting... what makes it mass? after that incident, Police said they had stopped 12 similar attacks based on intelligence since September 2014.
  - Sandorie 9y ago
    But what exactly is enough? Unless we have a solution to this horrendous problem, the current state of affairs will not subside. Just shouting “ban assult rifles” will not solve the problem. We need an elaborte plan reasoned by principle rather than by analogy.
    - taytus 9y ago
      >But what exactly is enough? For the rest of the world, a couple of shootings. For USA, apparently nothing.
    - pizza 9y ago
      how about the precautionary principle?
    - qbrass 9y ago
      If people aren't within weapons range of each other they can't shoot each other. So force everyone to stay a mile away from everyone else, and increase the range until the problem goes away.
    - ericfrederich 9y ago
      The right would say this wouldn't be a problem if more people had guns to defend themselves with. An idiotic argument for sure especially given the details of this current attack (32 stories up... far away, etc). Even if this happened at an NRA rally or gun show they'd come up with some other excuse.
- donkeyd 9y ago
  There isn't an easy solution for this type of thing. They will keep happening no matter what you do to try and stop them. Gun control will probably help halt the ones that happen as an impulsive action, but there's no regulation that will stop a terrorist from achieving their goal.
  - zimpenfish 9y ago
    > There isn't an easy solution for this type of thing. Clearly there is since there's only one "civilised" country that experiences anywhere near this order of magnitude of mass shootings.
    - donkeyd 9y ago
      That's why I mentioned gun control. This won't stop everybody though. Here in the Netherlands we have tight gun control and we still had a mass shooting with licensed guns. Also, we've seen many attacks in Europe recently with illegally imported guns.
      - zimpenfish 9y ago
        > a mass shooting The key word here though is "a". The US is on 273 this year alone. http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/ http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/
- pjc50 9y ago
  The top five most viable "somethings" have already been discussed and ruled out, so what exactly is left? It's a tragedy, but it's a repeating tragedy, and this thread will follow the same pattern as all previous US mass shooting discussion threads where people will oppose solutions without any viable alternatives. A congressman got non-fatally shot a few months ago and nothing was done, so the barrier for inaction is really high: https://thinkprogress.org/shooting-congressional-baseball-practice-2b18032288b2/ https://thinkprogress.org/shooting-congressional-baseball-pr...
- nvahalik 9y ago
  The real problem is people. You can talk about gun control all you want but evil is a people problem—not a gun problem.
  - mcphage 9y ago
    No, the real problem is mass shootings. Evil may be a people problem, but mass shootings are an American problem.
    - true_religion 9y ago
      It's said that mass shootings have more to due with media hype giving rise to copycats over the generations. If mass shootings were not 'national' news, but confined to the areas of people they actually affected then we would have much fewer of them.
    - reitanqild 9y ago
      Here's my attempt at a rational explanation. Feel free to point out flaws. > No, the real problem is mass shootings. I think we should talk about mass killings not mass shootings. Yes US has had a lot of mass shootings but it seems you have avoided the concentration camps and the Srebrenica etc that Europe has experienced during the last hundred years. When people don’t have guns it is much easier to round them up and kill them. Most people who have got killed seems to have been killed by their own authorities or invaders, not neighbours.
      - mcphage 9y ago
        > I think we should talk about mass killings not mass shootings. I'd rather talk about mass shootings—which is a problem that America currently has—instead of mass killings, which is not.
        reitanqild 9y ago
        My point is that maybe we shouldn't see this in isolation. Paying insurance is stupid - until your house burns down. Guns for every law abiding citizen that wants one (and paying a few lives every year) is stupid until your uncles, brothers and sons are marched out in the woods and shot. This happened less than 30 years ago way to close to me. What I wish NRA would do though is fighting for stricter rules for gun storage, teaching risk assessment (do you really need your loaded handgun to be available for your kids?) etc.
- notacoward 9y ago
  Declare the NRA a terrorist organization. Before people misunderstand, I'm not saying we should get rid of all guns or anything like that. They do have plenty of legitimate uses. What I'm saying is that the NRA specifically represents terrorists better than they represent most gun owners. Their absolutist position, rejecting any and all restrictions on guns and ammunition, is not representative of most gun owners. All it has done, over and over, is to enable the worst kinds of crazies to bring unreasonable amounts of firepower to places where it doesn't belong. For example, it should be practically impossible to bring eight long weapons and hundreds of rounds into a hotel unless you can prove you're military or law enforcement. Where, short of that, should one draw the line? That's a reasonable discussion to have, but it can't occur as long as the NRA gets a seat - and the most influential one at that - at the table. They need to be shut out, so that reasonable people can get on with reasonable discussion about how to stop these atrocities.
  - true_religion 9y ago
    The NRA represents their membership, not all gun-owners everywhere. > it should be practically impossible to bring eight long weapons and hundreds of rounds How would one make it 'practically impossible'? I think most people agree that we would like to ensure day-to-day safety, but the disagreement is "at what cost"? The NRA defends against removing a constitutional protection against tyranny, simply because < 0.01% of our population is made up of madmen who might access weaponry.
    - notacoward 9y ago
      > How would one make it 'practically impossible'? I can think of two fairly simple measures. (1) His weapons should have been inspected on entry to the hotel, to ensure not only legality but condition and unloaded state as well. In this case, that would have resulted in them being flagged as illegal full-auto conversions. (2) Ammunition should have been stored separately, in the lobby or the basement, in total accordance with what responsible gun owners already recognize as best practice. With these two measures in place, he might have been able to do some damage, but a semi-auto and one magazine would not have led to the kind of result we actually saw. > The NRA defends against removing a constitutional protection against tyranny The NRA does no such thing. The measures they support or oppose would make no difference if the day ever came when we needed to defend against tyrants commanding a military with modern weapons and training. If you look at the paramilitaries that the NRA enables, it would even be fair to say that they're promoting the tools of tyranny.
Tomte 9y ago
America wants it like that. Accept it and move on. shrug
- nicklaf 9y ago
  Without trivializing the grief surrounding the victims here, it really is as simple as that. Tragic, but apparently as American as apple pie. And honestly, that's the bigger (moral) tragedy here, which is depressing enough that I don't even want to think about it.
Sandorie 9y ago
We need to fall to this matter yarely, else we are unraveld. Such acts of terror are not bound by: “ type of weapon”, “nationality”, “circumstances”, etc. Instead of aiming our efforts and resources at the “wrong solutions”, I belive we need to ask first the right questions. We need to boil things down to its most fundamental truths, and reason up from there.
cwkoss 9y ago
Why is this flagged?
- nicklaf 9y ago
  For better or worse, it's not hacker news. (Like usual, though, I knew how to get here via search, since I knew the discussion would exist despite being flagged off the home page.)
arkbg1 9y ago
Social engineer here. As a 64yo retired accountant with no military experience, terrorist connection or even police record, Stephen Paddock makes a most unconvincing suspect. All the false/diversive phonecalls (which is the primary causal factor of the high kill count) and ten ($20,000+) automatic weapons are much more suspicious than any possible motives regarding the 2012 property liability suit against Cosmopolitan Resorts or ongoing divorce. The only other relevant information are a 2003 single engine pilots license and an Alaska hunting license. Again, both unconvincing. I'm left wondering who made all the diversive calls?

