# Gun control wouldn't have stopped what happened in Vegas...should we do it anyway? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 3, 2017, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-wouldnt-have-stopped-what-happened-in-vegas-should-we-do-it-anyway/797873 "2017-10-03T15:32:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2017, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-wouldnt-have-stopped-what-happened-in-vegas-should-we-do-it-anyway/797873/261 "2017-10-05T01:38:59Z")
> [@DragonAsh](#): > > Apparently you either have the intelligence or the intellectual integrity of a three-year old. As I clearly noted, and I’ll quote myself: :…practically that means the CDC has extremely limited funding to do any proper research into gun violence". > > This isn’t the Pit, so I’ll keep my response civil. No, you sweet little snowflake, to defeat this claim you would need to show evidence that the government is free to give funding to the CDC for the research of gun violence without it being political suicide due to the NRA. You need to show evidence that the CDC is free to fund studies on gun violence to the extent that it feels appropriate. > > Is it possible for the CDC to do research? Theoretically / technically sure. But where’s the money supposed to come from? A tip jar sitting at the CDC reception counter? Can and do they issue grants on its own? Sure - they can do that. The CDC itself isn’t subject to \*direct \*harassment from the NRA. But again - where is the CDC supposed to get the funds for these studies? > > Courtney Lenard of the CDC: > So - to recap. You’re not only wrong, you’re either wrong and too stupid to realize it, or you’re wrong and you know you’re wrong but your too intellectually dishonest or morally corrupt to admit it. > > FFS, the AUTHOR OF THE AMENDMENT [regrets](http://www.npr.org/2015/10/09/447098666/ex-rep-dickey-regrets-restrictive-law-on-gun-violence-research)it. They have all the funds they want as long as they dont \*advocate or promote gun control. \*They can just state the facts and make real scientific studies. "None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2017, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-wouldnt-have-stopped-what-happened-in-vegas-should-we-do-it-anyway/797873/262 "2017-10-05T01:39:39Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I served in the military and qualified on full auto guns (as I said before, which you apparently ignored). I know how guns work. There’s something quite obvious that I’m baffled that you’re missing – _full auto guns exist for a reason_. You act like full auto has no purpose. Fully automatic fire changed warfare. Full auto guns can be incredibly deadly in certain circumstances, and a large crowd is one of those certain circumstances. > > Most of that crowd were running for cover within less than a minute. > > It’s just mind boggling that you think the most deadly single-shooter shooting in American history was _less deadly than it otherwise would have been_ had he used guns with _lower rates of fire_. Do you really think that rate of fire is meaningless if firing into a crowd? > > Let’s take this to ridiculous extremes. Let’s say he had modified his weapon to spew out 100,000 bullets in 10 seconds. Is it possible he would have killed more people, or would all of those bullets have missed? Let’s go to the other ridiculous extreme – let’s say it’s an old fashioned muzzle-loaded rifled musket. He can fire twice a minute. Would he have killed more people, or fewer? > > More rate of fire really might lead to more deaths, especially if the target is a tightly packed crowd. And especially if he had practiced with the bump-stock. > > It’s mind boggling that you think that rate of fire had nothing to do with how deadly it was. If true then you should know this, so I’m equally baffled and questioning your narrative. We are talking about a shooter firing from over 200 yards. In your experience in the military, did you EVER see anyone fire on full auto (that wasn’t firing to suppress…which is the answer to your question about why they have full auto) but actually trying to hit anything? Also, in your military experience, did you ever fire or see someone fire a semi-automatic? What rate of fire could they maintain? Rate of fire is all well and good if you hit what you are shooting at. A high rate of fire with something like I saw in that video or a full automatic weapon is going to miss at anything more than CQC ranges and is good for nothing more than suppressive fire. To hit targets you need aimed fire. And a semi-automatic could perform as well or better to what this guy did in Vegas, while being completely and unequivocally legal to any regulations that could or would be passed in the US. Which is my point. Again, look at the numbers. If you REALLY are ex-military (and weren’t a file clerk or in some other REMF role), tell me…could someone with a semi-automatic weapon firing into a crowd of 22,000 not hit 500 people in 9 minutes? Are you REALLY saying that as an ex-military person?? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2017, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-wouldnt-have-stopped-what-happened-in-vegas-should-we-do-it-anyway/797873/263 "2017-10-05T01:47:16Z")
