Witnesses describe how they escaped Las Vegas gunman that left 59 dead and 527 injured in deadliest mass shooting in American history

Lone gunman kills 59, injures hundreds, in Las Vegas concert attack Devika Krishna Kumar, Alexandria Sage 8 Min Read LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - A retiree armed with multiple assault rifles strafed an outdoor country music festival in Las Vegas from a high-rise hotel window on Sunday, slaughtering at least 59 people in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history before killing himself. The barrage of gunfire from the 32nd-floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel into a crowd of 22,000 people came in extended bursts that lasted several minutes, sparking panic as throngs of music fans desperately cowered on the open ground, hemmed in by fellow concertgoers, while others at the edge tried to flee. More than 525 people were injured - some by gunfire or shrapnel, some trampled - in the pandemonium adjacent to the Las Vegas Strip as police scrambled to locate the assailant. Police identified the gunman as Stephen Paddock, 64, who lived in a retirement community in Mesquite, Nevada. They said they believed he acted alone and did not know why he attacked the crowd. The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for the massacre, but U.S. officials said there was no evidence of that. At least a dozen people were in critical condition at University Medical Center in Las Vegas, where all of the injured were taken, a spokeswoman said. The preliminary death toll, which officials said could rise, surpassed last year’s massacre of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, by a gunman who pledged allegiance to Islamic State. The dead in Las Vegas included a nurse, a government employee and an off-duty police officer. Shocked survivors, some with blood on their clothing, wandered streets, where the flashing lights of the city’s gaudy casinos blended with those of emergency vehicles. Police said Paddock had no criminal record. The gunman killed himself before police entered the hotel room from where he was firing, Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo told reporters. “We have no idea what his belief system was,” Lombardo said. “I can’t get into the mind of a psychopath.” Federal officials said there was no evidence to link Paddock to militant organizations. “We have determined to this point no connection with an international terrorist group,” Aaron Rouse, special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) field office in Las Vegas, told reporters. U.S. officials discounted the claim of responsibility for the attack made by Islamic State. [nL8N1MD53T] “We advise caution on jumping to conclusions before the facts are in,” CIA spokesman Jonathan Liu said in an email. Related Coverage Two hours of horror, disbelief, as gunman opens fire in Las Vegas After Las Vegas massacre, Democrats urge gun laws; Republicans silent Factbox: Las Vegas policeman, Tennessee nurse, among dead in concert shooting MULTIPLE GUNS Lombardo said there were 16 firearms in the room where Paddock killed himself, some with scopes and some that appeared to have been modified to convert them to fully automatic weapons. Lombardo said the gunman apparently used a “device similar to a hammer” to smash the windows from which he fired. Police found at least 18 additional firearms, some explosives and thousands of rounds of ammunition at Paddock’s home in Mesquite, about 90 miles (145 km) northeast of Las Vegas, along with “some electronic devices that we are evaluating at this time,” Lombardo told reporters. Chris Sullivan, the owner of the Guns & Guitars gun shop in Mesquite, issued a statement confirming that Paddock was a customer who cleared “all necessary background checks and procedures.” “He never gave any indication or reason to believe he was unstable or unfit at any time,” Sullivan said, adding that his business was cooperating with investigators. He did not say how many or the kinds of weapons Paddock purchased there. The shooting, the latest in a string that have played out across the United States over recent years, sparked a renewed outcry from some lawmakers about the pervasiveness of guns in the United States, but was unlikely to prompt action in Congress. The site of the Route 91 music festival mass shooting is seen outside the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. October 2, 2017. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson Efforts to pass tougher federal gun laws failed following a number of mass shootings, including the 2012 massacre of 26 young children and educators in Newtown, Connecticut, and the June attack on Republican lawmakers practicing for a charity baseball game. Nevada has some of the nation’s most permissive gun laws. It does not require firearm owners to obtain licenses or register their guns. House of Representatives Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, on Monday called on House Speaker Paul Ryan to create a select committee on gun violence. “Congress has a moral duty to address this horrific and heartbreaking epidemic,” Pelosi wrote. The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the right to bear arms, and gun-rights advocates staunchly defend it. U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican, has been outspoken in his support for the Second Amendment. The White House said on Monday that it was too soon after the attack to consider gun control policies. “Today is a day for consoling the survivors and mourning those we lost,” presidential spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said at a news briefing. “It would be premature for us to discuss policy when we don’t fully know all the facts or what took place last night.”   Trump said he would travel to Las Vegas on Wednesday to meet with victims, relatives and first responders. Slideshow (23 Images) “It was an act of pure evil,” said Trump, who later led a moment of silence at the White House in honor of the victims. The suspected shooter’s brother, Eric Paddock, said the family was stunned by the news. “We’re horrified. We’re bewildered, and our condolences go out to the victims,” Eric Paddock said in a telephone interview, his voice trembling. “We have no idea in the world.” He said his brother belonged to no political or religious organizations, and had no history of mental illness. Their father had been a bank robber who for a time was listed on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” list of fugitives. Speaking to reporters from his doorstep in Orlando, Florida, he described his brother as “a wealthy guy” who liked to play video poker and take cruises. He seemed to have been settling into a quiet life when he moved back to Nevada from Florida. ‘JUST KEPT GOING ON’ Video of the attack showed terrified crowds fleeing under rapid gunfire as the shooter took aim from a distance of around 1,050 feet (320 m). “People were just dropping to the ground. It just kept going on,” said Steve Smith, a 45-year-old visitor from Phoenix, Arizona. “Probably 100 shots at a time,” Smith said. 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 started shortly after 10 p.m. local time (0400 GMT). Mike McGarry, a financial adviser from Philadelphia, was at the concert when he heard hundreds of shots. “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 from people who ran over him in panic. Shares of MGM Resorts International, which owns the Mandalay Bay, fell 5.58 percent on Monday to $30.77 a share. (This version of the story has been refiled to correct death toll in headline to 59) Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen, Chris Michaud and Frank McGurty in New York, Susan Cornwell and Mark Hosenball in Washington, Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Ali Abdelaty in Cairo and Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Grant McCool, Jonathan Oatis, Andrew Hay, Toni Reinhold Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. ===================== I heard pop, pop, pop - and then people began to drop: Witnesses describe how they escaped Las Vegas gunman that left 59 dead and 527 injured in deadliest mass shooting in American history WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT Some 59 people were killed and 527 injured in a shooting at Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas, Nevada  The shooter has been identified as 'multimillionaire' Stephen Paddock, 64, who often visited as a gambler He opened fire from a 32nd floor room of the Mandalay Bay Resort casino and hotel after 10pm Sunday night  Police say they breached Paddock's room and found him dead inside alongside an 'arsenal' of 16 weapons It took an hour and 12 minutes from the first 911 call to the moment that police burst into Paddock's room By Guy Adams and Arthur Martin and Emily Kent Smith for the Daily Mail Published: 10:04 +11:00, 3 October 2017 | Updated: 12:00 +11:00, 3 October 2017 e-mail 575 shares 277 View comments +40 Stephen Craig Paddock, right, is the man who killed more than 50 and injured 500-plus in a shooting at a Las Vegas music festival Sunday night. He's pictured above with Marilou Danley, who he lives with Some thought they could hear fireworks; others reckoned a speaker system had gone on the blink. It wasn’t until the music stopped and screams began to pierce the night sky that panic really set in. The time was shortly after 10pm, and Jason Aldean had just taken to the stage of the Las Vegas Festival Grounds, a 15-acre outdoor concert venue between the Mandalay Bay Resort and Sin City’s vast airport. Cheered by a sellout crowd of 22,000, on a balmy desert night, Aldean was headline act on the final of the three-night Route 91 Harvest Festival. He’d got just few lines into one of his best-known hits, When She Says Baby, when the shooting began. Near the front, Derek Bernard, 53, visiting from Los Angeles with his wife Karen, realised that a woman standing almost next to them had just been shot. ‘There was a woman bleeding – that’s when we realised it was real shots. She just fell. ‘She was shot. There was a lot of blood. It was so many shots – it sounded like 4th of July – just pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. So many. I didn’t think it was real because I couldn’t see or feel anything.’  