I am hearing he had bump stocks. If thats true, and if they were never legal, perhaps a few more people would be alive. Is that worth giving up the freedom to own them? A lot of people say no. I am inclined to say yes, but the constitutional issue is troubling.

You are correct, no law would have prevented it. But possibly reduced the carnage...
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Don't know and good question.

One of the problems with gun control laws is that when some are made the anti-gun folks make a law, they try to expand its reach.

A lot of people that would support increased licensing / testing / mental stability screening don't because we know that politicians and bureaucrats will abuse that.

Constitution is fine.

And the people who fear that there will be over-reach, are justified in feeling that way.

It all leads to gridlock. The right doesn't want to budge on guns. The left doesn't want to budge on things like committing the mentally ill, or curbing violence in the entertainment industry, or in curbing the notion that all weird human impulses are a cause for celebration., or letting up on mocking people like those who live in the Dakotas (where everyone has guns, and there is almost no gun crime...but they are "bitter clingers", not people to respect and emulate??)

I'd like to see some common sense gun laws, if they could pass the constitutionality test. I'd also like to see our moral compass get a tune up. Don't ask me how to do it.

name one....or two...

I'm thinking in the house and senate there's a deal making process that goes like this- We will give up the fight to protect the right to seek abortions if you give up the right to own assault rifles and high capacity mags.. and vice versa.
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Come on, you think there's no such thing as a common sense gun law?

I would start with the tools that make mass shootings a realistic possibility for a "typical" homicidal maniac, if there is such a thing.

Things like high capacity magazines, bump stocks...maybe make it legal to go to a very expensive gun club that the individual pays to join, where you can go in a room all by yourself, and shoot it, if that's how you get your jollies. Don't let people take them home. That's military functionality, there's no earthly reason to have it in your home.

When the technology is available (is it yet?), maybe require that all future guns have fingerprint id, so that no one else can shoot them. If that adds to the cost of owning a gun, so be it.

There's always a trade off between liberty and security. If Sandy Hook doesn't cause you to re-think where that line is drawn, at least a little bit, I'd say you are a pretty callous person.

Scott, if you had 50 caliber machine guns in your house, I'd probably still feel safe letting you babysit my kids. 95% of us are no threat. But the fact is, there are some kooks out there, and unfortunately, they don't walk around wearing signs that say "I am a homicidal maniac". They are out there, and we can't identify them. So we can make it harder for them to kill our kids (we can never make it impossible), or we can choose not to make it harder.

would any of what you listed have stopped the shooting in Vegas?

"I'd also like to see our moral compass get a tune up." Man have you got that right.

Look I get that one nut job is to blame, the guns he used aren't responsible, but because he's up there with those types of weapons and not a couple rifles intended to deer hunt; is why 58 people and over 500 were injured. You want to use the "don't blame the tool" argument, then let's talk cell phones and the highway deaths attributed to them. Again the phone wasn't to blame, but as a trend grows and more deaths result, law changes are required to prevent more deaths. I have no problem with a new law and tougher penalties for either idiots on the highway texting while driving, or much more involved vetting to purchase firearms or limiting what can be purchased to avoid the magnitude of these mass shootings. I have no doubt as many have stated, most are responsible gun owners, but a troubled teen stealing their parents 16ga or pistol isn't near as bad as running into the school with their AR and a dozen clips.

how do you tune up the moral compass of a homicidal maniac?

And the pro- gun crowd doesn't do the same?

Did anything happened in Feb. of this year w/background checks?

Is allowing silencers a common sense gun law?

Edit - think how many more deaths there may have been if people didn't know as soon where the gunman was.

C&P

If only Stephen Paddock had been a Muslim … If only he had shouted “Allahu akbar” before he opened fire on all those concertgoers in Las Vegas … If only he were a member of ISIS … If only we had a picture of him posing with a Quran in one hand and his semiautomatic rifle in another …

If all of that had happened, no one would be telling us not to dishonor the victims and “politicize” Paddock’s mass murder by talking about preventive remedies.

No, no, no. Then we know what we’d be doing. We’d be scheduling immediate hearings in Congress about the worst domestic terrorism event since 9/11. Then Donald Trump would be tweeting every hour “I told you so,” as he does minutes after every terror attack in Europe, precisely to immediately politicize them. Then there would be immediate calls for a commission of inquiry to see what new laws we need to put in place to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Then we’d be “weighing all options” against the country of origin.