> [@XT](#): > > If true then you should know this, so I’m equally baffled and questioning your narrative. We are talking about a shooter firing from over 200 yards. In your experience in the military, did you EVER see anyone fire on full auto (that wasn’t firing to suppress…which is the answer to your question about why they have full auto) but actually trying to hit anything? Also, in your military experience, did you ever fire or see someone fire a semi-automatic? What rate of fire could they maintain? > > Rate of fire is all well and good if you hit what you are shooting at. A high rate of fire with something like I saw in that video or a full automatic weapon is going to miss at anything more than CQC ranges and is good for nothing more than suppressive fire. To hit targets you need aimed fire. And a semi-automatic could perform as well or better to what this guy did in Vegas, while being completely and unequivocally legal to any regulations that could or would be passed in the US. Which is my point. > > Again, look at the numbers. If you REALLY are ex-military (and weren’t a file clerk or in some other REMF role), tell me…could someone with a semi-automatic weapon firing into a crowd of 22,000 not hit 500 people in 9 minutes? Are you REALLY saying that as an ex-military person?? :dubious: When the crowd is running for cover after a handful of seconds? Absolutely. If my aim is to kill as many as possible, then full auto is superior, since in those first few seconds before everyone realizes they’re under fire, I could send far more bullets into the crowd. The crowd was only a stationary target for a matter of seconds. After that it was chaos, and aimed shots are very difficult in chaos, even for trained marksmen. It was those first seconds that were most deadly, and that’s when full auto would have been so effective. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2017, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-wouldnt-have-stopped-what-happened-in-vegas-should-we-do-it-anyway/797873/264 "2017-10-05T01:48:23Z")
> [@Thing\_Fish](#): > > I don’t know if DragonAsh is an expert on suicide, but she does know what the science on the subject says. > > 70% of people who survive a suicide attempt never make another one. > [Cite](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/survival/#Owens) > > Levels of gun ownership in a given region are correlated with higher suicide rates, although gun owners are no more likely to have suicidal thoughts or be mentally ill. The relationship holds after adjusting for poverty, unemployment and urbanization. > > There is no relationship between gun ownership and non-gun suicide; in states with lower gun ownership, the overall suicide rate is lower. It is not the case, as is often asserted, that suicidal people would simply kill themselves by other means if guns were not available; rather, for the most part, they would simply not kill themselves. This is likely because the “success” rate for gun suicide attempts is over 90%, while the rate for the next two most popular methods (poisoning and cutting) are both under 5%. > > [Cite for the above two paragraphs.](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-ownership-and-use/) > It is an established fact that more guns = more suicide. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we should or could get rid of all guns, but we don’t need to lie to ourselves about the correlation. However, suicide is a basic human right, IMHO, not a crime. While tragic, it’s better than drinking yourself to death or driving into oncoming traffic or any of a number of the self destructive things people do. All tragic, all legal and imho none should be further regulated just because people are sometimes self destructive. Because- it is **SELF** destructive. More drug= more suicide. More bridges= more suicide. More trains= more suicide. And how about smoking? “Cigarette smoking kills more than 480,000 Americans each year, with more than 41,000 of these deaths from exposure to secondhand smoke.” Almost 10 times are many Americans are murdered by Second hand smoke than handguns every year. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2017, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-wouldnt-have-stopped-what-happened-in-vegas-should-we-do-it-anyway/797873/265 "2017-10-05T01:52:30Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I’m seeing a consensus emerge on the right about the need to ban bump stocks. It seems to me a bump stock is something anyone could build themselves in their backyard if they had a saw, a piece of wood and a few springs. Is that correct. My understanding is that it just uses the recoil to push the rifle forward again into the shooter’s trigger finger. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2017, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-wouldnt-have-stopped-what-happened-in-vegas-should-we-do-it-anyway/797873/266 "2017-10-05T01:52:50Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Utter bullshit. The crowd was a stationary target for probably just a handful of seconds. After that, they were running for cover, and aimed shots would have been near impossible for any but the most highly skilled and experienced marksman. . I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The density of the crowd was likely high for a couple of minutes. It takes time to disperse a thick crowd like you had at the concert. I think a roughly aimed single shot still had a good chance of a hit. I think I am pretty average with a bolt action gun I could probably get off 50 very roughly aimed shots in a minute. With a semi-auto I could probably do 150 shots in that same minute. An automatic or a bump stock is going to fire between 400-800 rounds a minute. The aiming in this last case will not be as good. I have only fired an automatic once, so I can’t really tell you how effective I would be with it, but I would guess that with a well balanced gun, taking long sweeping burst through the target area I could get pretty close to getting the full usability out of that 400-800 rounds. If the gun was stabilized like with a bipod I would be pretty sure of it. These are some pretty broad assumptions but assuming he was able to get 60 people on full automatic and injure another 50, than we could assume that with a bolt action