The initial burst of gunfire lasted just under ten seconds, and Aldean carried on playing. But, as he noticed more victims fall to the floor, he fell quiet. ‘We heard a succession of pops. Unbelievably it sounded like fireworks,’ concertgoer Joe Pitzel recalled. ‘But they kept rattling off. Then Jason Aldean actually turned around and ran off the stage. That’s when we realised something really bad was going on.’ A video from the venue shows eerie quiet fall on the crowd. It is broken by a man saying: ‘Uh oh. That’s gunshot.’ Then you hear screams. ‘It sounded at first like something was wrong with the speakers,’ said William Walker of Ontario, California. Following that first burst of gunfire, the peace would last around 35 seconds, presumably enough time for the gunman to reload his weapons in his suite on the 32nd floor of the 43-storey, 4,300-room Mandalay Bay resort. From his window, the 64-year-old attacker, Stephen Paddock, had sweeping views over the festival site, on the opposite side of Sin City’s neon-covered strip, roughly 400 yards away. He fired a second, ten-second volley of shots. Revellers again fell to the ground, cowering behind concession stands or equipment vans, or diving on top of loved ones. +40 This graphic shows how Stephen Paddock took aim (top left) from his window on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel before firing indiscriminately into a crowd of 22,000 festivalgoers. Police SWAT teams arrived at his room almost two hours later, blowing their way through the doors to find his lifeless body inside after he had turned a gun on himself +40 Hundreds of rounds of automatic gunfire were reported by witnesses on the scene; one woman in the Mandalay Bay said that there was a shooter on the 32nd floor +40 A woman cries while hiding inside the Sands Corporation plane hangar after the mass shooting on Sunday +40 Investigators load bodies from the scene of the mass shooting on Monday  People scramble for cover for as gun shots ring out in Las Vegas Loaded: 0% Progress: 0% 1:04 Previous Play Skip Mute Current Time 1:04 / Duration Time 1:04 Fullscreen Need Text × Share this Video +40 The shooter has been identified as Stephen Paddock, 64, who opened fire from a 32nd floor room of Mandalay Bay Hotel ‘It was crazy – I laid on top of the kids. They’re 20. I’m 53. I lived a good life,’ Mike McGarry, a financial adviser from Philadelphia, recalled, showing off footmarks on the back of his shirt from people who ran over him in the chaos. Yellow flashes became visible from the upper floors of the Mandalay Bay. Kodiak Yazzie, 36, said: ‘You could hear that the noise was coming from west of us, from Mandalay Bay. You could see a flash, flash, flash, flash.’ ‘I first thought it was like bottle rockets going off,’ Seth Bayles of West Hollywood told the LA Times. ‘Then we saw people dropping. We saw someone get hit and then we started running.’ RELATED ARTICLES Previous 1 Next Killed in the Las Vegas massacre: The first of 59 dead and... PICTURED: The lone Las Vegas gunman, 64, who murdered 59 and... 'Saddened' Queen and Prince Philip send thoughts and prayers... Share this article Share The gunshots stopped a second time and, in that 17-second pause, crowds began to run. Footage of the panic in the drinks tent shows some crawling along the floor, and others running. A third bust of gunfire begins, lasting nine seconds, forcing people to cower behind anything they could find. Outside, when it ends, a woman can be heard on a video screaming: ‘My God! Let’s go!’ Another shouts: ‘Save yourself!’ ‘We’re going to get trampled if we don’t go,’ a bystander can be heard saying in another video. But confusion still reigned. ‘Guys its fireworks,’ says a man. ‘Stop! What’s the matter with you?’ +40 Authorities say Paddock had a large room or connecting rooms on the 32nd floor  +40 Above, the view from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel, in an updated photo. The concert was taking place diagonally across the street, where the stage is seen +40 Above, a view of a typical double room in the Mandalay Bay hotel. It's unclear what kind of room Paddock was staying in +40 Three people lie on the ground, one covered in blood, after the shooting at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival on Sunday +40 Debris is strewn through the scene of a mass shooting at a music festival near the Mandalay Bay resort and casino on the Las Vegas Strip, Monday, Oct. 2, 2017, in Las Vegas +40 Fifty-eight people are dead and 515 have been left injured after the Sunday shooting at the Las Vegas music festival Soon the attack fell into a grisly pattern: Ten-second bursts of fire followed by 15 to 30 seconds of silence, while Paddock either swapped weapons or reloaded. ‘People were just dropping to the ground. It just kept going on,’ said Steve Smith, a 45-year-old from Phoenix, Arizona. ‘Probably 100 shots at a time. It would sound like it was reloading and then it would go again.’ In the silences, those who escaped injury jumped over walls and climbed under cars. Professional poker player Dan Bilzerian filmed himself fleeing, saying: ‘Holy f***, this girl just got shot in the f***ing head.’ Concertgoer Mike Cronk told ABC News he realised a friend next to him had been hit three times in the chest. ‘It was pretty much chaotic,’ he said. ‘Lots of people got hit… It took a while to get him out. We had to get him over the fence and hiding under the stage for a while, you know, to be safe. And, finally, we had to move him.’ Cronk tracked down an ambulance, but another man he had been helping died in his arms. ‘My buddy got in there,’ he added. ‘We got three more people in the ambulance… But I just got a message from my buddy – and he’s going to be okay.’ A woman told CNN: ‘There was a man that was shot right there. He was all bloody, he was unconscious. ‘Everybody was hiding everywhere, hiding under the stands and anywhere they could… and everyone is telling us to run, run as fast as you can. My husband and I ran out towards our car and there were people hiding underneath my car for cover. There was a gentleman who was shot, he said can you help me so I put him in my car and I had like six people in my car, people without shoes, running just to get away.’ +40 A body lies under a sheet on The Strip in Las Vegas as police secure the area after 59 people were killed on Sunday +40 Police on guard on the streets outside the Mandalay Bay. The shooter was killed inside the hotel +40 A general view of the property believed to be the residence of Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock situated in Mesquite, NV +40 The shooter was in the far left tower of the Mandalay Bay (bottom right), shooting into the crowds at the Las Vegas Village, located diagonally across the intersection in the middle.  Once they had escaped the stage area, where most of the fatalities occurred, many festival-goers attempted to hide. Michael Seiden locked himself in a container filled with beer cans, later tweeting pictures of it riddled with bullet holes. ‘I was fortunate enough to get away,’ he said. Desiree Price, from San Diego, hid behind a car with two strangers. ‘We huddled together. That’s why I have their blood on me,’ she said. ‘One girl was shot in her leg, the other had it in her shoulder. It didn’t stop so we all ran – we kept going.’ Concertgoer Ivetta Saldana ducked into a sewer. ‘It was a horror show,’ she told the Las Vegas Review Journal. ‘People were standing around, then they hit the floor.’ William Walker cowered behind lighting apparatus. ‘We were under a big spotlight and someone said, “Turn off the light,”’ he said. ‘They shut it off and you could see and hear bullets hitting the ground.’ No one yet knows exactly how long the assault lasted, but witnesses put it at five to 15 minutes. A guest who believes he was staying next door to the suspect told CNN that, after it stopped, ‘you could smell the gun powder.’ Country singer Jake Owen, on stage with Aldean, told CNN the attack was like ‘shooting fish in a barrel’. The city’s roads and airports were closed and major resorts put under lockdown, while hospital emergency rooms were soon jammed with victims, many brought by others attending the festival. ‘I saw a lot of ex-military jump into gear and start plugging bullet-holes with their fingers,’ said concertgoer Russell Beck. ‘While everyone else was crouching I saw police officers standing up as targets, just trying to direct people and tell them where to go.’ Las Vegas Police began trying to neutralise the attacker. The City’s under-sheriff Kevin McHaill said officers at the concert were able to pinpoint roughly where the gunfire was coming from. +40 +40 Above, the type of weapons found in the room. On the top is an Ak-47 and on the bottom is an AR-15. AR-15s are typically semi-automatic, while AK-47s can be either fully automatic or semi-automatic Death toll continues to rise in Las Vegas concert shooting Loaded: 0% Progress: 0% 0:00 Previous Play Skip Mute Current Time 0:00 / Duration Time 1:22 Fullscreen Need Text +40 +40 A police officer takes cover behind a police vehicle during the shooting near the Mandalay Bay resort and casino (left); people take cover at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival (right) +40 President Trump spoke about the shooting at a morning press conference, calling it a 'senseless murder' and 'an act of pure evil' ‘They could see that the rounds were coming from that particular location as heavy fire, automatic fire at times. And so they were corralling all of the people that were actually at the concert behind a block wall,’ he said. A number of officers went to the Mandalay Bay’s 32nd floor. Guests said they were woken by SWAT teams bursting into their rooms. Brad Baker, 38, of Austin, Texas, was in Las Vegas for a conference. ‘[The police] came into my room, I was totally out – I thought I was in trouble! They yelled at me like, “Get some clothes on.” I got my shirt on but I left my phone, my wallet. When I came out of my room, they were telling us to run. I saw all the cops with guns. It was crazy.’ On a recording of the moment a SWAT team blew Paddock’s door off its hinges, an officer can be heard saying: ‘We have sight of the suspect’s door. We need to pop this and see if we get any kind of response from this guy, see if he’s in here or if he’s actually moved out somewhere else.’ Soon afterwards, the words ‘Breach! Breach! Breach!’ were shouted, followed by a large bang. +40 Paddock's father, Benjamin, was a serial bank robber who ended up on the FBI's most wanted list back in 1969 The gunman died at the scene. He was found alongside an arsenal of weapons including at least ten rifles, and appeared to have shot himself. At 11.58pm Las Vegas Police tweeted ‘suspect down’, bringing the terror to an end. Paddock’s family said he held no extreme views and had no history of mental illness. Police said he was not connected to any militant group. That left speculation as to whether his actions were a response to gambling debts. He was, however, said to have become a multimillionaire through property investment. Paddock rented connecting rooms at the Mandalay Bay resort and used a hammer to smash holes in the windows so he could fire at will at the crowds 400ft below him. Many in the 22,000 audience thought the gunfire was fireworks until they saw bloodied victims dropping to the ground. Survivors hid behind walls and under cars. Others dragged the injured to safety while Paddock stopped to reload. A number of the injured were trampled during a stampede to escape the bloodshed the Route 91 Harvest Festival. The mayhem lasted for 72 minutes and ended only when police burst into Paddock’s hotel room to find he had shot himself. Ten to 20 military-style automatic weapons lay by his side. The death toll, which is expected to rise, surpassed the shooting at a nightclub in Orlando in June 2016 that cost 49 lives. In other developments: Donald Trump said it was ‘an act of pure evil’; The US President faced criticism over his failure to challenge gun laws; UK soldiers on leave in Las Vegas rushed to help victims; Paramedics used wheelbarrows to take the injured to safety; British tennis star Laura Robson had a narrow escape; Paddock’s brother Eric said his involvement had struck the family like an ‘asteroid’. Paddock, who lived in Mesquite, an hour’s drive north-east of Las Vegas, is understood have checked in to the Mandalay Bay on Thursday and spent the weekend planning the attack. His live-in Australian girlfriend Marilou Danley was visiting family in the Philippines at the time of the massacre. Police initially said they were hunting her as a ‘companion’ of his. It has emerged Paddock had used her ID in the casinos over the past few days. His 55-year-old brother Eric said: ‘We have no idea how this happened. It’s like an asteroid just fell on top of our family and we have no reason, rhyme, rationale, excuse – there’s just nothing. Something happened, he snapped or something.’ He said they had last been in contact a few weeks ago when the gunman texted him after Hurricane Irma to check on the welfare of their 90-year-old mother. Speaking from his home in Orlando, he said: ‘He was a wealthy guy who liked to play video poker, he went on cruises. He sent his mum huge boxes of cookies. He doesn’t even have parking tickets.’ He admitted his brother had owned two handguns and a rifle, but nothing like the arsenal that was discovered in Las Vegas. ‘He’s not an avid gun guy at all. He never hit anyone, he’s never drawn a gun,’ he added. +40 Paddock's brother Eric said he wasn't religious, political or had any mental illness that he knew of  +40 Stephen Paddock, right, seen with his brother Eric in this undated image provided to the Today show  +40 Police surround the stage at the Route 91 Harvest festival on Las Vegas Boulevard in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 02 October, 2017 +40 Law enforcement walk on the Las Vegas Strip near Mandalay Bay hotel-casino Monday, Oct. 2, 2017, in Las Vegas +40 A wounded person is walked in on a wheelbarrow as Las Vegas police respond to the active shooter situation Paddock is understood to have placed a large number of bets totalling up to $30,000 (£22,600) a day in recent weeks. It remains unclear whether he won or lost. As investigators continued to unravel his background, terrifying phone footage taken by revellers at the concert emerged. As the bullets continued to rain down on to the crowd, many risked their lives to save those who had been left with horrific injuries. Some ran back into the crowd, despite managing to escape themselves. Others flagged down passing cars and asked drivers to help take the wounded to hospital. One woman told of how she had crammed six strangers into her car to keep them away from the gunfire. Three off-duty personnel from 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards were in the city when the gunman opened fire and gave life-saving first aid. It emerged one man died after being shot in the back as he pushed his wife away from danger. Heather Melton said she had felt the bullet strike her nurse husband Sonny. Mrs Melton, from Tennessee, said: ‘Sonny was the most kind-hearted, loving man I have ever met. He saved my life and lost his.’ One trauma surgeon on duty yesterday described the scene at a hospital where the wounded were being taken as like a ‘war zone’. Jay Coates said: ‘Every bed in trauma bay was occupied.’ THE FIRST LAS VEGAS VICTIMS ARE IDENTIFIED  The first shooting victims have been identified after 59 people were killed when a gunman opened fire at a music festival in Las Vegas on Sunday in what has become the deadliest mass shooting in American history. Sonny Melton, 29, Denise Salmon Burditus, 50, Lisa Romero, Jordan McIldoon, 23, Jessica Klymchuk, 28, Jenny Parks, Susan Smith, 53, Adrian Murfitt, 35, John Phippen, Rhonda LeRocque, Dana Gardner, Quinton Robbins, 20, and Bailey Schweitzer, all lost their lives when 64-year-old Stephen Craig Paddock of nearby Mesquite, Nevada began shooting from his hotel room across the street at the Mandalay Bay Casino. Another 515 people were injured in what is now the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. Melton's wife, Heather, a surgeon, was with him watching Jason Aldean at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas. She said her brave and selfless husband died protecting her. 'He saved my life. He grabbed me and started running when I felt him get shot in the back,' she told WSMV. 'I want everyone to know what a kind-hearted, loving man he was, but at this point, I can barely breathe.' The couple lived in Big Sandy, Tennessee, where Melton worked as a registered nurse in an emergency room and ICU at Henry County Medical Center. His wife works at the hospital and he aided her in the operating room. They married in 2016. 'We were the couple that never should have met, fallen in love or had a future together....but life is funny and we believe God brought us together as soul mates,' read their wedding page on The Knot.  'We have shared amazing times together and nearly unbearable heartaches but through it all we have grown stronger in our love for each other and our families.'  +40 Heather Melton, left, says her husband Sonny, right, saved her life as gunfire rang out at the Route 91 Harvest Festival on Sunday. He was shot in the back and died, while Heather survived +40 Denise Salmon Burditus, 50, was among the 59 people murdered at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas on Sunday. She is seen with husband Tony Burditus at the festival in a photo posted to Facebook around 9.30pm PDT - minutes before the gunman opened fire Mother-of-two and kindergarten teacher Jenny Parks, of Lancaster, LA in California, was also killed in the carnage. Her aunt, Rhonda Boyle, wrote on Facebook: 'It's a sad day for me and my family my niece was murdered killed by that SOB in Los Vegas. Please pray for me and my family, she was a sweet woman... and a good mother.' She leaves behind her husband Bobby Parks, 39, and their two kids. Denise Salmon Burditus, 50, of Martinsburg, West Virginia, reportedly died in the arms of her husband of 32 years, Tony Burditus, just minutes after posting a picture of themselves at the festival. Burditus, a semi-retired grandmother and mom, according to Facebook, regularly posted loving posts about her husband Tony, who was her high school sweetheart from Hedgesville High School. The couple had moved around a lot, according to friends, but had recently returned to Martinsburg to settle down. Her friend Jeanette McNally said she was in 'complete shock and grief' at her pal's death. 'Beautiful Denise Salmon Burditus life was taken during the attack on Las Vegas,' she wrote. 'What a loss. 'I'm just praying for comfort for their shattered hearts. Her family...Her adoring husband...Her beautiful children and grandbabies...Her friends whom she loved like family.' Gallup-McKinley County School confirmed that Romero, a secretary at Miyamura High School, in New Mexico, was also among the dead. Superintendent Mike Hyatt sent out an email to district staffers, saying 'our prayers go out to her family during this tragic time.' Adrian Murfitt, from Anchorage, also died at the concert, according to his friend Brian MacKinnon, who attended the festival with him. MacKinnon told KTUU that Murfitt was 'one of the happiest people I know' and that the 'wrong person' had died. Susan Smith, 53, an office manager for the Simi Valley Unified School District since 2001, was also killed, a spokeswoman for the district confirmed. Smith was said to be a big country music fan and was the 'hub' and 'heart' of Vista Elementary School, where she worked for three years. 'She was wonderful. She had a great sense of humor. She's patient and kind,' spokesman Jake Finch told the Ventura County Star. Vista PTA released a statement which read: 'Our hearts are full of sorrow for the passing of Susan Smith. She was a wonderful woman, an advocate for our children, and a friend.' +40 +40 Mom-of-four Jessica Klymchuk (left) and Quinton Robbins, 20, (right) are among the 59 people who were gunned down and killed during the mass shooting at a Las Vegas music festival last night Rhonda LeRocque, a minister's wife, from Tewksbury, Massachusetts, had been at the concert with her six-year-old daughter, father-in-law and husband of 20 years, Jason. Her father-in-law had just taken LeRocque's daughter home when the gunfire began. LeRocque died instantly after being shot in the back of the head. Her devastated family told Boston 25 News that she was a country music lover, who loved her family and dreamed of owning her own company one day. She was 'close to perfection as you can get,' they said. Fellow victim John Phippen, of Santa Clarita, California, was at the concert with his son Travis - a medic - when he was shot dead. Travis, who was shot in the arm, was able to patch up at least 14 others at the scene, but tragically wasn't able to save his own father. John, who owned remodeling and repair company JP Specialties, in Clarita, was remembered by friends as a 'good man' and an 'amazing soul' who would often like to sing as he worked. He had a 'smile that would light up a room,' friend Thomas Polucki told KHTS . 'He will be missed.' Two Canadians were among the dozens killed in the mass shooting McIldoon, 23, of Maple Ridge, British Columbia, and Klymchuk, a mother-of-four, visiting Vegas with her fiance from Edmonton.  +40 +40 Jordan McIlldoon (left) and Lisa Romero (right) are reportedly among the 59 people who lost their lives during the mass shooting +40 +40 Adrian Murfitt, 35, (left) was confirmed dead by a close friend, while married mother-of-two, and kindergarten teacher Jenny Parks (right) was also killed in the carnage Klymchuk was a librarian and school bus driver at St. Stephen's School in Valleyview, Canada. Superintendent Betty Turpin, of the Holy Family Catholic Regional Division, passed on her condolences to the family for the 'unimaginable attack'. Premier of Alberta, Rachel Notley, added on Twitter: 'Our hearts go out to the loved ones of Jessica Klymchuk, an Albertan who was killed in the Las Vegas attack. We are so sorry for your loss.' McIldoon, 23, was attending the festival with his girlfriend, his parents told CBC, when he was gunned down. Fellow festival goer Heather Gooze of Spring Valley, Nevada spread word of his death on Facebook. 'Friends and family, I am OK. I am right outside of the festival grounds. We are not allowed to go anywhere,' Gooze wrote Monday morning.  'I am with a young man who died in my arms! RIP Jordan McIldoon from British Columbia. I can't believe this just happened!!!' +40 +40 Susan Smith, (left) an office manager for the Simi Valley Unified School District since 2001, and Dana Gardner (right) who worked for the County of San Bernardino +40 +40 Rhonda LeRocque (left) a minister's wife, from Tewksbury, Massachusetts, died instantly after being shot in the back of the head. Fellow victim John Phippen, (right) of Santa Clarita, California, was at the concert with his son Travis - a medic -  but tragically Travis wasn't able to save his own father +40 Bailey Schweitzer, Bakersfield, California, was the 13th Vegas mass shooting victim to be identified on social media McIldoon's parents, who are flying down to Las Vegas, said he was a heavy-duty mechanic's apprentice and was soon to attend trade school. 'We only had one child,' they said. 'We just don't know what to do.' His grandfather Bob McIldoon told CityNews Vancouver; 'It's a terrible thing, terrible for everyone.' Quinton Robbins, 20, of Henderson, Nevada, is another shooting victim who has been identified by family and friends on social media. His aunt, Kilee Wells Sanders, confirmed on Facebook that Quinton had died on Sunday night, describing him as 'the most kind and loving soul.' 'Everyone who met him, loved him. His contagious laugh and smile. He was truly an amazing person. He will be missed by so many, he is loved by so many.' Robbins studied at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, and worked as a recreational assistant at the City of Henderson. 'Quinton was a pay-it-forward kinda guy,' Tyce Jones, a long time friend of the family, told Newsweek.  'Always had a smile on his face and was a nice guy. He loved his family and loved to coach his little brother's flag football team. He will be missed.' 22 guns, 10,000 bullets: How a killer got his arsenal of firearms into a Las Vegas hotel RACHEL OLDING Last updated 21:18, October 3 2017 Play Video Seven Sharp 'A volley of shots as if outside the bedroom' - Kiwi cop caught up in Las Vegas massacre Some time on Thursday, retired accountant Stephen Paddock checked into room 32135 of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. His arrival would not have surprised anybody. A high-stakes gambler and regular concert-goer, who recently boasted of a $US250,000 poker windfall, Paddock booked a double-room suite overlooking the main stage for the Route 91 Harvest festival, a three-day country music festival starting on Friday. Over the next four days, police said, he wheeled more than 10 suitcases into the room carrying 22 guns, including two on tripods and two converted into fully automatic machine guns. In his car, parked with the hotel valet, he had several kilograms of ammonium nitrate, a fertiliser used to make explosives. SUPPLIED Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock in a 2002 family photo. A high-stakes gambler and regular concert-goer, who recently boasted of a $US250,000 poker windfall, Paddock booked a double-room suite overlooking the main stage for the Route 91 Harvest festival, a three-day country music festival starting on Friday.' READ MORE: * How Vegas massacre unfolded * Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock used 'bump-stock' device * Man who helped people escape gunfire in Las Vegas took a bullet in his neck * The Las Vegas shooting sounded like it was from a machine gun At about 10.08pm and for reasons that remain unclear to authorities, his family and perhaps even Danley, he used a hammer to smash open two windows at either end of his suite and methodically began to fire at the crowd on the famous Las Vegas Boulevard 450 metres away. Some of the 22,000-strong crowd thought it was firecrackers or sound issues but singer Jason Aldean, onto his last song in a 30-minute set, stopped playing and ran from the stage. Screaming rang out and people ducked for cover or ran towards the festival's major entry, directly in the line of fire. For 15 excruciating minutes more than 10,000 bullets peppered the crowd from above, killing 59 and injuring 527. There were small breaks, presumably when Paddock was reloading, then more. LUCY NICHOLSON/REUTERS People mourn during an interfaith memorial service for victims of the Route 91 music festival mass shooting in Las Vegas. "I saw people plugging bullet holes with their