Guns kill people- echo from The Baltimore Sun

Stephen Paddock broke two windows in his Mandalay Bay hotel room on Sunday Oct 1st, and then opened fire on 22,000 attending a concert across the street. Fifty-nine people were killed and 527 injured

A bump stock- photo taken in Utah

This opinion published in The Baltimore Sun is more evidence for the fact that guns kill people- particularly assault weapons designed for the purpose of killing people.

Outlawing bump stocks isn't nearly enough; it's the weapons themselves that need to be banned

After Las Vegas, it's nice to see that some Republicans are willing to consider banning bump stocks, the devices Stephen Paddock apparently used to make a dozen semi-automatic assault weapons mimic the firing rate of a fully automatic machine gun. 

Several top Republican senators and House members, who (it goes without saying) are normally opposed to anything resembling gun control, have said they are open to the possibility. 

Even the NRA says it supports additional restrictions on the devices. But that's not nearly enough.

Bump stocks are modifications to guns like the AR-15 and AK-47-style weapons Paddock used that take advantage of a rifle’s recoil to allow a shooter to pull the trigger far faster than a human could ordinarily do. The shooter pushes forward with his non-trigger hand (usually on some kind of forward grip), and the bucking of the weapon against his shoulder causes his finger to depress the trigger multiple times per second. That’s why recordings of the gunfire at the Las Vegas massacre sound like machine gun fire, not someone pulling the trigger repeatedly. There is no practical civilian application for such a thing. It would be useless in hunting, self defense or target shooting because it makes the weapon hard to control and nearly impossible to aim. About the only thing it’s good for is firing indiscriminately into a crowd. We should absolutely ban them and similar devices, like trigger cranks, which achieve a similar effect.

But we would be kidding ourselves if we believed that would have prevented something like the Las Vegas killings. It is not just the modification to Paddock’s assault weapons that made them so deadly, but the nature of the guns themselves. Gun advocates like to claim that “assault weapon” is a made-up term, with no real meaning, and that weapons like those Paddock used are only cosmetically different from hunting rifles; and no more deadly than semi-automatic handguns. But this particular mass shooting demonstrates how false that is.

Handguns can fire a shot with each pull of the trigger, just like an assault rifle, but they typically only have an effective range of about 55 yards. Paddock fired from a perch about 320 feet above ground and about 400 yards away from the concert crowd. 

Only a rifle could have hit a target at that distance with any kind of accuracy. But, a hunting rifle typically requires the shooter to pull back a bolt to chamber a new round after each shot, which greatly limits the rate of fire.

Hunting rifles also don’t usually have detachable magazines, like assault weapons and semi-automatic handguns do. Paddock reportedly had large capacity magazines, meaning he would not even have to change those frequently. Rapid fire, even without a bump stock, can quickly cause a gun’s barrel to become so hot that it would burn the shooter’s hand. Assault weapons tend to have barrel shrouds or forward pistol grips to solve that problem. Rear pistol grips or thumb holes in the stock also help the shooter control the weapon during rapid firing.

We don’t yet know all the details of the arsenal Paddock had in his hotel room, but one other common feature of assault weapons would make an attack like the one he perpetrated more difficult to stop. Assault weapons often are designed to accept flash suppressors, which both help prevent the shooter from being blinded by muzzle flash during rapid firing and make it harder for others to detect his position. Police reportedly found Paddock not because they could see exactly where the shots were coming from but because the gun smoke in his room set off the fire alarm.

Finally, the death toll and the severity of injuries was so high not just because of the number of bullets Paddock was able to fire but because of their effects on victims’ bodies. Weapons like the AR-15 have a muzzle velocity about three times that of handguns, meaning the bullets strike with substantially more force. 

After the Pulse nightclub shooting, Wired magazine interviewed trauma surgeons about the difference between wounds caused by handguns and by assault rifles. The former typically cause relatively simple, knife-like wounds. The latter crush bones, pulverize organs and send ripples of trauma throughout the body.

By all means, yes, we should outlaw bump stocks. But this mass shooting is a textbook case for why we need to ban assault weapons, too.

MaineWriter- In other words, assault weapons kill people. Proof!

Las Vegas murderer was the extreme outier

Ruben Navarrette Jr.: Is it time to start profiling white males?

What did we learn about the horrific Las Vegas mass murder where one white man slaughtered 59 people, wounded more than 500 others and emotionally traumatized thousands people?  In my opinion, in spite of what the National Rifle Association (NRA) says about "guns don't kill, people kill", the fact is, the Las Vegas mass casualty proves, once and for all, that it is guns that kill.  There was no way to profile the Las Vegas murderer as fitting a particular deviant personality. Republicans always look for some other reason why mass murderers execute people. It's like the killer person is the deviant and the guns are normal. In the case of the Las Vegas murderer (Stephen Paddock) , the killer seemed normal enough to escape a profile analysis, but his obsession with guns was building over time.  In fact, he purchased 33 of the guns he owned in just the past year.  I can't find anything but guns that separated the killer from being any other person.  

Murderer Stephen Paddock was the ultimate "outlier"; In fact, he didn't fit any profile at all

Stephen Paddock got away with the purchase of massive amounts of weapons and ammunition because he was a white male who didn't fit any profile. In light of his assault of massive numbers of people attending an outdoor Las Vegas concert, he bought those guns for the purpose of killing people with the weapons.

Therefore, should all people - including (and especially?) Caucasians- be profiled when they are stockpiling guns?

Here's what Ruben Navarrette wrote:

SAN DIEGO — White men scare me. There, I said it.

Based on my conversations with Latino and African-American friends, I think many of them feel the same way. If they’re walking down a dark street at night and see three white men in their 20s walking toward them, they’re thinking hate crime.

After all, pick up a history book, and look at what white males did to black slaves, American Indians, Chinese immigrants and Mexicans in the occupied Southwest. They’re the original bad hombres.

And so, after the Las Vegas massacre — where a 64-year-old white man named Stephen Paddock carried 23 guns into a hotel suite on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino and opened fire on an outdoor concert crowd, killing at least 59 people and wounding more than 520 others — it’s fair to ask: “Is it time for authorities to start profiling white males who purchase unusually large amounts of high-powered weapons and ammunition?”

Yes, it is. And why not? There is plenty of evidence that law enforcement officers routinely profile African-Americans, Latinos and Muslim Americans. It’s become part of police work.

In 1999, the New Jersey State Police admitted to pulling over African-American motorists more often than white drivers. In 2010, Arizona lawmakers codified ethnic profiling by requiring local police to determine the legal status of those suspected of being in the country illegally (read: Latinos).

So how did white men get to be so special that — in an era when so many mass shootings are linked to gunmen who fit that profile — it is still considered outrageous to say that this demographic merits extra scrutiny? Talk about white male privilege.

Given the carnage in Las Vegas, a lot of folks — on both the right and the left — are instinctively talking about guns. That’s a circular, highly charged argument that goes nowhere.

What we should be talking about is race. Not the race of the victims, but the race of the shooter.

Authorities insist that Paddock — who was reportedly wealthy, liked to gamble and had no known political or religious affiliations — fits none of the established profiles.

But actually, Paddock does fit one. He’s a white male, and most serial killers and mass murderers are white males.

For the sake of public relations, and because — in the era of “If you see something, say something” — law enforcement doesn’t want the public discounting anyone who might look suspicious just because of skin color, the FBI claims that it’s a myth to suggest that “serial killers are all white males.” The agency insists that serial killers span all racial groups.

Sure. But note that I said “most,” not “all.” The majority of mass murderers are white men. The fact that we might be able to find the occasional serial killer who is a woman of color does not significantly change the pie chart.

Besides, the FBI would be more convincing if it practiced what it preached.

In 2002, federal agents were frantically searching for the so-called Beltway Sniper, who killed 10 people and wounded three more in the Washington metropolitan area. Authorities got off to a slow start because, according to the profile, serial killers are usually white men. 

Retired FBI profilers went on broadcast media and said — as one put it at the time — “this is something white males do.”

The shooters — John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo — were African-American.

Like many Latinos, when I hear about a tragedy like the one in Las Vegas, I hold my breath and hope the culprit wasn’t one of ours. 

My African-American and Muslim American friends do the same. I’ve even heard a religious conservative call into a radio show and say he does it, too. It’s human nature.

Still, I have to wonder if white men go through that exercise. I don’t think so. That must be yet another ancillary benefit to being a white male.

Well, the free pass has expired. It’s time for law enforcement authorities to keep track of white men who stockpile guns.

To the profiled, I say: “Put up with it. After all, President Trump called my Mexican immigrant grandfather — who came to the United States legally a hundred years ago — a criminal and a rapist, and I survived. I can help get you through this. We shall overcome.”

And to those who think this whole concept is loony, and that — when it comes to who commits crimes — we can’t make sweeping generalizations about whole groups of people based on prejudice, I say: “Exactly. Now you’re getting the idea.”

Ruben Navarrette’s email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com