he would have gotten somewhere around 10 people and injured 100 with a bolt action. With a semi-automatic the number would have been more like 20 killed and 200 injured. I am ignoring the need to change magazines and I am taking some pretty big guesses at the drop down in accuracy that will occur as rate of fire increases. I am also ignoring the fact that at a very high rate of fire aiming is less important because a lot more bullets or going to find targets by random chance. In short, in this example I am being conservative in such a fashion that minimizes the advantages of a semi-auto or an auto. The advantage is likely much greater than I’ve described. A bump stock essentially turns a semi-auto into a full auto in terms of functionality. We can assume that a bump stock and a full auto are roughly equivalent. > [@](#): > > It was those first few moments that were most important – and all that matters is how many bullets he could pour into the crowd before they understood what was happening and started running for cover. It’s ridiculous to think that a higher rate of fire didn’t mean more people dead in those moments. I would say minutes not moments, but yes. > [@](#): > > If he hadn’t had those bump stocks, fewer people would have been killed. By my estimates 2/3 fewer killed and injured. At least. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2017, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-wouldnt-have-stopped-what-happened-in-vegas-should-we-do-it-anyway/797873/267 "2017-10-05T01:53:05Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Ok. Let’s talk about this. The shots came from 300 yards away. People thought they were firecrackers. If you listen on the video it’s not very loud. Part of this is because of distance. The other part was because from the perspective of the people being shot at the gun \*\*was already silenced[\b]. The gunman was firing from inside an enclosed area through a broken window. Most of the sound was deflected around inside the room. The part that was heading straight out the window was not muffled. This is exactly how a silencer or a muffler on a car works. > > You can duplicate this event exactly. Stand outside and have have a man fire down range where you are (obviously you are safely off to a side.) you will hear the full effect of the shot. Now have the persona go well inside a room and fire through a window. The effect is much lesser. For an assault type weapon that is really all that a suppressor can do (there are a couple of other methods that can quiet it way way down but they are only good for a few shots.) > > If somebody is shooting at you with a suppressed automatic weapon from a couple of hundred yards away it will sound like it does on the video. Firecrackers. So that’s a suppressordoes on such a weapon. It saves your hearing. It doesn’t interfere with the ability of anyone within distance of concern to hear and recognize gunfire. > > If there was somebody there who was armed, they did the right thing by not firing back. You think somebody should have shot back? At a glass fronted hotel full of people? From 300 yards? > > "As the Onion headline laid waste to America’s gun politics: > > I’ve been shot at 3 times, twice from a distance. I know exactly what it’s like. This “moment when it’s life and death” is bullshit. That moment didn’t happen? I’m talking about seconds ticking by with machine gun fire at a crowd of fellow humans. What on earth are you talking about? It can’t possibly be contentious that silencers are deadly. They add to the shooters advantage. You are being an abject apologist, minimizer, and factotum for the gun industry. So what? Life goes on. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2017, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-wouldnt-have-stopped-what-happened-in-vegas-should-we-do-it-anyway/797873/268 "2017-10-05T01:59:05Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > A bump stock essentially turns a semi-auto into a full auto in terms of functionality. We can assume that a bump stock and a full auto are roughly equivalent. I don’t think that’s right. A true full auto machine gun, something like an M-16, is generally less accurate than semi-auto. A Slide-Fire-equipped semi-auto is worse still though. See, the whole thing operates by leaving the gun loose to slide around, wobble back and forth, etc. It’s pretty much the exact opposite of what you want when you want to fire accurately. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2017, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-wouldnt-have-stopped-what-happened-in-vegas-should-we-do-it-anyway/797873/269 "2017-10-05T01:59:18Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > When the crowd is running for cover after a handful of seconds? Absolutely. If my aim is to kill as many as possible, then full auto is superior, since in those first few seconds before everyone realizes they’re under fire, I could send far more bullets into the crowd. > > The crowd was only a stationary target for a matter of seconds. After that it was chaos, and aimed shots are very difficult in chaos, even for trained marksmen. It was those first seconds that were most deadly, and that’s when full auto would have been so effective. At least you bothered with a thoughtful answer and walked me through what you are talking about. Thank you. I disagree with your assessment or conclusions…in a crowd of 22,000 people they simply aren’t going to be able to disperse quickly, and he would have plenty of targets for aimed fire. Full auto would have been spraying bullets literally all over the place, and probably mainly high at those sorts of ranges. I also doubt that in seconds the majority of the crowd could have been running in all directions. From what I’ve read many thought it was fireworks and many didn’t even know what was going on for quite a while. It, sadly, would have been a target rich environment for quite some time. Heck, even after the police got there the crowd was not fully dispersed. But, like I said, at least you gave me a thoughtful answer that actually makes some logical sense. I’ll just agree to disagree and hope that you will at least think about what I’m saying, instead of the strawman version. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2017, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-wouldnt-have-stopped-what-happened-in-vegas-should-we-do-it-anyway/797873/270 "2017-10-05T02:00:19Z")
