Tags
Alyssa Milano, automatic weapons, FBI, Hillary Clinton, ISIS, Las Vegas, Las Vegas Metro, Mandalay Bay Hotel, Michael Ian Black, President Trump, suppressors
“They that would trade essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Benjamin Franklin
There is virtually no one that has not heard: at least 50 dead and more than 200 wounded in an attack on the Las Vegas Strip.
The venue was an outdoor concert. The shooter, a 64 year-old man, fired down on the tightly packed crowd from the 3nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel, hundreds of yards distant from the venue. It is never a good idea to rely on early news reports—it’s actually not a good idea to rely on most news reports at all—but the shooter is said to have committed suicide as officers breached the door of his room. An unconfirmed report suggests the shooter fired so many rounds the smoke detector in his room went off, fortunately focusing the police search there.
Note: The usual Tuesday firearms related article will be posted on Wednesday of this week.
I’ll have more to say about this when more reliable information becomes available. For now, a few initial observations:
*This is the worst mass shooting in American history. However, temper this with the remembrance of the nearly 3000 killed on 9-11.
*The shooter’s choice of location, and targets, was deviously effective. The high angle provided plunging fire, ensuring that virtually very bullet would hit multiple people as it descended.
*The shooter apparently used at least one automatic weapon. Judging from audio of the attack, he simply emptied magazines in one long burst, which suggests not aimed, but random fire. It was the large, closely packed crowd that made such a tactic effective. Lengthy pauses, apparently for reloading, are also evident, which suggests either the shooter was not highly proficient with his gun(s), or was taking his time, enjoying the terror he was inflicting.
*The Las Vegas Metro Police—arguably the most corrupt and dangerous—to honest citizens–law enforcement agency in America–apparently acted with courage, speed and professionalism.
*The usual suspects will use this attack to argue all guns must be banned. If so, all trucks, common household chemicals and pressure cookers, must likewise be banned. They’re been quite effective in causing mass casualties in terrorist attacks, and a truck careening through this crowd could easily have killed as many. Go here to see just how deranged such Leftists are. Even CBS could not abide their hatred.
*The use of a suppressor—there is no such thing as a silencer—would have made no difference in this incident at all. Rifles are particularly difficult to suppress. A suppressor does nothing but moderate and change the timbre of a gunshot. Such sounds are still easily identifiable as gunfire, just slightly less damaging to the ears of the shooter.
*We still know nothing about the weapon or weapons—he is said to have had as in “excess of ten rifles” in his hotel room–the shooter—who would like his name to be mentioned here—used. However, automatic weapons are among the most restricted firearms available. It’s unlikely a lawfully registered weapon was used in this attack.
*It will likely be revealed that any fully automatic weapons were illegally possessed. If not, this will be only the second time in American history a lawfully registered automatic weapon was used in a crime. People contemplating mass murder tend not to be much concerned with lesser crimes, particularly those regulating guns.
*The shooter’s motive remains unknown. ISIS has claimed the shooter was one of theirs. The FBI claims he was not. How they would know that so soon remains unknown. One of the great tragedies of our time is ISIS may be more reliable in this than the FBI. The FBI probably can’t be trusted to tell the truth about the matter. At the least, there will be reasonable doubt about whatever they say.
*There is evil abroad in the world. We’ve just seen a manifestation of it. No law, no metal detector, no new governmental agency, no rhetoric, no rightthink or rightspeech, no destruction of the rights of the law abiding will stop it. Ever.
*This will not be the last such outbreak of evil. There have always been the domestic deranged and evil, but there remain abroad in the world millions willing to die to kill as many of us—Americans—as possible.
*There is every indication President Trump wishes to restore the abilities and integrity of our military, intelligence and federal law enforcement agencies. Unfortunately, they are all so shot full of Obamite saboteurs, we can’t trust his orders will be carried out.
Stately McDaniel Manor 
The fact that the shooting continued for over an hour is an indictment of the LVPD. They have AR patrol rifles. They could have used them almost immediately to engage the gunman (broken windows revealed his shooting position) orbat lest provide suppressive fire. I do not fault individual officers, just policy and doctrine.
