Las Vegas Mass Shooting - Oct. 1, 2017

This might be very callous of me but events like this barely get a response from me anymore.

I’ve resigned to the fact that America has collectively signed up for these type of events as being part of the new normal.

You know honestly… States Rights is kind of the only solution, and it’s a bullshit solution, but whatever, go to war with the army you have yada yada. Practically speaking were just never going to get conservatives to accept any significant changes. Liberal states should just push for decentralization and let conservatives have their guns and pollution and anti-abortion screeds and prayers in schools, and go their own way, because fundamentally we’re just never going to get conservatives to change on a nationwide basis.

But this means we’re going to need state entry/exit points between states to check for contraband.

Even if they did, what would they target?
Large magazines? - Several states already do that.
Fully automatic weapons? - Efforts to renew a ban repeatedly fail. And with a Republican executive and congress, it won’t happen on this watch.

You’ll never get rid of rifles/shotguns due to hunting within our country. And in the case of this crime, a handgun would have been pretty ineffective from that high up/far away, so some sort of legislation against that would be futile.

I agree with your assessment, despite it being very tough to think about after events like this.

Anyone here go to gun ranges as a hobby? I ask because I’ve now seen two comments on some of the news articles that refer to something somewhat interesting… here I’ll paraphrase:

I’m a veteran; I go to a gun range for something to do; I have a few guns. The last few years I’ve started seeing new people showing up to my range, with really big arsenals. I know I have a semi-auto rifle, but it’s just odd to me, to see people show up with six of them, plus a bag full of handguns. They bring cases of ammo too. Shoot all day. Don’t get me wrong, they seem like ok people, they mind their own business. My club guy says he doesn’t mind either, it’s just paranoid customers to him. They often aren’t long-term members of the club though, they leave after a few months.

Is there anything new to the gun club culture these days, or are things somewhat normal?

Automatic weapons being used for something like this is insanely rare. They’re really, really, really hard to get a permit for and are stupid expensive because no new weapons ever get added.

A lot of states ban them or otherwise severely restrict them. Of course Nevada isn’t one of those states, if anything they have quite a tourist trade in people going there to shoot the things. I wouldn’t be surprised if Per capita they had the most machine guns.

Fully automatic weapons are already illegal. The assault weapons ban isn’t what made them illegal.

If I had to guess, I’d say this guy probably got an automatic receiver for an AR15, and illegally modified it to fire in that mode.

Depends. Some people bring a bunch to sight them all in on one trip. Or they went to the gun show and picked up a few. I always remember my dad and uncle going out we typically had about 5-8 but it was also usually 3-4 people. One dude hauling 6 would be kind of strange, but it sounds like they’re mostly people trying to dodge club dues or something.

There are bump stocks you can mod your AR with to fire virtually as an automatic. Just look up Youtube for bump stock, there are a million videos. And somehow these get around the restrictions and are legal mods for sale.

I do and I’ve seen this. But one of the reasons I DO SEE THAT, is because they expanded areas around Charlotte that don’t allow shooting. So that leaves more people going to ranges more often, and when they do they make it an event. It’s also expensive, so going there and wasting time plinking off 50 rounds is too spendy for what you’re doing. When you go, you might end up sighting a rifle, getting some practice time on 2 handguns or so, perhaps testing a used sale gun, etc.

There are lunatic folks too, and I’ve seen them, but I don’t know if I would call them common. Perhaps in other states, but not where I shoot.

I imagine if you set up a low cost range you would see a lot more of this. It’s like going to Walmart and seeing the crazy, people go where they can afford things.

Post 1986 guns you mean?

Look at this, Timex.

I’ve seen some speculation that this was a bump stock or a crank trigger. We’ll see. It won’t make much of a difference either way.

I don’t see how that can possibly get around the law. I suspect the angle they go with is that the stock is making you “pull” the trigger, so it’s not a single pull and technically not automatic. In any normal world that would have made it as far as a prototype and then been banned. It’s basically taking the gas/recoil action from the chamber and moving it to the stock and body weight and then claiming it’s totally not the same thing. It was never the mechanism that the laws were targeting, it was just a great and well-defined legal definition. Until now I guess.

Once one gets used in a crime expect them to meet a fate similar to Hellfire.

t-minus 30 minutes to 2 hours until the NRA puts out its first statement, which will be: “Now is not the time to politicize this horrible tragedy. We condemn anyone trying to use this barbaric act by a lone gunman to further their political agenda.”

“This is a great moment. I mean, it’s a terrible moment, but here were are together, this is great.”

I mean, did he mean to say deepest condolences and mistyped or miscorrected? Or is he just retarded? Why, ever, would a condolence be warm?

He didn’t talk about the election or how there are fine people on both sides so his approval rating will jump about 25 points.

The exclamation point also bugs me, but its not like I need anything new to dislike Trump.

The key point there is that you need to get a special stamp in order to lawfully own automatic firearms.
If I recall, getting and transferring such a stamp is by no means guaranteed.

He has no empathy, so obviously he doesn’t know what adjectives should go with condolences. cf his comments while distributing Harvey relief.