> [@DragonAsh](#): > > By all means, please cite how many children die from unintentional use of ‘knives, matches and poisons’. . Anywhere from 2300 to 20000 children each year are killed by second hand smoke. > **[Secondhand Smoke - American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation | no-smoke.org](https://no-smoke.org/smokefree-threats/secondhand-smoke/)** > > Secondhand Smoke Kills > There is No Safe Level of Exposure > We have known for at least 30 years, since the 1993 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Risk Assessment, that secondhand smoke is a Group A Carcinogen, known to cause cancer in humans.... ---
**Author:** ![sinjin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2017, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-wouldnt-have-stopped-what-happened-in-vegas-should-we-do-it-anyway/797873/271 "2017-10-05T02:03:01Z")
Har, we are traveling thru New Mexico and went to a restaurant tonight. I ordered a gin and tonic and the owner came over to our table and said he couldn’t sell me gin because the permit cost $350k. But he could sell me a gun for $50 with no checks or anything. was he blowing smoke up my ass given this? > **[Gun laws in New Mexico](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_New_Mexico)** > > Gun laws in New Mexico regulate the sale, possession, and use of firearms and ammunition in the state of New Mexico in the United States. > New Mexico is among states with some of the least restrictive firearms laws in the country. Being part of the Intermountain West, New Mexico is home to a strong gun culture, which is reflected in New Mexico's constitution and gun laws. State laws governing the possession and use of firearms include those in New Mexico Statutes Chapter 30, Article 7, "Weapons... ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2017, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-wouldnt-have-stopped-what-happened-in-vegas-should-we-do-it-anyway/797873/272 "2017-10-05T02:03:25Z")
> [@DragonAsh](#): > > Ultimately irrelevant. It didn’t prohibit it, and the US Constitution states that the black man isn’t worth a white man: > That it took an amendment and a bloody war to do stop people doing something that morally reprehensible tells you how strongly some people can believe in something even though it’s inherently wrong. > You may want to think about that. Nope it says a \*slave \*is worth 3/5th of a _free_ man. Not all blacks were slaves, not all “non-free” were black. Indentured servants were commonly white. You statement there appears rather racist. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2017, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-wouldnt-have-stopped-what-happened-in-vegas-should-we-do-it-anyway/797873/273 "2017-10-05T02:05:58Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > By my estimates 2/3 fewer killed and injured. At least. What do you base this on? Walk me through your estimates and how you arrived at them. I’ve already given mine…a semi-automatic rifle can be fired by even a semi-competent person at 3-4 rounds per second, aimed. Even cutting that to a bit less than 2 rounds per second that’s over 1000 rounds in 9 minutes. The crowd was 22,000. It would have taken half an hour or more to fully disperse something that size. A hit at that angle is going to probably go through more than one person. This guy managed to hit 500 people in 9 minutes. What do you have? iiandyiiii, feel free to chime in…do you really think that someone couldn’t fire 1000+ rounds at 22,000 people in 9 minutes and hit 500? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2017, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-wouldnt-have-stopped-what-happened-in-vegas-should-we-do-it-anyway/797873/274 "2017-10-05T02:07:02Z")
> [@XT](#): > > At least you bothered with a thoughtful answer and walked me through what you are talking about. Thank you. I disagree with your assessment or conclusions…in a crowd of 22,000 people they simply aren’t going to be able to disperse quickly, and he would have plenty of targets for aimed fire. Full auto would have been spraying bullets literally all over the place, and probably mainly high at those sorts of ranges. I also doubt that in seconds the majority of the crowd could have been running in all directions. From what I’ve read many thought it was fireworks and many didn’t even know what was going on for quite a while. It, sadly, would have been a target rich environment for quite some time. Heck, even after the police got there the crowd was not fully dispersed. > > But, like I said, at least you gave me a thoughtful answer that actually makes some logical sense. I’ll just agree to disagree and hope that you will at least think about what I’m saying, instead of the strawman version. I don’t know if he’s had a telescoping sight (a scope) on the weapons he used. If he did: using a scope on a chaotic crowd would be nearly impossible. You are zoomed in, and every other moment someone would either be running in front of a selected target, or the target will have moved. And if he had no scope, then aiming would have been even more difficult at that distance. It’s just not realistic to me that any but the most highly skilled expert sniper could even hope to kill more people with semi auto fire than he did with the bump stock. He probably practiced enough with the bump stock to keep it as steady as possible, and that would have been enough to send the bullets into the packed crowd before it started to disperse. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2017, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-wouldnt-have-stopped-what-happened-in-vegas-should-we-do-it-anyway/797873/275 "2017-10-05T02:07:23Z")
