The state of Nevada has some of America’s most easy-going gun laws in a country where the Constitution guarantees the right of a citizen to bear arms. The Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock took 23 guns with him to the Mandalay Bay Hotel that he used to kill at least 59 people and injure another 527 in America’s worst-ever mass shooting.
Other weapons, the police say at least 19, along with explosives and several thousand rounds of ammunition were found at Paddock’s home. There seems no good reason anyone would need to own over 40 guns, including fully automatic assault rifles unless they were a manic collector or had malice in their hearts. Either way, since owners do not need to register guns in Nevada, there was no way the authorities could have known that this killer possessed such an arsenal. Gun shops in the state are supposed to carry out background checks when somebody walks in and wants to buy a weapon. But such a security measure is of extremely limited use since there are absolutely no controls on private sales. Paddock could have come by his lethal armory from any number of sources, none of which would have been illegal.
Support for gun-control surges every time one of these massacres happens. Even Donald Trump once opposed the possession of assault rifles, a view he abandoned during his run for the presidency. Barack Obama shed tears as he stood with relatives of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school massacre in which 20 children between six and seven years old and six teachers were murdered. He vowed to change the law. In the event he could do no more than tinker with the regulations. Congress is not about to alienate the National Rifle Association (NRA) that is backed by the US gun-making industry. There are an estimated 265 million guns in the United States and only 242 million adult Americans. But these figures disguise a more disturbing reality. Around half of these weapons belong to just 14 million Americans, some three percent of the adult population.
So-called “super-owners” each own between eight and 140 weapons. A Harvard study reckoned the average arsenal held by this minority contained 17 items. By this analysis, Paddock with his 23 guns was still a relatively modest “super-owner”.
Every time the United States is horrified by yet another gun massacre, the NRA trots out its mantra that it is not guns that kill but the people that own them. It is high time that this sententious nonsense was stopped in its tracks. The plain truth is that guns would not kill if people did not own them.
Reality simply has to kick in. The Wild West was won a century ago. The armed militias that defended the young America have long been replaced by a large and well-equipped military and a range of law enforcement agencies. Americans only need to defend themselves against other Americans because those other Americans may have guns.
So when are legislators going to wake up to the evils of civilians owning the likes of powerful assault rifles which, if used in hunting, would shred a wild beast just as they blew apart the latest victims of this insanity at the Las Vegas concert?