Dear James W. Crawford:
It’s very hard to comment on anything at the moment, we just don’t know enough, and much of what the media has already said will likely turn out to be wrong. However, shooting from ground level would probably have been difficult at best.
I would suggest that, as there is an airport 800 meters away, there is probably some way to get above ground level. And if nothing else, a couple of million candlepower search light shining in his window might have possibly made it kind of harder to make out people to shoot at.
And wouldn’t you know: Las Vegas police unveil new $9.6M helicopter
https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-las-vegas/las-vegas-police-unveil-new-9-6m-helicopter/
However this is Monday morning quarterbacking. 72 minutes seems like a long time to stop him, but I wasn’t there. It’s always easier to see what other people should have done when it isn’t your ass on the line.
Kevin makes good points, but my criticism of the LVPD remains valid.
If the deranged, mass murderer in the 32 floor hotel room can attack victims on the ground, then it is at least theoretically possible for police on the ground to engage the terrorist.
I will concede that returning fire from a range of 400 to 600 yards with a 5.56 mm patrol rifle is problematic. As I posted over at TheConservativeTreehouse, the remaining energy of a 5.56mm round at 500 yards is minimal. I speculated that given the observed 10% fatality rate from obviously unaimed fire, the terrorist was probably using a .30 caliber weapon. Unaimed fire which results in random hits in a large crowd is adequate for a mass murdered, but insuffecient for police returning fire. I seriously doubt that even officers who have qualified with a patrol rifle understand ballistics well enough to compensate for the probable 10 foot+ of bullet drop.
I just looked up a ballistics chart and realize that I overstated bullet drop in my estimate. That 1/2att equation works reasonably well unless you forget to divide by 2.
Flight time of the projectile is about 1/2 second.
32feet per second per second is gee.
First order approximation of bullet drop is then about 4 feet but this is effected by the range at which the sights are zeroed.
Good grief.
What is it with gun banners and their macabre eagerness to exploit a tragedy? These people are the epitome of classless and uncivilized boors and they delight in ghoulish behaviour.
If you want to eliminate unlawful suppressors, you need to ban such hard to get items as thread adaptors and oil filters.
Dear Sentenza:
Oh, it’s much worse. The ugly hatred of the Left is being splashed all over the Internet.
…still waiting to hear someone explain what “sensible” gun control laws are…
“Sensible.” They love that word.
Monash University. Hectorville. Hunt family murders. Sydney 2014 siege.
But, you know, no mass shootings other than the mass shootings that happen every five years or so.
Dear everlastingphelps:
I’ve removed the Australian from the site. I’ve nothing against Australia or Australians, but this particularly fellow shows up to insult my readers and my country whenever my countrymen are killed by maniacs. We don’t put up with that here at SMM.
Above was first I’ve heard of “hour long” shooting. Rather, I’ve heard 5-10 minutes, People in adjoining rooms DID hear the gunfire. And, the Fire Alarm Control Panel (smoke detectors) did its job by quickly identifying the shooters room.
It’s not easy for First Responders to begin firing up at a 32nd Floor hotel window, without proper intelligence or IR-confirmation. It would require specially trained SWAT personnel. I doubt that they did that. They had to get to that room!
The Left enjoys these incidents, I truly believe, because they get to “virtue signal”! “We hate guns! And all of you people who ‘like’ guns! Guns are to blame! You all are to blame for this!”
Why? Because they just don’t have a clue as to how to stop EVIL. They don’t even know it when they see it–or, enable it.
Actually, for 5.56×45 and 7.62×51, at that range the trajectory is still fairly flat. 5.56 m855 zeroed at 25m it goes from 3” below the bore to 12” above the bore to 3” below the bore at 450 meters. M80 7.62 it drops by 15” at 325 yards. With an effective zero it would be roughly flat at the range he was shooting at. A clever crazy murderer would have chosen a different floor. Luckily this guy was not that clever, though he was clever enough.
