Agreed…like you said, 10? I can see 2 or 3…
Yeah, no way of knowing yet. ISTM that LEOs + the media tend to seek the most dramatic explanation possible. Could be that he was into reloading and had some primers, or a can of smokeless powder, and they’re calling that “explosives”, but I suppose it’s also possible that he was building propane / pipe bombs or something like that.
Tannerite = “ammonium nitrate”
The maximum effective range for a military M4 is 500 meters for point targets, 600 meters for area targets and a maximum range is 3600 meters. At 500 meters a man sized target is very small and not easy to hit on a one way range using a steady platform. On a two way range it’s not a shot I would count on. It looks to me that most shots would have to be from at least the 300-500 meter mark. Add to that the fact that no one trains shooting 32 stories up. That’s certainly going to affect your aim point. Not insurmountable problems unless you care about hitting innocent people.
Slide Fire semi-confirmed.
This AP story says:
It’s still possible that some of his other weapons were either legally-owned machine guns (unlikely, imho) or had illegal internal modifications made to convert them to full-auto.
Possibly. Ammonium Nitrate is an oxidizer not an explosive. It’s a component of ANFO and other types of homemade explosives as well as commercial explosives. It’s also one of the main components of Tannerite. Tannerite is a patented binary formula. ANFO has a RE factor of around .8 and Tannerite is around .4. TNT is 1.0. In other words ANFO is almost as powerful as TNT per pound and tannerite is about half that. So it comes down to how much and what he had. Was he making ANFO? He may have been planning something even worse. Did he have a little tannerite? Maybe he liked shooting targets that go bang in the desert.
Hey thanks! Are you a veteran of such situations, or are you merely being critical of the dead people that got caught in a crowd of people panicking?
I was having this discussion with a Marine friend of mine. This is the simplified version but the worst thing you can do when caught in an ambush is stop. I’ve seen this over and over in the plethora of combat footage from the Middle East. Poorly trained fighters freeze in the kill zone and get picked off one by one. Of course civilians aren’t going to use fire and maneuver but they should have run. Those yelling at them to get down did them a great disservice without knowing.
Er… bags, boxes, luggage… I don’t know where you got this notion that he’d be carrying bare guns anywhere in public.
Because guns jam, stuff breaks, and if you have 10 loaded rifles ready to go you just drop and empty and pick up a full, you don’t need to reload for awhile.
Well a CNN reporter said that country music fans are mostly Trump supporters. Didn’t support that conclusion with any evidence or why he thought it even relevant. Some folks brains seem to fall out when things like this happen.
Yeah, 10 rifles, will probably fit in an oversized suitcase. Even if they don’t, they certainly will in something like a hard sided carrying case for golf clubs.
Not trying to criticize them at all. Trying to offer people here a small bit of advice that could save their life one day if they’re ever so unlucky to be caught in a situation like that. They did the best they could, even the ones yelling “Get down!”
Agreed. I feel like you’re giving much more thorough explanations of all the things I’m posting. Perhaps I should sit back and let you handle it.
I’m a veteran of some bad situations and he’s right. One way to protect yourself is to plan what you are going to do in various situations. This exact situation was unthinkable but it was not unthinkable to be in a shooting or at the scene of some sort of violence. If someone hasn’t thought about it maybe they should. It was pounded into me in the Army to not stop when ambushed but fight through it.
Right, and I’m not contending that running and keep running isn’t an effective strategy. Except for the people that get trampled. This was a no win for the people, regardless of training.
No, no winning here. Only the possibility to increase your odds. But that’s no guarantee of safety if you’re in the wrong place.
Is the 500/600m still applicable to the M4? I know it was the case with the M16A2, but I assume the M4 has a shorter barrel so it’s effective range should be shorter.
Not nitpicking, genuinely curious.
I just got back from some errands. I noticed that the window on the face of the building that was used by Paddock (not the one on the end of the building fin) is clearly visible from Sunset & Eastern, which is clear on the other side of the airport from the Strip.
We are justifiably proud of our first responders and even more proud of all the people who simply helped out. Las Vegas totally fucking rocks!
500/600 is for the M4. The M16 is 550 for point and 800 for area due to the longer barrel. That’s for aiming on a flat trajectory. I’m not sure how much 32 floors of elevation would effect that.
Of course for a police officer shooting back only the point target number is relevant.
Regarding the guns, in one video you can clearly hear the rate of fire speeding up and slowing down. This video is not graphic, just gunfire sounds filmed from the base of the hotel, but spoilered in case it upsets anybody.
Word on the Internet is that this means he was probably using a device called a “GAT Crank” that pulls the trigger repeatedly as you turn a small hand crank. Apparently it’s legal in most states, not considered a machine gun.
Gatcrank demos:
