The Orange County Criminal Lawyer Blog
A gunman, now identified as Stephen Craig Paddock, of Mesquite, used a fully-automatic assault rifle to fire hundreds, perhaps thousands of rounds down onto a crowd of fans enjoying the conclusion of a three-day country music festival near the Mandalay Bay Casino in Las Vegas, NV. Over 58 people are dead and at least 400 wounded in the now-deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
In footage of the attack, dozens of shots can be heard going off in a matter of seconds. Officers and SWAT team personnel stormed the hotel room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Casino to find Paddock dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Among the wounded and dead were four off-duty police officers.
Trying to flee the hail of gunfire from high above was “organized chaos” according to Monique Dumas, a concert-goer from Canada, who thought she heard a bottle breaking and a burst of popping sounds that she thought may have been fireworks. Dumas was six rows from the stage when the violence erupted. In making her way out, she noted that it took 4-5 minutes to escape, and during that time the sound of gunfire was constant.
Jason Aldean, the country music singer on stage during the shooting quickly rushed off when the shooting began. “Tonight has been beyond horrific…I wanted to let everyone know that me and my crew are safe,” he later wrote on his Instagram page.
Gun laws are quite relaxed in the state of Nevada, where the law does not require gun owners to register their weapons, have gun licenses, nor are there any limits to how many guns a person can own. Gun owners can openly carry their weapons almost everywhere in the state. Fully-automatic assault rifles and machine guns are allowed, provided that they are registered and compliant with Federal Law, according to the National Rifle Association. These laws are sure to come under public scrutiny in the wake of the shooting.
If you or someone you love is suspected of a crime, contact Irvine Criminal Lawyer Staycie R. Sena at (949) 477-8088 for a consultation now.