A gunman killed at least 50 people and wounded 200 more at a country music festival in Las Vega.
A gunman killed at least 50 people and wounded more than 200 at a country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip on Sunday, raining down rapid fire from the 32nd floor of a hotel for several minutes before he was shot dead by police. The death toll, which police emphasized was preliminary, would make the attack the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, eclipsing last year's massacre of 49 people at an Orlando night club.
Reacting to the massacre, outspoken journalist and well-known anti-gun activist Piers Morgan wrote on Twitter: “If the shooter was Muslim, we'd call this a terrorist attack. This was a terrorist attack, committed by a 64-year-old white American. #vegas”
Morgan’s lament is not uncommon and speaks up about what many deem hypocritical since the term terrorist is very easily used for Muslim extremists but rarely used to describe white, Caucasian gunmen.
Morgan, a vocal anti-gun activist, had said earlier: “I speak as someone who loves America and loves Americans,” he says. “But having been brought up in a country where there are no guns, the one thing that you’re completely struck by when you come to America is the amount of paranoia and fear that infests daily life in almost every sphere of American society because of the presence of guns.”
In 2015, former President Barack Obama had urged news organisations to tally the number of gun violence victims with those of terrorist attacks. News organisation CNN had tallied the numbers and found that in 2014, for ‘every American who had died due to a terrorist attack in the states or abroad’ 1049 died because of gun attacks.
CNN found that between 2001 and 2014, 440,098 people died due to gun attacks (including homicide, accidents and suicide), and the number of citizens killed due to incidents of terrorism from 2001 to 2014 was 369. Even when CNN increased the numbers to include victims of ‘domestic terrorism’, there were 3043 people killed, taking the total to 3,412.
Video taken of the attack showed panicked crowds fleeing as sustained rapid gunfire ripped through the area.
"It sounded like fireworks. People were just dropping to the ground. It just kept going on," said Steve Smith, a 45-year-old visitor from Phoenix, Arizona, who had flown in for the concert. He said the gunfire went on for an extended period of time.
"Probably 100 shots at a time. It would sound like it was reloading and then it would go again," Smith said. "People were shot and trying to get out. A lot of people were shot."
Las Vegas's casinos, nightclubs and shopping draw some 3.5 million visitors from around the world each year and the area was packed with visitors when the shooting broke out shortly after 10 p.m. local time (0400 GMT).
Mike McGarry, a 53-year-old financial adviser from Philadelphia, was at the concert when he heard hundreds of shots ring out.
"It was crazy - I laid on top of the kids. They're 20. I'm 53. I lived a good life," McGarry said. The back of his shirt bore footmarks, after people ran over him in the panicked crowd.
The shooting broke out on the final night of the three-day Route 91 Harvest festival, a sold-out event attended by thousands and featuring top acts such as Eric Church, Sam Hunt and Jason Aldean.
"Tonight has been beyond horrific," Aldean said in a statement on Instagram. "It hurts my heart that this would happen to anyone who was just coming out to enjoy what should have been a fun night."
'WE'RE HORRIFIED'
The suspected shooter's brother, Eric Paddock, said the family was stunned by the news.
"We have no idea. We're horrified. We're bewildered and our condolences go out to the victims," Eric Paddock said in a brief telephone interview, his voice trembling. "We have no idea in the world."
U.S. President Donald Trump offered his condolences to the victims via a post on Twitter early Monday.
"My warmest condolences and sympathies to the victims and families of the terrible Las Vegas shooting. God bless you!" Trump said.
The rampage was reminiscent of a mass shooting at a Paris rock concert in November 2015 that killed 89 people, part of a wave of coordinated attacks by Islamist militants that left 130 dead.
The concert venue was in an outdoor area known as Las Vegas Village, across the Strip from the Mandalay Bay and the Luxor hotels.
"Our thoughts & prayers are with the victims of last night's tragic events," the Mandalay Bay said on Twitter.
Shares of U.S. casino operators fell in premarket trading on Wall Street, with MGM Resorts International, which owns the Mandalay Bay, down 5 percent. Melco Resorts & Entertainment Ltd, Wynn Resorts Ltd and Las Vegas Sands Corp each fell 1 to 2 percent.
With inputs from agencies
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