[Closed] Mandalay Bay - Las Vegas

The nra website is very special. It includes nuggets like this

Gun control supporters are wrong to claim that “assault weapons” are used in most mass shootings. While the media focus on this false narrative, mass shootings have been committed with firearms of all types, and without firearms of any type.

Mass shootings committed without firearms?

Anyways a good time to share this Jim Jeffries clip. He absolutely nails the issue. (Worth watching part 2 as well. Nsfw)

...and the victims, just a cross section of regular people...

[url= http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41476879 ]victims[/url]

Mass shootings committed without firearms?

cross bows?

From that first NRA link:

"Americans own over eight million AR-15s and buy hundreds of thousands of new ones every year."

Wow

The nra website is very special

Nearly as 'special' as Armed America Radio 😯

If banning the sale of these guns is too hard they could start by introducing laws that say every gun has to be painted barbie pink and rather than being called AR15 should instead be called Unicorn Cuddle Defender.

Would be great to see a NRA redneck defending his constitution right with a pink Unicorn Cuddle Defender

From the guardian feed...

Two of the survivors of the Las Vegas mass shooting, have defended US gun laws.

Caren Mansholt told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that she crouched down as low as possible as multiple rounds of bullets were fired into the crowd from a hotel room where 23 guns were found.

She said such attacks would not be prevented by tighter gun laws.

“I do believe there is a time and a place for gun ownership. I believe that we have the right to protect ourselves as needed,” she said.

Rusty Dees, who was with Mansholt at the time, said: “The biggest problem for me and for many was that we didn’t hear anybody returning fire. I’m very concerned that we had no one outside to protect us. Unfortunately for me being unarmed and unable to do a whole lot decided it was time to get out of there.”

Echoing an argument put forward by the former Fox News broadcaster Bill O’Reilly, Dees added: “It’s a tragic cost of freedom, that people can do bad things. If you can find a gun law that would prevent this from happening I could sign up today, but I am proud of our country’s second amendment rights and I’m glad we are allowed to defend ourselves.”

The biggest problem was that no one was returning fire?! And this is a cost of freedom?! 😯

The funny thing is we all type posts trying different ways to articulate the problem, but what it boils down to is the fact that too many Americans who are in positions of power are just spectacularly thick.

The speed at which deliberate misinformation can spread is unbelievable:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/02/las-vegas-shooting-facebook-google-fake-news-shooter

At the same time, a sham Facebook page pretending to be Antifa claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the goal of the shooter was to murder “Trump supporting fascist dogs”.

I can't quite work out whether this second one is just plain google results, or targeted ads. If just normal Google results, it must be almost impossible for them to monitor.

Google said in a statement: “Unfortunately, early this morning we were briefly surfacing an inaccurate 4chan website in our Search results for a small number of queries. Within hours, the 4chan story was algorithmically replaced by relevant results. This should not have appeared for any queries, and we’ll continue to make algorithmic improvements to prevent this from happening in the future.”

The biggest problem was that no one was returning fire?!

I also did a little WTF double-take when I heard that this morning.

It’s been said plenty of times but when even watered down legislation didn’t make it through after Sandy Hook, the debate was over in so far as leading to any kind of action. Enough powerful people believe this a price worth paying.

Next year there’ll be another few of these - but this time they won’t even be able to hear where the ****ing bullets are coming from.

The biggest problem was that no one was returning fire?!

Aye I'm sure 500 people freely shooting up the mandalay (and in any other direction they thought fire was coming from) in response would have the sensible option...

“The biggest problem for me and for many was that we didn’t hear anybody returning fire. I’m very concerned that we had no one outside to protect us. Unfortunately for me being unarmed and unable to do a whole lot decided it was time to get out of there.”

Even so the gun you would need to take out someone 300 metres away is not going to be easily concealed on you.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/02/las-vegas-gun-control-caleb-keeter-josh-abbott-band

Its one of those we ll know the solution is for their relationship with guns to be like ours but there is no way to get them there so these events will continue to occur.

The biggest problem was that no one was returning fire?!

And that's what people who want gun control in the USA are up against, an endemic belief that swimming in a sea of guns is a [i]good thing[/i].