33 points by thesanerguy 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

hahamrfunnyguy 9y ago

What does it take for something to be done about these mass shootings that just keep happening?

taytus 9y ago
Courage. If nothing happened after Sandy Hook, nothing will happen unless someone really decides that enough is enough.
- naskwo 9y ago
  Out of curiosity: how are Norway's gun control laws: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks All it takes is one dangerous idiot and/or fanatic.
  - onion2k 9y ago
    Australia banned guns after a mass shooting in 1996. They've haven't had a mass shooting since.
    - ntw1103 9y ago
      so what would you say happened June 6th 2017? certainly not a mass shooting... what makes it mass? after that incident, Police said they had stopped 12 similar attacks based on intelligence since September 2014.
- Sandorie 9y ago
  But what exactly is enough? Unless we have a solution to this horrendous problem, the current state of affairs will not subside. Just shouting “ban assult rifles” will not solve the problem. We need an elaborte plan reasoned by principle rather than by analogy.
  - taytus 9y ago
    >But what exactly is enough? For the rest of the world, a couple of shootings. For USA, apparently nothing.
  - pizza 9y ago
    how about the precautionary principle?
  - qbrass 9y ago
    If people aren't within weapons range of each other they can't shoot each other. So force everyone to stay a mile away from everyone else, and increase the range until the problem goes away.
  - ericfrederich 9y ago
    The right would say this wouldn't be a problem if more people had guns to defend themselves with. An idiotic argument for sure especially given the details of this current attack (32 stories up... far away, etc). Even if this happened at an NRA rally or gun show they'd come up with some other excuse.
donkeyd 9y ago
There isn't an easy solution for this type of thing. They will keep happening no matter what you do to try and stop them. Gun control will probably help halt the ones that happen as an impulsive action, but there's no regulation that will stop a terrorist from achieving their goal.
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  > There isn't an easy solution for this type of thing. Clearly there is since there's only one "civilised" country that experiences anywhere near this order of magnitude of mass shootings.
  - donkeyd 9y ago
    That's why I mentioned gun control. This won't stop everybody though. Here in the Netherlands we have tight gun control and we still had a mass shooting with licensed guns. Also, we've seen many attacks in Europe recently with illegally imported guns.
    - zimpenfish 9y ago
      > a mass shooting The key word here though is "a". The US is on 273 this year alone. http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/ http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/
pjc50 9y ago
The top five most viable "somethings" have already been discussed and ruled out, so what exactly is left? It's a tragedy, but it's a repeating tragedy, and this thread will follow the same pattern as all previous US mass shooting discussion threads where people will oppose solutions without any viable alternatives. A congressman got non-fatally shot a few months ago and nothing was done, so the barrier for inaction is really high: https://thinkprogress.org/shooting-congressional-baseball-practice-2b18032288b2/ https://thinkprogress.org/shooting-congressional-baseball-pr...
nvahalik 9y ago
The real problem is people. You can talk about gun control all you want but evil is a people problem—not a gun problem.
- mcphage 9y ago
  No, the real problem is mass shootings. Evil may be a people problem, but mass shootings are an American problem.
  - true_religion 9y ago
    It's said that mass shootings have more to due with media hype giving rise to copycats over the generations. If mass shootings were not 'national' news, but confined to the areas of people they actually affected then we would have much fewer of them.
  - reitanqild 9y ago
    Here's my attempt at a rational explanation. Feel free to point out flaws. > No, the real problem is mass shootings. I think we should talk about mass killings not mass shootings. Yes US has had a lot of mass shootings but it seems you have avoided the concentration camps and the Srebrenica etc that Europe has experienced during the last hundred years. When people don’t have guns it is much easier to round them up and kill them. Most people who have got killed seems to have been killed by their own authorities or invaders, not neighbours.
    - mcphage 9y ago
      > I think we should talk about mass killings not mass shootings. I'd rather talk about mass shootings—which is a problem that America currently has—instead of mass killings, which is not.