Nothing would have stopped it. But if was operating in semi mode (I am assuming it was more like full auto), there likely would be fewer dead/injured, no?

Just because we can't prevent them outright, why does that mean we do nothing? Zero dead would be great. But short of that, isn't fewer dead, better than more dead?

I would be more concerned with why he did it, and not how he did it. If it wasn't guns, it could easily have been explosives or a car /truck, anything to achieve the destruction and mayhem he wanted.

What were his motives? Was he mentally unstable? Was it the result of his losing at the casino? Did his "girlfriend" take all his cash when she went to Japan?

Too many unanswered questions that don't have to focus on the guns (yet).

His brother was saying that he was a "millionaire" and loved gambling and real estate....both which could drain your bank account quickly when you really take risks.

What they should do is allow his estate to be confiscated and used to pay for the survivors recovery and final disposition for those killed.

You can't. An improved moral compass likely won't effect a true sociopath.

But an improved collective moral compass, is exactly what the doctor ordered, to target "garden variety" street crime, like what we see in Chicago.

I blame the right for availability of weapons that I'd personally be happy to see disappear. I blame the left for the decay of the moral compass.

That's also true, if he were a Muslim, the right would have no trouble politicizing this to promote their agenda. 100% true.

No, I don't think that legalizing silencers is common sense, I think it's insane. Are people advocating for that?

I don't know what C&P means but I think we should wait to see what the experts find out about his motive before speculating and blaming GUN as usual. That is IF they let us know when they learn the real truth if they don't already know. Just because something is possible, is no reason to go ahead and do it just to prove that point. Evil is everywhere. If George Soros gets his way and we have globalization, you can forget about freedoms and liberties because then they will be in control and they WILL control us all.
People need to go to church or something.

Jim, you have laws about automatic fire already, criminals don't follow the law. If they find someone or learn how to, they will convert a semi auto themselves if they want to bad enough. Same with the tough gun laws in Chicago, criminals go out of state and bring them illegally.
Society is breaking down for some reason, and some people can't handle the technology advances.

:btu:

I believe that was going to be introduced this week (and remove a $200 tranfer tax on slencer) - also loosen regs on armour piercing bullets, allow gun owners to transport registered firearms across state lines, carry guns in national parks.

C&P = cut and paste. I stole that from an editorial.

You said

"what bothers me is the never ending pigpile on within minutes of a gun related shooting where the left can't help using a tragedy for political purposes instead of coming up with actual solutions for stopping these madmen in their tracks or preventing mass casualties of large crowds of people."

and I was just pointing out that the right would also use that no differently for political purposes.

Slipknot, your arguments make a superb case as to why the things I posted, can never eliminate gun crime entirely. Never. But you cannot tell me that they won't help reduce it a bit. Maybe it' snot worth the liberty we'd have to give up, that might be a valid point. But many argue on the right that there is zero benefit to any gun laws, that we can't reduce crime by one zillionth of one percent. I don't buy that. Noting is that absolute.

The only way to shop a mass shooting is with another gun.
Everyone should be armed.
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That still wouldn't have stooped this one from happening. I doubt anybody with a handgun at the concert was going to hit this guy, who was 400 yards away, 32 stories up, in the dark, while people are bumping into you in a panic.

That's some Hollywood " Lethal Weapon" chit right there.
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How about the people staying on the same floor as him? House keeping ? Seconds matter when a cop is 30 minutes away.

I don't carry but I see the logic
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it still would bother me whether it's the left,right or Libertarians

They are already perfectly legal to own in 42 states. All that is required is a stamp from BATFE as they are on the NFA list. Send them $200 , get a stamp and get a SUPRESSOR. Thankfully the NFA also bans assault rifles.

Ok, but that is not what you said.

I don't argue the point, but making a bomb might require some online searches and research, which might have raised a red flag to law enforcement. I think everyone is more conscious of the dangers of truck attacks now and while I don't know if there were barriers set up to avoid it; again a truck isn't likely going to kill 58 and injure 500 more. I also don't think we would have seen the massive casualties we saw here, these pour victims were in a war zone and were sitting ducks.

People are going off the deep end more and more, or possibly we just are hearing it reported more, the media loves that payday. But it just seems there are more road rage incidents, domestic violence and it's sad that it seems to be every other week there is another mass murder but the flavor of the week nut job.