Wouldn’t a military (or LEO) sniper, in a ME war zone, choose semi-auto and effectively zeroed sights? Full-auto fire is great for causing panic. But it could easily have been a one shot-one kill ratio. I think Mike’s hint was correct–naturally. The guy was neither proficient nor trained. Thank God.
This scenario will,result in some IRT tactical tweaks, I suspect.
The motive has to be established.
I remember Charles Whitman in the Texas U. tower, 1966. (he graduated from my high school 3 yrs before me.) He had a USMC Sharpshooter rating.
As I recall, he was suffering from severe headaches–as well as psychological disorders. *(His father was known to be crazy-mean SOB.)
Out.
All the ballistics you refer to are for relatively flat shots. Gravity causes the bullet to travel in an arc. When shooting at a severe angle, either up or down, you change the effects of gravity on bullet trajectory. That is why novice mountain hunters, that are exceptional flat land shooters, miss their trophy shots by shooting over their target. To fire at a room, surrounded by possibly occupied rooms, at that range and angle would have been a highly questionable decision.
Have to compensate by using actual horizontal range rather than slant range.
Decreased air density at higher elevation also reduces the amount of projectile energy and velocity lost at long range.
The end result is that rifles shoot higher than expected in the mountains.
Of course with modrn aids such as barometers, thermometers, laser range finders, compasses and ballistic computers to integrate all factors including corolis forces, high altitude mountains enable 2,000+ meter kill shots.
It is so tranquil to shield the consciences of intellectual elites who, from protected positions of immense privilege, insist that gun control will end murder.
We as humans, have been killing each other since the dawn of the ages – with hands and fists, rocks, clubs, arrows, spears, even the jaw bone of an ass…….guns are the present day symptoms of murder, the disease is VIOLENCE.
Upon learning of the massacre in Las Vegas, a teacher tweeted to her followers to pray that only Trump supporters were killed.
I think that this would be regarded as virtue signaling, among progressives.
Since teachers are responsible to teach impart morality to the children in their charge, do you believe that it is acceptable for teachers to promote the idea that it is proper to pray for the deaths of one’s political opponents?
Do you think that it is likely that teachers will discuss the massacre in Las Vegas, with the children in their classes?
If the shooting is discussed in class, how many teachers will encourage the attitude expressed in that particular teacher’s tweet?
It is an enduring adage that teachers should teach children HOW to think, not What to think !
Barack Obama’s friend and colleague at an education think tank and with whom he shared an office for two years, William Ayres is known to have slightly different views upon the purpose of teachers. According to an FBI informant, who infiltrated his terrorist organization, he happily discussed the logistics of murdering approximately 25 million people whose thoughts did not conform to what the rulers of their proposed utopian society would approve.
That they were discussing the logistics of mass murder, rather than the mere tactics of killing people suggests that they were serious in their intentions.
Such people definitely believe that it is the job of teachers to teach what to think, not how to think.
Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted. Vladimir Lenin
His girlfriend is a wealth of knowledge, she must be interviewed.
Did the FBI flatly state that the killer had no connection to ISIS, or did they say that they have not yet found evidence of it? The latter would make sense. The former would indicate that their #1 priority is putting a spin on the story to prevent an anti-Muslim backlash. Which was also the case after Orlando, San Bernardino, Boston, and Fort Hood.
This may be the worst mass shooting in US history, but it is not the worst mass murder. Besides 9-11, there was the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, and the Happy Land Social Club arson in New York in 1990.
Can Alyssa Milano, or any other limousine liberal, explain what they mean, specifically, by “sensible gun control”?
The MSM are insisting that ISIS often claims responsibility for attacks that it did not commit. Actually, such claims by ISIS are not common. Typical MSM spin.
I’ve heard speculation that the killer may have used a Bump Fire or Hellfire modification to attain a higher rate of fire than conventional semi-automatic. If so, such devices may be banned. Trump and the NRA may even go along with it. I would not blame them too much. It is not so much wimping out as it is picking your battles.