It's completely and utterly barking.

Aye I'm sure 500 people freely shooting up the mandalay (and in any other direction they thought fire was coming from) in response would have the sensible option...

That was my first thought, just open up in the general direction of hotel with 2000 rooms or whatever.

They've all seen too many films.

As with so many things, Bill Hicks nailed the gun proponents' argument:

But there’s no connection, and you’d be a fool and a communist to make one. There’s no connection between having a gun and shooting someone with it, and not having a gun and not shooting someone…

I'm assuming off the back of this that tensions around the Korean peninsula will ease quickly as the US will stop trying to prevent the other guy with the bad hair from getting nukes cos, y'know, nuclear weapons don't kill people - people kill people.

This interview with gun lobbyist is so frustrating.
(John Oliver Daily Show - first of three part special on Gun Control)

you’d be a fool and a communist to make one. There’s no connection between having a gun and shooting someone with it, and not having a gun and not shooting someone

Its one of those - its not linear as most people with guns wont shoot people but having them freely available everywhere means that when someone will they can easily get a gun, easily modify it to take lots of shots and then easily kill this number with only a modicum of forethought and planning
The only solution is less guns in society as then fewer nutters have guns.

The only solution is [s]less[/s] FEWER guns in society

FFS!

That was my first thought, just open up in the general direction of hotel with 2000 rooms or whatever.

And then the people in those rooms, many of whom would also be armed would think they were under attack, and start to open up in the direction of the concert goers.......

I wonder if that was ever a likelihood, in which case how many could have been killed or injured then 😯

And anyone suggesting gun control in the wake of such an event gets accused of trying to politically profit from the event.... 😯

https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/915023389441626112

[quote=edlong ]The only solution is less FEWER guns in society
FFS!

I wish less people would correct this 😉

[quote=beanum ]This interview with gun lobbyist is so frustrating.
(John Oliver Daily Show - first of three part special on Gun Control)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pOiOhxujsE

"The US has high numbers of guns, therefore there is more chance for somebody to be killed by a gun"

- for those who haven't watched it, that wasn't a comment by John Oliver 🙄

whoop-de-doo

swimming in a sea of guns is a good thing

Sigh. I miss ninfan.

That was my first thought, just open up in the general direction of hotel with 2000 rooms or whatever.

They've all seen too many films.

This argument gets dragged out by the pro-gun lobby every time.

The idea of one (relatively) calm, rational, focussed person walking into a public area and systematically opening fire with prepared weapons is terrifying enough.

The idea that 100 nearby "concerned citizens" with little to no military training and no warning whatsoever would have the presence of mind to identify the threat, draw and preapre their own weapon and fire back in such a way as to neutralise the threat with no collateral damage is just insane.

You'd have 100 terrified idiots frantically fumbling round with a variety of random weaponry, looking around at the other 99 terrified idiots and one actual shooter and then unleashing a hail of poorly aimed rounds in the direction of anyone they deemed to be a threat.

There's a lot of people who've spent far too long watching war films and playing first person shooter arcade games in the NRA.

A crazy as many an American's attitude to gun control sound to us, this did make me wonder about our own acceptance of fatalities for certain rights or conveniences.

We had 5 dead and 66 seriously injured every day on UK roads in 2016. I guess most people would shrug their shoulders and say those numbers were pretty low and likely a price worth paying for the convenience of having our cars. Despite the death toll, we're not having a national debate about road safety, restrictions on car licences, background checks, harsher penalties, etc. Rarely a mention of it in the media over here (oh other than the 1 fatality where a bike collides with and kills a pedestrian.)

I agree mrblobby, it's something we should take a lot more seriously, but it's a bit whataboutery.

If those things happened in one event then maybe it would. Stats from previously had more killed by guns than cars in Nevada.

You'd have 100 terrified idiots frantically fumbling round with a variety of random weaponry, looking around at the other 99 terrified idiots and one actual shooter and then unleashing a hail of poorly aimed rounds in the direction of anyone they deemed to be a threat.