> [@sinjin](#): > > Har, we are traveling thru New Mexico and went to a restaurant tonight. I ordered a gin and tonic and the owner came over to our table and said he couldn’t sell me gin because the permit cost $350k. But he could sell me a gun for $50 with no checks or anything. was he blowing smoke up my ass given this? > > [Gun laws in New Mexico - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_New_Mexico) If he is “in the business” of selling firearms and doesn’t have an FFL & perform background checks on his customers, he’s going to get a very unpleasant visit from the ATF one day. If you’re from out of state, he also can’t sell you a gun without transferring it to your home state through an FFL, which means a background check and paperwork. There is an edge case where a person who is NOT regularly engaged in the business of buying and selling firearms to earn a living could sell you one from his private collection in a face-to-face transaction, assuming you’re both residents of New Mexico. ETA: sinjin, read this: [https://www.atf.gov/questions-and-answers/qa/how-may-unlicensed-person-receive-firearm-his-or-her-state-he-or-she](https://www.atf.gov/questions-and-answers/qa/how-may-unlicensed-person-receive-firearm-his-or-her-state-he-or-she) ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2017, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-wouldnt-have-stopped-what-happened-in-vegas-should-we-do-it-anyway/797873/276 "2017-10-05T02:08:33Z")
> [@XT](#): > > What do you base this on? Walk me through your estimates and how you arrived at them. I’ve already given mine…a semi-automatic rifle can be fired by even a semi-competent person at 3-4 rounds per second, aimed. Even cutting that to a bit less than 2 rounds per second that’s over 1000 rounds in 9 minutes. The crowd was 22,000. It would have taken half an hour or more to fully disperse something that size. A hit at that angle is going to probably go through more than one person. This guy managed to hit 500 people in 9 minutes. What do you have? iiandyiiii, feel free to chime in…do you really think that someone couldn’t fire 1000+ rounds at 22,000 people in 9 minutes and hit 500? When most of the crowd is moving or under cover for most of that time, I don’t think any but the most highly skilled sniper could match that body count. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2017, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-wouldnt-have-stopped-what-happened-in-vegas-should-we-do-it-anyway/797873/277 "2017-10-05T02:09:32Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > That moment didn’t happen? I’m talking about seconds ticking by with machine gun fire at a crowd of fellow humans. What on earth are you talking about? I am talking about what happens when you unexpectedly find yourself being shot at. It’s happened to me on 3 separate occasions. What you describe is it not what it is like in my experience. > [@](#): > > It can’t possibly be contentious that silencers are deadly. They add to the shooters advantage. They save his hearing, and he has less of a need for hearing protection. How is that deadly? > [@](#): > > You are being an abject apologist, minimizer, and factotum for the gun industry. So what? Life goes on. I support a full and complete ban of all semi-automatic, and automatic rifles with no grandfathering. I support the idea of a gun ownership license, mandatory inspections, and mandatory liability insurance for all firearm owners and their weapons. I also support responsible gun ownership. I don’t think you are characterizing me accurately. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2017, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-wouldnt-have-stopped-what-happened-in-vegas-should-we-do-it-anyway/797873/278 "2017-10-05T02:11:52Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Guns have utility too. Mores so than say alcohol or cigarettes which I think kill more people than guns. “Cigarette smoking kills more than 480,000 Americans each year, with more than 41,000 of these deaths from exposure to secondhand smoke.” Vs 30,000 annual gun deaths , 8000 of which are homicides. More than ten times as many. ---
**Author:** ![sinjin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2017, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-wouldnt-have-stopped-what-happened-in-vegas-should-we-do-it-anyway/797873/279 "2017-10-05T02:13:33Z")
can you send me a link to that edge case regulation ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2017, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-wouldnt-have-stopped-what-happened-in-vegas-should-we-do-it-anyway/797873/280 "2017-10-05T02:14:56Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > When most of the crowd is moving or under cover for most of that time, I don’t think any but the most highly skilled sniper could match that body count. Also, it was at night. Much harder to aim at night. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-wouldnt-have-stopped-what-happened-in-vegas-should-we-do-it-anyway/797873.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gun-control-wouldnt-have-stopped-what-happened-in-vegas-should-we-do-it-anyway/797873.md?page=15)