      - reitanqild 9y ago
        My point is that maybe we shouldn't see this in isolation. Paying insurance is stupid - until your house burns down. Guns for every law abiding citizen that wants one (and paying a few lives every year) is stupid until your uncles, brothers and sons are marched out in the woods and shot. This happened less than 30 years ago way to close to me. What I wish NRA would do though is fighting for stricter rules for gun storage, teaching risk assessment (do you really need your loaded handgun to be available for your kids?) etc.
notacoward 9y ago
Declare the NRA a terrorist organization. Before people misunderstand, I'm not saying we should get rid of all guns or anything like that. They do have plenty of legitimate uses. What I'm saying is that the NRA specifically represents terrorists better than they represent most gun owners. Their absolutist position, rejecting any and all restrictions on guns and ammunition, is not representative of most gun owners. All it has done, over and over, is to enable the worst kinds of crazies to bring unreasonable amounts of firepower to places where it doesn't belong. For example, it should be practically impossible to bring eight long weapons and hundreds of rounds into a hotel unless you can prove you're military or law enforcement. Where, short of that, should one draw the line? That's a reasonable discussion to have, but it can't occur as long as the NRA gets a seat - and the most influential one at that - at the table. They need to be shut out, so that reasonable people can get on with reasonable discussion about how to stop these atrocities.
- true_religion 9y ago
  The NRA represents their membership, not all gun-owners everywhere. > it should be practically impossible to bring eight long weapons and hundreds of rounds How would one make it 'practically impossible'? I think most people agree that we would like to ensure day-to-day safety, but the disagreement is "at what cost"? The NRA defends against removing a constitutional protection against tyranny, simply because < 0.01% of our population is made up of madmen who might access weaponry.
  - notacoward 9y ago
    > How would one make it 'practically impossible'? I can think of two fairly simple measures. (1) His weapons should have been inspected on entry to the hotel, to ensure not only legality but condition and unloaded state as well. In this case, that would have resulted in them being flagged as illegal full-auto conversions. (2) Ammunition should have been stored separately, in the lobby or the basement, in total accordance with what responsible gun owners already recognize as best practice. With these two measures in place, he might have been able to do some damage, but a semi-auto and one magazine would not have led to the kind of result we actually saw. > The NRA defends against removing a constitutional protection against tyranny The NRA does no such thing. The measures they support or oppose would make no difference if the day ever came when we needed to defend against tyrants commanding a military with modern weapons and training. If you look at the paramilitaries that the NRA enables, it would even be fair to say that they're promoting the tools of tyranny.

Tomte 9y ago

America wants it like that. Accept it and move on. shrug

nicklaf 9y ago
Without trivializing the grief surrounding the victims here, it really is as simple as that. Tragic, but apparently as American as apple pie. And honestly, that's the bigger (moral) tragedy here, which is depressing enough that I don't even want to think about it.

Sandorie 9y ago

We need to fall to this matter yarely, else we are unraveld. Such acts of terror are not bound by: “ type of weapon”, “nationality”, “circumstances”, etc. Instead of aiming our efforts and resources at the “wrong solutions”, I belive we need to ask first the right questions. We need to boil things down to its most fundamental truths, and reason up from there.

cwkoss 9y ago

Why is this flagged?

nicklaf 9y ago
For better or worse, it's not hacker news. (Like usual, though, I knew how to get here via search, since I knew the discussion would exist despite being flagged off the home page.)

arkbg1 9y ago

Social engineer here. As a 64yo retired accountant with no military experience, terrorist connection or even police record, Stephen Paddock makes a most unconvincing suspect. All the false/diversive phonecalls (which is the primary causal factor of the high kill count) and ten ($20,000+) automatic weapons are much more suspicious than any possible motives regarding the 2012 property liability suit against Cosmopolitan Resorts or ongoing divorce. The only other relevant information are a 2003 single engine pilots license and an Alaska hunting license. Again, both unconvincing. I'm left wondering who made all the diversive calls?