I am not an expert on law enforcememt or Las Vegas in particular, but I suspect that LVMPD is very much a mixed bag. There are probably some unqualified quota hires, some badge-heavy bullies, maybe even some trigger-happy hotheads. Plus the mayor’s son-in-law, the city councilman’s nephew, and some twerp whose brother-in-law donated to the sheriff’s election campaign. There are probably also a lot of good cops (as well as firefighters and paramedics) who are doing the best they can in very bad circumstances.
I wouldn’t say random, I would say it was battering fire. He wasn’t trying to hit particular spots, he was trying to put a particular number of rounds into a certain amount of area. These are standard machine gun tactics. He was using the bump stock and 60 round sticks to batter the area of the concert.
At that point, it’s just a math problem. x rounds * rate of fire / sq meters * people per m^2. His beaten zone would be long and transversable, so all he has to do is just fan the area. An anon on /pol ran things through a ballistic calculator, and determined that his target area was roughly 50 moa. That’s like a pizza box held at arm’s length. Keep the muzzle in that box, and you are hitting people.
It was well planned. A good plan really only needs one novel thing, and the novel thing here was disproving “those windows don’t open.” Well, they do, if you use a small sledge like he did and aren’t worried about closing them again. We can’t abide too many well-planned attacks.
Most Americans would think Australia was a laughing stock if they bothered to form opinions about third-world rump-commonwealth countries.
So you are claiming that send the equivalent of 600K GIs to Vietnam and still lost, only slower?
And you think that’s a brag?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Australia_during_the_Vietnam_War
Since you have problems with maths, I’ll save you some time:
60,000 x 10 = 600,000 (or 600K).
Australian Person
We had a high count mass shooting in Texas about the same time as your Port Arthur incident. You did what you did and we started legal concealed carry. We have not a mass shooting since, either. The population of Oz and Texas are nearly the same and both are highly urbanized.
You guys spent 500 million on a buy back scheme. The State of Texas makes millions on license fees. And the murder rate here has fallen by 50% in the years since.
Who is laughing at whom?
I should have been more precise in my word choice. In my frame of reference, the only types of mass shooting that are really comparable are the type where the victims are strangers and the killing is just a deranged form of publicity seeking or an expression of inner demons. This is the form that has gone to near zero.
Multi-victim shootings that persist in Texas are mostly young men fighting with other young men that they already know over the right to commit more crimes (on the street). Here, it is all about business.
The funny part , to me, it that you guys made a policy (with the best will in the world) to reduce gun violence. By and By, you spent 500 million buying back worn out rusty things. And you did get your improvements –but no better than New Zealand did (who did no buy back) but not better than Texas which has made millions selling CCW permits and selling the mandated classes. Did I say before that murders have gone down by 50% over this time?
Becoming richer, and safer all with one policy change is fun.
Maybe the “funny” part gets lost in translation.
Mass shootings were so rare in Australia to begin with that their absence after the gun buyback is not conclusive proof of cause-and-effect. And Great Britain also had a relatively low crime rate even before their strict gun laws were passed, making it hard to assess whether the laws have had a significant effect.
If a bloke said to me, “Gun laws are stupid; like alcohol prohibition and drug/420 laws”. I would just say yes and offer him a beer.
Making them strict and punitive makes certain people feel more warm and happy. Making them looser and more permissive makes other kinds of people feel warm and happy.
It all means nothing until the rubber meets the road.
I am struggling with the fact that it took an hour and 12 minutes from the first shots to the time the room was breached.
While everyone wants to reflexively praise “first responders”, the security guard was shot through the door 52 minutes (at 10:28) before the room was breached (at 11:20).
That sounds like something went very wrong in taking this guy out.
What’s really infuriating about that is that less than three minutes into the incident, the radio traffic shows a cop saying, “I’m at the entrance of Mandalay Bay, and I’m forming a strike team. I need five officers on me.”
Made me proud to be an American.
Also, my view is when civilians are actively being killed, an officer may just have to risk his life to try to stop it, even if he doesn’t have adequate back-up.
It’s different than a hostage situation where time is not resulting in further deaths.
I wonder how long it was — from the initial shots — before the more precise location of the shooting could be identified, either from the street level up to the window, or from within the hotel, by virtue of the smoke alarm, the security detail, or people in adjacent rooms, or otherwise. The difference between a 5 minute spree and and 72 minutes spree is a factor of 14 in deaths and injury.
< 3 minutes to isolate it to the Mandalay Bay, 8 minutes to isolate it to the 32nd floor room.
(Source: the scanner recordings)
So this could have been reduced to maybe 1/10th the death and injury, or thereabouts. It appears any breach was going to create the suicide. Get a fucking posse of 4 and give them the guns in your squad car, and get the hell in there.
I wouldn’t be so quick to that conclusion. The first confrontation was the security guard, and he got shot through the door.
(That inconsistency is one of many reasons I have doubts that he was the only attacker. Why fight back at first, and then suddenly decide not to fight anymore? Most of them an hero at the first sight of another gun, but this guy fought first, and then allegedly gave up.)
He had camera in hall. Fight back against one for more time. Multi-person breach ends it. Just guessing, but something needs to be tried. Shoot through door, whatever. But 63 minutes after locating? That’s too much.
He stopped firing at the crowd after the first ten minutes or so. If he’s not firing, it’s stopped being an active shooter and started being a standoff.
Okay, got it. I assume you have dug into the timeline and are confident of the details.
I haven’t seen it as clearly articulated as you note, but I take your word for it absent other information.
Appreciate the information.
This one is odd, and gets odder the more you know. My intuition tells me that there is a major, material, crucial fact that we are either being lied to about, or is being hidden.
I have half a dozen candidates for that, but no way to pick between them.
Dear everlastingphelps:
About one thing we can be certain: absolutely distrust whatever Metro says.
Agreed. The fact that there is already bad blood between them and the FBI hopefully means that they will keep each other honest.
Dear everlastingphelps:
Perhaps. More likely, they’ll just continue to be corrupt in their own ways.
Dear everlastingphelps:
The multiple cameras are distressing…
As usual the ‘we gotta outlaw guns’ folks just aren’t thinking things through.
The only way to stop crazies and terrorists is to stop them before they attack .
I’m convinced our gun culture, & the fact that hence guns are the weapons of choice utilized by crazies, et al, in the US has produced far less carnage than we would have seen otherwise. Misuse of guns is bad, use of bombs is far worse.
Yes guns can be outlawed, of course followed by the truism, then only outlaws will have guns.
Bombs can’t even be outlawed. Evey so often we see headlines stating that materials to produce explosive devices were found in such and such a place. Actually materials to produce explosive devices are found in (& I hate to use the word literally but I will) literally in every household in the US. Anyone with a decent high school education could utilize 3 or 4 items in every house or available at a store 10 minutes away (I’ll note only one; 50 pounds of sugar) and make an explosive device that, in the same situation, would have produced damage several orders of magnitude greater than this crazy did with his guns.
Also consider the guy owned two airplanes, think of how much worse the death toll would have been if he’d used one of those, with full gas tanks, instead of guns.
& thanks to guns and the 2nd amendment we the people can protect ourselves, even if not from everything.
Let’s remember:
The Bataclan massacre in France — 137 dead — was in France with very strict gun control, and they had real machine guns which were clearly “illegal”.
The Beslan massacre in Russia — 350 dead — was done with terrorists with real machine guns and bombs, despite gun control laws.
Mexico has highly strict gun control and all the drug dealers and people smugglers have machine guns and high powered weapons and are killing thousands per yer.
Brevik in Norway — 50 odd dead — strict gun control.
France truck massacre.
Stalin 50mm
Hitler 50mm
Mao 50 mm
Pot 2mm
I may be a little off on one or the other of these, but correct order of magnitude.
So what’s your point about “gun control” Mr. Know it All Liberal?
We know all you want is power and control. Once you have that, you don’t have to pretend like you’re doing things to protect people.
Of interest:
Bellagio is 2 miles from Mandalay Bay, and on the opposite side of MB from the shooter. If they were hearing shots at all from Mandalay Bay, it would have been faint. In any event, there is no way that shots from the Mandalay Bay managed to break the glass at the Bellagio lobby entrance.
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