After Las Vegas shooting, momentum builds for ban of rapid-fire devices
AFP / Robyn BeckLittle is known about the motive of Stephen Paddock, who killed 58 people and wounded nearly 500 when he rained thousands of rounds into a crowd at a country music festival in Las Vegas
US lawmakers cranked up gun control efforts Thursday following the mass shooting in Las Vegas, with some Republicans unexpectedly expressing interest in banning devices that the shooter used to convert his rifles to rapid-fire killing machines.
As police search for more clues into what drove Stephen Paddock to murder 58 people and injure nearly 500 at a country music concert, Congress appeared prepared to at least consider moving forward on the first limits on guns in years.
"Clearly this is something we need to look into," House Speaker Paul Ryan, the top Republican in Congress, told radio host Hugh Hewitt, referring to so-called bump stocks.
With one pull of the trigger, the spring-loaded devices keep the weapon firing using its own recoil, shooting hundreds of rounds per minute.
Democrats in both the House and Senate have introduced bills banning bump stocks and similar devices, like trigger cranks, that can accelerate the firing rate of a semi-automatic weapon to nearly that of a machine gun.
Senator Diane Feinstein, whose assault weapons ban was defeated in 2013, four months after the Newtown shooting where 20 elementary school children were shot dead, said she hoped now was the time Republicans could support sensible measures to curtail the use of bump stocks.
"Now after Las Vegas, I hope senators will finally summon the political courage to stand up and say enough is enough," the Democrat said.
Several Republicans including Senator John Cornyn, in the GOP leadership, expressed a willingness to consider such legislation.
President Donald Trump, who declared the United States a nation in mourning, spent much of Wednesday in Las Vegas, comforting survivors and eulogizing parents and spouses who "used their own bodies to protect their loved ones" from the onslaught.
Authorities meanwhile were studying the relationship between Paddock, who had no criminal record, and his girlfriend Marilou Danley, whom FBI agents questioned for clues to what drove Paddock to mass murder.
The 62-year-old returned to the United States from her native Philippines late Tuesday and was met by FBI agents.
AFP /Portrait released by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police of Marilou Danley, who said she had no clue that her boyfriend planned the deadliest shooting in modern US history
In a statement read by her attorney Matthew Lombard, she said she had no hint of what was to come: "I knew Stephen Paddock as a kind, caring, quiet man."
"He never said anything to me or took any action that I was aware of that I understood in any way to be a warning that something horrible like this was going to happen," she added.
Authorities have been at a loss as to how a 64-year-old gambler and retired accountant hauled a vast arsenal of weapons to his hotel room and launched his assault.
Las Vegas Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said the scale of the preparations -- including weapons, ammunition and electronics he stockpiled -- raise questions about Paddock potentially having had an accomplice, but none has been identified.
- Escape planned? -
"We're determined to find out if there was," Lombardo told reporters late Wednesday, adding that he believed Paddock was seeking a way out after his murder spree.
"He was doing everything possible to see how he could escape at this point," Lombardo said.
The attack unfolded in just 10 minutes from the first shot to the last, but Paddock was not confirmed dead for more than an hour after that.
When a SWAT team stormed the room where Paddock had been staying since September 28, they found he had killed himself.
Authorities have seized 47 firearms from three locations.
Gun sellers in Las Vegas have spoken out about the ghastly shooting, but have voiced opposition to changing America's gun laws.
AFP / Robyn BeckFBI investigators continue work at Las Vegas Village, site of the worst mass murder in modern US history, where shooter Stephen Paddock used semi-automatic weapons which he modified with so-called bump stocks to dramatically boost their firing rate
"It's an act of a coward, an act of a madman," Art Netherton, manager of Briarhawk Firearms and Ammunition, told AFP. But he said the call to restrict guns was a "knee-jerk reaction" by Democratic lawmakers.
"If there is anything that needs to happen, is possibly the issues of mental illness need to be addressed," he said.
Trump confirmed that no motive had yet been found. "I can tell you, it's a very sick man. He was a very demented person," he said.
- Ordinary heroes -
Details have gradually emerged about some of the victims -- a kindergarten teacher from California who had married her childhood sweetheart, a Tennessee nurse, a high school secretary from New Mexico.
OFF/AFP / -It's still unclear what motivated the alleged gunmen Stephen Paddock, seen here in an undated image, to commit such a horrific act
Stories of heroism also surfaced. Bruce Ure, deputy police chief of Seguin, Texas, was in the concert's VIP section when the gunfire broke out.
He sheltered from the bullets between two buses, then tended to three strangers who had been shot, loading them into a passing car and riding with them to hospital.
"They were all crying, and I was too," he told AFP. "They were saying that 'We're going to die, we're going to die,' and I still remember telling them: 'Not tonight, not tonight. Tonight's not your night. You're going to be OK.' Because I truly believed it."
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