Or potentially one person setting off some smoke grenades and bird scarers and shouting someone is shooting before ducking behind something solid whilst all the "concerned citizens" shoot each other.

Aracer, yes, was in two minds about posting it as it is a bit whataboutery. I'd just seen [url= https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/oct/02/america-mass-shootings-gun-violence ]this chart for mass shootings in US[/url] and it just got me wondering how similar the one for road traffic accidents in the UK would look like. Trying to comprehend the US mentality to all this when the arguments against gun control seem so ludicrous to most of the rest of the world.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/chartimage?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/causesofdeath/bulletins/avoidablemortalityinenglandandwales/2015/b6454fd9
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/causesofdeath/bulletins/avoidablemortalityinenglandandwales/2015

A crazy as many an American's attitude to gun control sound to us, this did make me wonder about our own acceptance of fatalities for certain rights or conveniences.

We had 5 dead and 66 seriously injured every day on UK roads in 2016. I guess most people would shrug their shoulders and say those numbers were pretty low and likely a price worth paying for the convenience of having our cars. Despite the death toll, we're not having a national debate about road safety, restrictions on car licences, background checks, harsher penalties, etc. Rarely a mention of it in the media over here (oh other than the 1 fatality where a bike collides with and kills a pedestrian.)

For me there are some great and obvious differences -

1) We have, for many, many years sought to reduce the number of deaths and injuries on our roads, it's a constant and never ending job and it works, people still die, but less and less of them whilst at the same time the number of road users grow.
2) Cars, Vans and Trucks are regulated, yearly checks for road-worthiness, you need to take a test, we have a system in place that removes or suspends drivers licenses if they're medically or mentally unable to use it properly or even if they prove to be an idiot, this is debated constantly, just not as vocally as gun regs because it doesn't grab headlines.
3) A vehicle can, and has been used as a weapon both deliberately and accidentally, but it's not it's primary purpose, and makers are making it harder and harder to do so.
A car is a form of transport, and always will be - you can use it as a weapon, but it's not a weapon - a gun is a weapon and always will be, you can use it to put holes in paper targets, but it is a weapon.

mrblobby - Member

Despite the death toll, we're not having a national debate about road safety, restrictions on car licences, background checks, harsher penalties, etc.

Point of order.
Roads are constantly being physically changed to improve safety, speed limits are reviewed, the licence is continually getting more comprehensive and harder, and penalties are getting harsher, with new penalties introduced all the time.
Our roads have seen fewer deaths since the mid sixties.

too many Americans who are in positions of power are just spectacularly thick.

So let's assume for a moment everyone arrives at a concert tooled up. How do you figure out who is the bad guy?

Zulu’s out there somewhere reading this thread...
[img] [/img]

Roads and guns is a false comparison

As noted lots of restrictions and efforts to minimise the incidents and the sole purpose of a vehicle is not to injure folk unlike a gun.

We cannot make a society where no one has access to things that can be used to kill but we can make a society where folk dont have unrestricted access to things solely designed to kill.

A closer thing would be to compare knife crime. Anybody can go and buy a kitchen knife and do whatever they want with it.

Some people do more than prep veg with it and use it to kill someone. Should we control the purchase of kitchen knifes?

Or does it only become a problem when the numbers are high enough?

300,000 gun deaths in 10 years sounds high enough to me and certainly something I would focus on ahead on the 71 killed by terrorists.

The thing about roads is, the US has roads as well, they just also have loads of mass shootings.

beanum - Member

"Americans own over eight million AR-15s and buy hundreds of thousands of new ones every year."

It's not too surprising tbh, they're kind of the hardtail of rifles- if you want to make a lot of noise in a range or back lot or desert then you can get a cheap, solid AR that'll do the job for a few hundred dollars.You get a lot of, er, bangs for your buck and huge tinkering/hobbyist value too, because of the immense aftermarket and compatibility. There's people that own a bunch of guns and no live rounds because they just like the kit.

