I’ve seen crowd size estimates of 22,000. Initial estimates were 30,000. It’s not an enormous area; about the size of a football field in a stadium, minus the stadium, is where the crowd gathers. Google maps - hit the satellite view in the lower left to see what it really looks like (that photo is not from this festival, eh).
I’d be willing to bet that the majority of the injuries came from people running for their lives in a crowd.
Our local LA 5 has been on uninterrupted commercial free coverage. They did not do this for the election; for the hurricanes; the earthquake or anything else I can remember. I wonder if we fetishize violence as a society and unknowingly drive people to violent solutions. I understand the horror of this event and the pain we all are suffering. But this mass murderer is getting fame and attention he doesn’t deserve.
Have you seen the videos? The sounds of shots being fired were continuous.
I’m going to pretty much guarantee he was firing full auto. Whether it was a modified semi-auto or fully automatic remains to be seen. There are rumors of course. I even have cops telling me it had to be a M60 or 240b just by the sound. It sounded more like a SAW to me but I also know you can’t tell just by listening to audio from crappy cellphone mica.
Firing at night, from a distance, at elevation, trying to aim at a possible muzzle flash on a building with reflective windows and flashing lights… not a good idea for those staying in the hotel.
It was reported he was a country music fans. It likely is just a large number of people gathered that made it a target.
Very likely. Unlike small or regional departments, large urban departments have SWAT teams that do nothing else. They will stage for all big events rather than wait for a call out. They used explosive breeching so it was obvious that a special team made the entry.
My brother lives in Vegas and was on staff at the concert (I won’t get more specific because I don’t need internet sleuths trying to track him down). He was very lucky in that he went inside an office shortly after the headliner began to get some food, which was just before the shooting started. He and some other staff members hunkered down inside for a while (not sure how long), then grabbed some towels and whatever they could get their hands on to try to go help some of the injured, but were ordered back inside by police. He reported seeing about twenty dead bodies. 
He eventually was allowed to leave (along with a bunch of crew members who were staying at Mandalay Bay but could not return there), thankfully unscathed. He is incredibly lucky.
My heart and hugs go out to all affected by this.
Yes, this is clearly part of the problem.
I’m not so sure. He fired for 10-15 minutes in a pretty densely packed crowd using an automatic weapon. Even someone with poor aim is going to hit hundreds of people.
Answerable questions I’d like to see addressed: When did he reserve the room? And is there a paper trail on when/how he acquired the weapons? Both would say something about the degree of planning he did, which in turn would say something about his motives.
I agree. I was just trying to convey two ideas:
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Many cops are not solely equipped with handguns these days. Rifles are quite common, at least in vehicles.
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A run-of-the-mill AR-15 ought to be capable of accurate return fire at those distances, at least in the hands of a competent marksmen.
After all, at least according to some initial reporting, the bad guy was using AR’s to shoot down at the crowd:
Fox News reported that “Some of the weapons were bought in California.”
What a horror show. The video really did sound like full auto weapons.
Whoever that stupid cow is who does press briefings has uttered the official and obligatory NRA line about “This is not the time or place to talk about blahblahblah.”
It wasn’t a densely packed crowd after the first couple of minutes. And full-auto is anything but a recipe for accuracy. In the initial seconds, before people scatter, it probably works just fine for the intended purpose. After people start running away and ducking behind cover, it gets a whole lot less effective.
ETA: They call it “spray and pray” for a reason.
Eh, it’s no worse than the stupid cow that was tweeting about a “silencer” this morning.
CBS has fired a senior attorneyfor comments she made.
Oof. Yeah. I can’t exactly disagree with that (the firing, that is, despite my generally sympathetic politics.) What a fucking disgusting and dumb thing to say.
Yeah, for a (formerly-)high-paid attorney, that was an awfully stupid thing to say.
Different standards of accuracy apply, here. The bad guy’s target was a crowd, and he (presumably) didn’t care which individual member of that crowd he hit. The police’s target is a single person, and they very much care about not accidentally hitting the guy next to him instead. And while an AR-15 might very well be adequate to the task of hitting an identified target at that range, it does nothing to help you with identifying the target in the first place.
A concert like that is going to have an area of densely packed people easily 60-70 feet wide by a couple hundred feet deep. Unfortunately, spraying and praying in that type of situation is going to be highly effective. If you keep your shots within a ~500 square foot area you’ve got a good chance of hitting someone.
Not to mention incredibly repugnant.