Celebratory night turns into horrid hell for thousands gathered on Strip for country music festival.
Anybody who has ever been to Las Vegas knows that it is a fun place. Gambling, shows, drinks, and larger-than-life hotels are part of this desert playground. It’s been that way for decades, dating back to historic places like the Sands, Caesar’s Palace, Tropicana, and Riviera.
It turned into hell, though, on Sunday night.
People from all over the United States were gathered there for the Route 91 Harvest Festival, featuring country music superstar Jason Aldean.
Then, the unthinkable happened.
Stephen Paddock, 64, opened fire on a trapped crowd below from his two-bedroom suite on the 32nd floor at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino right on the famed Las Vegas Strip. His heinous, calculated act left at least 59 people dead and more than 527 injured, according to a late Monday afternoon press conference from the Las Vegas Police Department. Those numbers will go up in the wake of this latest massacre, which now becomes the largest mass shooting in United States history.
No motive has been uncovered behind the shooting. Officials were searching Paddock’s home on Monday for more information. SWAT team members barged into Paddock’s room and he, reportedly, fired back at them before taking his own life.
Las Vegas now joins the horrid list of other national and international locations touched by shooting massacres: Sandy Hook, Orlando, Sacramento, Virginia Tech, Paris, Tucson, Aurora, and Charleston, among others.
President Donald Trump, in a somber address from The White House on Monday, called it “an act of pure evil.” He is planning to visit Las Vegas on Wednesday, and Trump said the FBI and Department of Homeland Security was working alongside local authorities in the ongoing investigation. Also Monday, Trump ordered all US flags to be lowered at half-mast.
Authorities reportedly found a massive amount of weaponry in Packard’s suite, including 20 rifles, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and a hammer he used to smash out his windows.
Stocks responded on Monday with gun stocks rising and companies who own Las Vegas hotels seeing their stocks fall.
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Will something change in the gun control debate after this massacre? Views from both sides of the political spectrum are being offered.
Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was gravely wounded when a gunman opened fire in 2011 at a political event in Tucson, said in a tweet, “In just a matter of minutes, one man killed at least 50 people. Another 200 were injured. This is a grave tragedy for our
nation.”
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy called for Congress to “get off its ass and do something.” Others, like former Vice President Joe Biden and former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, expressed similar frustrations.
Kentucky Republican Gov. Matt Bevin went public and slammed “political opportunists.” In a tweet, Bevin said, “To all those political opportunists who are seizing on the tragedy to call for more gun regs…You can’t regulate evil…”
No official word was released on Monday from the National Rifle Association, a solid supporter of gun owners’ rights and the Second Amendment.
As much as I’d like to believe something will change after this massacre, I don’t have much hope.
Beat your chests and flail your arms like crazy in the air. Go ahead, call your political leaders and encourage them to have yet another conversation on gun control.
I doubt it will change absolutely nothing. Yes, there is legislation in Congress right now
which would loosen regulations around gun checks.
One side will call for more stringent gun checks; another side will scream “Second Amendment” until they’re red in the face. Politicians rightfully offered their condolences to the families and friends who lost their loved ones in this callous act.
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If you have listened to any of the videos or sound carried by websites and media outlets from Sunday night, then hearing the volume of gunfire is unfathomable. It sounds like being caught in the middle of a war zone.
This is not the first mass shooting and it will not be the last one. Yes, I know you will read this and say that I am wrong. That would be really nice to believe, yet what history has shown over the past couple of decades – heck, go even further back when Charles Whitman found his way to the top of the tower over the University of Texas campus in Austin, Texas and started firing his rifle left and right – is that nothing changes.
I don’t have an answer to this ongoing matter. There are responsible gun owners who have everything from AK-47s to hunting rifles. Then, there are those who want absolutely nothing to do with guns at all. So, here we all sit, facing yet the same old questions and debates which have occurred for a long, long time.
What can change after Las Vegas?
What will change after this latest “largest massacre in United State history?”
Only time will tell.
Meanwhile, the loved ones of those who were killed and injured in Las Vegas are left to grieve. Just like in all of the other cities affected by mass shootings.
Photo Credit: Getty Images