It's a long time since I've shot- like, 20 years I think- but I liked pretty much everything about it, it got me right in the hobbyist gland, just exactly the same as riding, cars etc got me. Interesting kit, absolutely lovely to work on- like metal duplo clockwork. And yeah, shooting stuff is fun. If I lived somewhere it was legal and commonplace, there's a pretty good chance I'd own one. A big gun for the weekend, a fat gun for local shooting, a fast lightweight gun that I never use but don't want to sell because I might get it out once a year, and I'd be on AR15trackworld buying upgrade bits for them... So I think I get it, I just don't think any of that's important because you're weighing up the "right" to own a nice gun and have fun with it, vs the right to not get murdered, or killed in a totally forseeable "accident"

It's not all about paranoia, or asserting your rights, or wanting to be a cowboy, or thinking you're going to shoot down a baddy. Jim Jeffries is spot on, the biggest reason is "I like guns".

forzafkawi - Member

Privately they might, publicly they will usually just trott out the usual “the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun” like they’re living in some kind of western movie.

Yeah, how come nobody in the crowd returned fire?

Apologies to anyone who failed to recognise the irony in my post.

Sickening events that raise so many questions, again. I generally avoid reading about these events as they make me so angry.

How long before someone asks himself "58, eh? I could do better than that..."

Judging by the comments I've seen on a US friend's Facebook post I'd say that there were a few American Citizens analysing where the shooter made mistakes seconds after the news hit. Talk of which gun would be best, analysing different types of ammo to increase the ricochet effect and sweep techniques to catch more people as they run for cover were all there 😯

He's deleted the post now purely due to the comments, he was actually calling for calm and asking his US friends to think about what guns they have at home but the viciousness of the comments that drew meant he had to delete it to save his sanity. He has no guns for the record.

Some people do more than prep veg with it and use it to kill someone. Should we control the purchase of kitchen knifes?

I realise it varies by State but it's like the UK saying yes it's fine for you to carry a knife as long as you passed a basic background check (and not even that in many cases), whether you're mentally ill or not isn't a factor either. Oh and just because you might want to you're allowed swords and machetes as well in some counties as they're all just types of knives, it doesn't matter you'd have no reasonable justification for carrying such a weapon in a public place.

mrblobby - Member
A crazy as many an American's attitude to gun control sound to us, this did make me wonder about our own acceptance of fatalities for certain rights or conveniences.

We had 5 dead and 66 seriously injured every day on UK roads in 2016. I guess most people would shrug their shoulders and say those numbers were pretty low and likely a price worth paying for the convenience of having our cars. Despite the death toll, we're not having a national debate about road safety, restrictions on car licences, background checks, harsher penalties, etc. Rarely a mention of it in the media over here (oh other than the 1 fatality where a bike collides with and kills a pedestrian.)

[img] [/img]

Road saftey has been a constant issue in the uk and it has been getting constantly dealt with, still a long away to go with it mind, but particularly on a cycling forum I doubt you get many disagreements with the need for better road safety.

That graph is damning reading for this tory gov and the previous tory/lib dem coalition actually.

I reckon the cars analogy is actually better than you lot seem to think. Because he wasn't talking about whether deaths were falling or we were putting measures in place to try and make the roads safer, but the attitudes of people. There is clearly a parallel to be drawn between the way people think they have a right to do something which is ingrained in society. Sure lots is done to make the roads safer, but it's all somewhat limited by fundamental attitudes - and you do get people making arguments which aren't so dissimilar to those of the gun lobby.

It is all a distraction though, because the fundamental benefits are so different. Clearly if you wanted you could just ban guns in the US tomorrow and society would keep on working.

A crazy as many an American's attitude to gun control sound to us, this did make me wonder about our own acceptance of fatalities for certain rights or conveniences.

That's my take.

There's a price and a benefit to free availability of Guns. In the US they've decided the benifit is worth the price. It seems mental to us, just as a society that didn't value cars would think we were mental to have cars because, in their view, it's not worth the human cost. It's the same decision just different variables.

Having said that, if they banned them, I think people in the US might find they don't get as much benefit from assault rifles as they think they get.

To see how much of an outlier the USA really is check out this [url= https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/14/upshot/compare-these-gun-death-rates-the-us-is-in-a-different-world.html ]NY Times link[/url] and note the graph about a third of the way down the page.