fingers," concert-goer Russell Bleck said, adding that crowds trying to escape were trapped by festival fencing. "People would run one way and then you'd hit a dead end. It was just a kill box. No one could run and scatter. I saw bodies everywhere." Seventy-two minutes after the first shot was fired, hotel security guards – who narrowed the threat after guests between levels 29 to 32 reported glass smashing – accompanied a SWAT team who burst through the door. It's believed Paddock turned the gun on himself at that moment. As the famously neon-lit strip fell ghostly quiet on Tuesday, the White House refused to talk about gun policy in a country that has suffered its worst two shootings in less than two years. "Our unity cannot be shattered by evil, our bonds cannot be broken by violence and though we feel such great anger at the senseless murder of our fellow citizens, it is our love that defines us today and always will forever," US President Donald Trump said. SHAYE DESCHAMBEAULT VIA REUTERS People duck for cover as the gunman opens fire in Las Vegas. More than 24 hours after the shooting, authorities still had no indication of a motive. Paddock was a high-stakes gambler well-known in the casinos of Nevada who was twice divorced, held a pilot's licence, owned multiple properties, had no criminal record except for a minor traffic citation and hadn't worked full time in 30 years. Ad Feedback In recent weeks, he made several mandatory reports of casino winnings over $US10,000 and authorities are looking into whether he had made large losses too, McClatchy reported. Filipino-born Danley, 62, was a keen gambler too, listing her former job as a high-stakes casino hostess at Reno's Atlantis Casino. On Facebook, she said she "lived life to the fullest" and she posted photos from Vegas gambling tournaments, including a stay at Mandalay Bay in 2014. REUTERS The site of the Route 91 music festival mass shooting outside the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. She was in Tokyo at the time of the shooting and will be interviewed on her return, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said. He stressed that they believe Paddock acted alone. "We have no idea what his belief system was. I can't get into the mind of a psychopath," he said.  Danley lived in Queensland until about 2003 when she moved to Nevada with her husband of 22 years, Geary Danley, with whom she has a daughter and granddaughter. They divorced in 2013. Another of Mr Danley's daughters, Diedre Pierson, said they had never heard of their stepmother's new partner. STUFF Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock had a wide field of view from his perch on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. "She is kind, she is gentle, she's just extremely nice ... never would we ever in our lives think that she would in any way be affiliated with this ever," she said. While she was known around Mesquite as a friendly woman who liked Zumba classes, her boyfriend was remarkable only for his extreme tendency to keep to himself. "He was weird," former neighbour Diane McKay told the New York Times. "It was like living next to nothing ... You can at least be grumpy, something. He was just nothing." In Florida, his brother, Eric, said the news was like "an asteroid falling out of the sky". MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS Two broken windows mark the spot where a gunman opened fire from The Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. He said his brother was not religious, political or even opinionated and, as far as he knew, owned a couple of handguns that he'd never touched. He liked Taco Bell, country music, cruises and playing $100 hands on video poker. "He is a guy who lives in a house in Mesquite, who drove down and gambled in Las Vegas. He did stuff, ate burritos," he said. "He doesn't even have parking tickets ... If he had killed my kids I couldn't be more dumbfounded. I mean, it doesn't ... There's nothing." Their father, Benjamin Paddock, was a convicted bank robber who was on the FBI's Most Wanted list in 1969 and described as a suicidal psychopath. However, Eric Paddock said the brothers never met him. Heartbreaking stories emerged on Tuesday of the carnage and confusion. Among the victims was 29-year-old Tennessee nurse Sonny Melton, who was shot in the back as he tried to shield his wife, Heather. A festival bartender, Heather Gooze, said she held the hand of a stranger later identified as Canadian Jordan McIldoon, 23, as he died on a piece of security fence used as a stretcher. His girlfriend was in lock-down in the Tropicana Hotel and his mother called his phone during the mayhem. "She told me his childhood nickname is Blimpy because he was a blimp when he was little, that he's covered in tattoos, that he loves life and he loves his girlfriend," Ms Gooze told Canadian radio. Retired soldier Tony Burditus, who had just bought a van to travel around America with his wife Denise, held his partner of 32 years in his arms just two hours after she'd posted a photo of them smiling happily in front of the Route 91 main stage.  - Sydney Morning Herald ======== How did Las Vegas shooter get his arsenal? Easily, and legally Paul HANDLEY AFP News4 October 2017 In the United States, there are few barriers for someone without a criminal record to build up their own personal arsenal of weapons. Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock had dozens of guns, apparently all legal More Forty-seven firearms from three locations. Piles of ammunition, and devices that converted assault rifles to automatic weapons that fired like machine guns. How did Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock, who shot and killed 58 people from his 32nd story hotel window, amass an arsenal of firearms? In the United States, and particularly in states like Nevada, it's easy. And totally legal. Although the country is notorious for its lax gun laws, there are some restrictions on multiple sales of handguns. But if someone wants to build up a cache of rifles the way Paddock did, they could do so without anyone noticing. Most gun sales are by federally licensed vendors who must put buyers through background checks. The FBI will run their name through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which refers to three databases of offenders. Those databases are not always perfect, relying on often spotty reporting from the states. Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who killed nine people in an African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina on June 17, 2015, cleared a handgun purchase background check just weeks before, despite having a drug conviction on his record. - No apparent red flags - But if a person's record is clean -- and Paddock evidently did not raise any red flags -- he can buy as many guns as he wants. There are some controls, points out Laura Cutilletta, the legal director at the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Licensed gun dealers, who handle perhaps 60 percent of all firearm sales, have to report multiple handgun sales to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. "Multiple" means two or more guns to the same purchaser within five business days. Even then, Cutilletta says, "There is no requirement that law enforcement investigate." Three states -- California, New York and New Jersey -- prohibit sales of more than one handgun in 30 to 90 days, with slight variations between them. Beyond that, the country is an open market, with private sellers of used guns in most states not having to run background checks, and few restrictions on long gun purchases. In Nevada, where gun laws are particularly lax and enforcement more so, it would have been easy for Paddock to accumulate all the guns he had unnoticed. "There is no way that ATF or the FBI would know," said Cutilletta. - Easy to convert to automatic - But what stood out in Sunday's massacre, when Paddock unloaded his guns on a crowd of 22,000 at a country music concert, was the rapid pace of fire. According to reports, he had modified some of his guns to work like automatic weapons, like machine guns, able to shoot many hundreds of rounds a minute with one trigger pull. Automatic weapons have been banned in the United States for three decades. But converting a semi-automatic weapon, including the AR-15 and AK-47-type assault rifles widely available in US gun shops, into an automatic weapon is easy. For $40 you can buy a trigger crank, a small device that can be attached to the trigger. It can make the gun fire three or four times with each turn of the crank, significantly faster than using a finger to pull the trigger. For as little as $99, you can get a bump stock, a spring-loaded stock that, with one pull of the trigger, keeps the weapon firing using its own recoil. It can enable the weapon to fire at a rate of 600 rounds a minute or more. Trigger cranks and bump stocks are completely legal, they even come with ATF certifications that they do not constitute an illegal conversion of the guns. Las Vegas Sheriff Joseph Lombardo confirmed Tuesday that Paddock had at least one of the devices. Leaked photographs from the hotel room showed that Paddock also had a large stock of ammunition. That side of the guns industry is also little-regulated, with only restrictions on sales of certain types of ammunition like armor-piercing bullets. Otherwise, anyone can buy bullets in volume -- with no questions asked. ========================= Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4942590/Witnesses-Las-Vegas-gunman-left-59-dead.html#ixzz4uPFxkEdX Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

27 Children shot and killed at Connecticut school: report

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==== Second way forward Congress should push for mandatory gun insurance 17 December 2012 | By Robert Cyran, Reynolds Holding Print Email Share Comment Save . Congress should push for mandatory gun insurance. Firearm ownership is a U.S. constitutional right. But as last week’s massacre again demonstrated, it comes at a cost. Requiring liability coverage could be one way to keep the most dangerous weapons from unstable hands without infringing the law. The biggest legal obstacle to gun regulation is the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment. The right to bear arms has generally trumped strict limits on ownership, especially since the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision extended the right to individuals. Imposing a hefty insurance policy could make owning a firearm prohibitively expensive for some and create constitutional problems. But tying the price of coverage to the cost of gun incidents could work. And there’s a strong argument that damage caused by firearms gives the government a “compelling interest” to require insurance, the test for infringing a constitutional right. There’s already a precedent: the National Rifle Association offers liability insurance to members. Moreover, the market should be efficient at weighing the risks. Insurers specialize in figuring out the odds of something going wrong and charging the appropriate amount. Car insurance premiums are based on both the driver and the vehicle. A 19-year-old man with a Porsche and a history of moving violations pays far more than a 40-year-old minivan driver with a clean record. So a shotgun owner who has hunted for years without incident could be charged far less than a first-time owner purchasing a semi-automatic. In other words, people would be financially discouraged from purchasing the most risky firearms and encouraged to attend gun safety classes and use trigger locks. And the insurance could provide some restitution for those hurt by guns. There are drawbacks, of course. Insurance would probably only cover the owner, not the gun, so could be useless in incidents where the gun has been stolen. And those looking to get guns off the streets fast would be disappointed: it would take some time for the discouraging effects of high insurance premiums to trickle down. Tying insurance to ammunition sales as well could make such a policy more effective more quickly. Either way, liability coverage could be one way to bring the two sides of the gun control debate together. ====== Search for answers begins after Connecticut school massacre Sat, Dec 15 02:46 AM EST 1 of 24 By Hilary Russ and Dave Gregorio NEWTOWN, Connecticut (Reuters) - Twenty schoolchildren were slaughtered by a heavily armed gunman who opened fire at a suburban elementary school in Connecticut on Friday, ultimately killing at least 27 people including himself in the one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history. The 20-year-old gunman, identified by law enforcement sources as Adam Lanza, fired what witnesses described as dozens of shots in Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which serves children from ages 5 to 10. Lanza attended the school himself as a youngster. Authorities found 18 children and seven adults, including the gunman, dead at the school, and two children were pronounced dead later after being taken to a hospital. Another adult was found dead at a related crime scene in Newtown, bringing the toll to 28, state police Lieutenant Paul Vance said. Police would not confirm or deny media reports that the person was Lanza's mother, Nancy. As reports of the shooting spread, panicked parents rushed to the school searching for their children as students covered in blood were being carried out of the building. President Barack Obama, wiping away tears and pausing to collect his emotions in an address to the nation, mourned the "beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old" who were killed. "Our hearts are broken today, for the parents, and grandparents, sisters and brothers of these little children and for the families of the adults who were lost," Obama said, his voice cracking. Hundreds of Newtown residents gathered to mourn on Friday night at St. Rose of Lima, the Catholic church just a couple of miles (km) from the school. "(The) important thing is that we're here for the families, and it won't be just tonight. It will be as long as is necessary for them to grieve, for them to come out of their grievance and come back to normal, although I don't see how you can actually come back to normal after something like this," said Kenneth Adams, 81, as he entered the church with his wife, Amelia. Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy and Richard Blumenthal, a U.S. senator from the state, spoke at the service, although the crowd appeared most moved by Monsignor Robert Weiss, who had spent the day at a firehouse consoling victims' families. "Life has changed forever in Newtown," Weiss said. "We have 20 new saints today. We have 20 beautiful angels." The holiday season tragedy was the second shooting rampage in the United States this week and the latest in a series of mass killings this year, and was certain to revive a debate about U.S. gun laws. SHY, INTELLIGENT Two former classmates recalled Lanza as a shy and unusually intelligent student. In Newtown High School, he dressed more formally than other students, often wearing khaki pants, button-down shirts and at times, a pocket protector, said Tim Arnone who first met Lanza at Sandy Hook Elementary. The two of them joined the high school's audio-visual club, also known as a tech club, and spent free periods playing video games at the school's television station studio. "It was definitely the nerdiest club in the school, Arnone, 20, told Reuters. He said Lanza was "driven hard" to succeed academically by his parents, particularly his mother. "She pushed him really hard to be smarter and work harder in school," Arnone said. State police refused to confirm any details about the Lanzas, saying they hoped to have more information on Saturday. The New York Times reported Lanza used a Sig Sauer and a Glock, both handguns, and said police also found at the scene a Bushmaster .223 M4 carbine, a rifle, that they believe belonged to him. His brother, Ryan Lanza, was "either in custody or being questioned," a law enforcement source said. DOZENS OF SHOTS The chaos struck as children gathered in their classrooms for morning sessions at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, a wealthy, wooded suburb of 27,000 in Fairfield County, about 80 miles northeast of New York City. A state police spokesman said the shootings took place in two rooms, which the Hartford Courant described as first-grade classrooms. Witnesses reported hearing dozens of shots; some said as many as 100 rounds. Melissa Murphy, who lives near the school, monitored events on a police scanner. "I kept hearing them call for the mass casualty kit and scream, ‘Send everybody! Send everybody!'" she said. "It doesn't seem like it can be really happening. I feel like I'm in shock." A girl described to NBC Connecticut hearing seven loud "booms" while she was in gym class. Other children began crying and teachers moved the students to an office, she said. "A police officer came in and told us to run outside and so we did," the unidentified girl said on camera. Images from the scene showed children being led away in single file, each child's hands clutching the shoulders of the one in front. Police wearing body armor and carrying rifles swarmed the scene and locked down the school. NBC News reported that police finally began removing the children's bodies from the school late on Friday, more than 12 hours after the shootings, and that parents were being called in to identify them. 'MEANINGFUL ACTION' Obama ordered flags flown at half-staff at U.S. public buildings. "As a country, we have been through this too many times," Obama said, ticking off a list of recent shootings. "We're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics," Obama said in apparent reference to the influence of the National Rifle Association over members of Congress. Obama remains committed to trying to renew a ban on assault weapons, White House spokesman Jay Carney said. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, founder of the advocacy group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, said it was "almost impossible to believe that a mass shooting in a kindergarten class could happen. "We need immediate action. We have heard all the rhetoric before. What we have not seen is leadership - not from the White House and not from Congress," he said. "That must end today." Outside the White House gates, about 200 people rallied on a cold evening in favor of gun restrictions. The toll in Newtown exceeded that of one of the most notorious U.S. school shootings, the 1999 rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, where two teenagers killed 13 students and staff before killing themselves. The United States has seen a number of shooting rampages this year, most recently in Oregon, where a gunman killed two people and then himself at a shopping mall on Tuesday. The deadliest came in July at a midnight screening of a Batman film in Colorado that killed 12 people and wounded 58. In 2007, 32 people were killed at Virginia Tech university in the deadliest act of criminal gun violence in U.S. history. (Additional reporting by Rob Cox, Dan Burns, Chris Kaufman, Edith Honan, Chris Francescani, Peter Rudegeair, Ellen Wulfhorst and Erin Geiger Smith; Writing by Daniel Trotta, Jim Loney and Ben Berkowitz; Editing by Peter Cooney) ========= Connecticut gun rampage: 28 dead, including 20 schoolchildren Fri, Dec 14 20:48 PM EST 1 of 24 By Dan Burns and Chris Kaufman NEWTOWN, Connecticut (Reuters) - Twenty schoolchildren were slaughtered by a heavily armed gunman who opened fire at a suburban elementary school in Connecticut on Friday, killing at least 27 people including himself in the one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history. The 20-year-old gunman, who law enforcement sources identified as Adam Lanza, fired what witnesses described as dozens of shots at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which serves children from ages 5 to 10. Authorities found 18 children and seven adults, including the gunman, dead at the school, and two children were pronounced dead later after being taken to a hospital. Another adult was found dead at a related crime scene in Newtown, bringing the toll to 28, state police Lieutenant Paul Vance said. As reports of the shooting spread, panicked parents rushed to the school searching for their children as students covered in blood were being carried out of the building. President Barack Obama, wiping away tears and pausing to collect his emotions in an address to the nation, mourned the "beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old" who were killed. "Our hearts are broken today, for the parents, and grandparents, sisters and brothers of these little children and for the families of the adults who were lost," Obama said, his voice cracking. "Our hearts are broken for the parents of the survivors as well, for as blessed as they are to have their children home tonight, they know that their children's innocence has been torn away from them too early and there are no words that will ease their pain," said Obama, who has two young daughters. "Evil visited this community today," Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy told reporters. The New York Times reported that the gunman walked into a classroom where his mother was a teacher, shot his mother and then 20 students, most in the same classroom, before shooting five other adults and killing himself. One other person was shot at the school and survived, the Times said. Other media reports said the gunman's mother was found dead at a house nearby. Adam Lanza's brother, Ryan Lanza, was "either in custody or being questioned," a law enforcement source said. The gunman was dead inside the school, Vance said. The Times reported he used a Sig Sauer and a Glock, both handguns, and said police also found at the scene a Bushmaster .223 M4 carbine, a rifle, that they believe belonged to him. The holiday season tragedy was the second shooting rampage in the United States this week and the latest in a series of mass killings this year, and was certain to revive a debate about U.S. gun laws. POLICE, PARENTS SWARM SCHOOL Chaos struck as children gathered in their classrooms for morning meetings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, a wealthy, wooded suburb of 27,000 in Fairfield County, about 80 miles northeast of New York City. Images from the scene showed children being led away in single file, each child's hands clutching the shoulders of the one in front. Police wearing body armor and carrying rifles swarmed the scene and locked down the school. Distraught parents converged, frantically searching for their daughters and sons. Neighbors and friends wandered in shock, looking for information. "We can't believe this," said Kinga Walsh, 47, a mother of four who was Christmas shopping when she heard there had been a shooting at the school. "Newtown is a quiet, nice place. It's a small, tight-knit community." Nearly 12 hours later, the bodies of the dead children, adults and gunman remained in the school awaiting identification. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> Obama ordered flags flown at half-staff at U.S. public buildings. "As a country, we have been through this too many times," Obama said, ticking off a list of recent shootings. "We're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics," Obama said in apparent reference to the influence of the National Rifle Association over members of Congress. Obama remains committed to trying to renew a ban on assault weapons, White House spokesman Jay Carney said. The Connecticut shootings appear certain to trigger renewed debate over U.S. gun laws. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, founder of the advocacy group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, said it was "almost impossible to believe that a mass shooting in a kindergarten class could happen. "We need immediate action. We have heard all the rhetoric before. What we have not seen is leadership - not from the White House and not from Congress," he said. "That must end today." Outside the White House gates, about 200 people rallied on a cold evening in favor of gun restrictions. French President Francois Hollande, in an open letter to Obama, said he was "horrified" by the shootings. British Prime Minister David Cameron said, "It is heartbreaking to think of those who have had their children robbed from them at such a young age, when they had so much life ahead of them." U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed his condolences and called the targeting of children "heinous and unthinkable." BLOODIED CHILDREN LEAVE SCHOOL Vance said the shootings took place in two rooms of Sandy Hook Elementary. Witnesses reported hearing dozens of shots; some said as many as 100 rounds. "It was horrendous," said parent Brenda Lebinski, who rushed to the school where her daughter is in the third grade. "Everyone was in hysterics - parents, students. There were kids coming out of the school bloodied." Lebinski said a mother who was at the school during the shooting told her a "masked man" entered the principal's office and may have shot the principal. Melissa Murphy, who lives near the school, monitored events on a police scanner. "I kept hearing them call for the mass casualty kit and scream, ‘Send everybody! Send everybody!'" she said. "It doesn't seem like it can be really happening. I feel like I'm in shock." The toll exceeded that of one of the most notorious U.S. school shootings, the 1999 rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, where two teenagers killed 13 students and staff before killing themselves. A girl described to NBC Connecticut hearing seven loud "booms" while she was in gym class. Other children began crying and teachers moved the students to an office, she said. "A police officer came in and told us to run outside and so we did," the unidentified girl said on camera. The United States has seen a number of shooting rampages this year, most recently in Oregon, where a gunman killed two people and then himself at a shopping mall on Tuesday. The deadliest came in July at a midnight screening of a Batman film in Colorado that killed 12 people and wounded 58. In 2007, 32 people were killed at Virginia Tech university in the deadliest act of criminal gun violence in U.S. history. (Additional reporting by Hilary Russ, Edith Honan, Chris Francescani, Peter Rudegeair, Ellen Wulfhorst, David Gregorio and Erin Geiger Smith; Writing by Daniel Trotta and Jim Loney; Editing by Peter Cooney) ============= Fri, Dec 14 12:49 PM EST 1 of 2 By Chris Kaufman NEWTOWN, Connecticut (Reuters) - At least 27 people, including children, were killed on Friday when at least one shooter opened fire at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, CBS News reported, citing unnamed officials. The shooter, the father of a student there, was also killed, CBS News reported. The principal and school psychologist were among the dead, CNN said. There were unconfirmed reports of a second shooter after witnesses reported hearing dozens of shots fired. Sandy Hook Elementary School teaches children from kindergarten through fourth grade - roughly ages 5 to 10. "It was horrendous," said parent Brenda Lebinski, who rushed to the school where her daughter is in the third grade. "Everyone was in hysterics - parents, students. There were kids coming out of the school bloodied. I don't know if they were shot, but they were bloodied." Television images showed police and ambulances at the scene, and parents rushing toward the school. Parents were seen reuniting with their children and taking them home. (Additional reporting by Dan Burns, Chris Francescani and Paul Thomasch; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Jackie Frank) =========== 'Another day, another horrific shooting': Tragic timeline of the worst US massacres Get short URL email story to a friendprint version Published: 15 December, 2012, 02:25 TAGS: Arms, Children, USA The families of victims grieve near Sandy Hook Elementary School, where a gunman opened fire on school children and staff in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012 (Reuters / Adrees Latif) A bloody massacre inside of a Newtown, Connecticut elementary school Friday morning has entered the record books as one of the worst mass shootings in the history of the United States. Authorities say a gunman murdered more than two dozen people, mostly children, inside Sandy Hook Elementary School early Friday. In all, state police say at least 27 people, including the shooter, died as a result of the gunfire. The shooter’s mother, Sandy Hook kindergarten teacher Nancy Lanza, has been confirmed by the authorities as one of six adults killed during the rampage that claimed the lives of 20 children. Friday afternoon, State Police Lieutenant J. Paul Vance announced that one adult was also found deceased at a secondary crime scene, bringing the total number of fatalities to 28 by midday. Compared with statistics for similar incidents, the Newtown rampage has become the second-deadliest school shooting in US history and one of the worst crimes of its kind the country has ever seen. Sadly, it is not an isolated incident. Friday’s massacre in Newtown is but a single example of what the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence says happens all too regularly. According to the organization, the United States has seen around 20 mass shootings every year since 2005. “Another day, another horrific shooting eating away at our collective peace of mind,” Brady President Dan Gross wrote on the group’s Facebook on Friday. “We are better than this this. What matters is not what we do after the sensational tragedies. It's what we do between them – to make the voice of the American public heard.” Aurora, Colorado, July 20, 2012 Suspect James Holmes opened fire during an opening-night screening of The Dark Night Rises, killing 12 people and injuring dozens of others in what US President Barack Obama called a “horrific and tragic” event. Tucson, Arizona, January 8, 2011 A schizophrenic person killed six people and injured more than a dozen others, including a congressional lawmaker, outside of a supermarket. Jared Lee Loughner has been sentenced to life in prison for an act that almost killed Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) Fort Hood, Texas, November 5, 2009 U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan is alleged to have killed 13 people after he went on a shooting spree at the busy US military base in the Lone Star State. He faces dozens of charges and could be sentenced to death if convicted during a court-martial. Virginia Tech, April 16, 2007 Still the most deadly school shooting in US history: Student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people using a Glock 19 and a Walther P22 firearm before committing suicide. Friday’s massacre in Connecticut is the second-worst in US history behind Virginia Tech. Littleton, Colorado, April 20, 1999: Students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 classmates and then themselves inside of Columbine High School. Until Virginia Tech nearly a decade later, it was the worst school shooting in the country’s history aside from the notorious 1966 massacre waged from University of Texas clock tower. ===================== 7 Unhinged Right-Wing Responses to Connecticut Massacre Before the official count of the dead in the Sandy Hook massacre was released, right-wingers bitterly promoted their guns and religion as the solution. December 16, 2012 | This article has been updated. Before the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School took place, two things were predictable: •that another mass killing was inevitable, given the increase in their frequency over the past year, and the fact that no measures had been taken to prevent them •that right-wingers would see in such a dreadful event an opportunity to promote their paranoid vision of a perfect America as one where every citizen is armed to the teeth, and trembling in awe of their vengeful God The bodies of the 27 people -- most of them children between the ages of six and seven -- killed by Adam Lanza on Friday, December 14, had yet to be returned to their families when the right-wing noise machine went into gear, blaming public education and a purported dearth of firearms for the tragedy. Yet, even as right-wing pundits continued to name gun control as a reason that the killer took so many lives, producers at NBC's Meet the Press were unable to get a single pro-gun senator to appear on the show the Sunday after the tragedy. All 31 gun-loving senators who will have seats in the new Congress were invited, according to executive producer Betsy Fischer Martin. Here we offer seven examples of the stunning lack of compassion and twisted logic expressed by right-wing leaders in response to a slaughter of children by the son of a gun enthusiast. 1. Ann Coulter: Everybody should carry a concealed firearm. The killings took place in the morning, and by 11:07 a.m., Ann Coulter, the publicity seeker whose big, bad mouth gives the little black dress a bad name, was touting concealed-carry laws as the answer to America's massacre problem. Coulter's first tweet on the subject came so soon after the killings, that there was no definitive count yet of the number of people who had perished: Ann Coulter@AnnCoulter Only one policy has ever been shown to deter mass murder: concealed-carry laws. - bit.ly/VGDNBo 15 Dec 12 Well, that seemed to do the trick for a woman who never found a tragedy she couldn't exploit, for by 11:30, she tweeted this: Ann Coulter@AnnCoulter I'm on Hannity radio today, talking about the 1 public policy that provably reduces the incidence of, and deaths from, mass shootings. 15 Dec 12 And that, boys and girls, is how to work the Twitter machine for self-promotion on the backs of slaughtered children. It's not the first time that Coulter has expressed her love for guns in the wake of murder. At a Florida church in 2007, I heard Coulter describe the assassination of doctors who performed abortions as "a procedure with a rifle performed on them." [h/t The New Civil Rights Movement] 2. Mike Huckabee: Massacre the result of church-state separation. Apparently, former Arkansas governor and pastor Mike Huckabee thinks that if only the Constitution had been rewritten to allow for the mandatory worship of his God in public schools, the massacre would not have happened. It's unclear from Huckabee's remarks, made on the Fox News Channel's Your World show (Huckabee also has his own show on the cable channel), whether he was saying that if only killer Adam Lanza had gotten religion during his public school education, he wouldn't have killed, or if Huckabee was suggesting that God was punishing a public school for not allowing organized worship in the classroom. "We ask why there is violence in our schools but we have systematically removed God from our schools," Huckabee told host Neil Cavuto. "Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?" Media Matters has the clip. 3. Bryan Fischer: God let massacre happen in public school because he's not wanted there. The noxious radio-show host and spokesperson for the anti-gay hate group known as the American Family Association, put the blame for the massacre squarely on the Supreme Court, which outlawed organized public school prayer in 1962, as seen in this clip captured by Right Wing Watch. "I think God would say to us, 'Hey, I'd be glad to protect your children, but you've got to invite me back into your world first,'" Fischer told his listeners. "'I'm not gonna go where I'm not wanted; I am a gentleman.'" Fischer continued in his imagined voice of God. So much of a gentleman is Fischer's God that the Almighty would await an invitation before rushing in to protect 20 children from being gunned down. Thank goodness the police and firefighters who responded were so terribly rude. 4. Steve Deace: Killings caused by widespread child-murder by parents and a school assignment in France. The right-wing radio talker took to his Facebook page the day of the shootings to attribute them to a "culture of death" for which he used, as evidence, deceptively packaged examples, including "asking kids to write suicide notes in schools" and "allowing and subsidizing parents killing 4,000 of their own children each day." I Googled "suicide note school assignment" and found one example -- in France. Since Deace had published a blog post about the French story on his Web site, it's safe to assume that's what he was referencing, and it's difficult to see the impact that would have had on a killer who attended school in Connectict. For Deace's assertion of 4,000 killings of children by their parents per day, we could find no evidence. The radio personality also claimed that children are taught that "there is no God, and thus their lives have no real purpose." Right Wing Watch has the report. 5. Glenn Beck: Killings caused by soul problems. Taking to his Twitter stream, Glenn Beck was quick to tweet, at 12:24 p.m.: "Our communities are suffering and it is because of the ever expanding lack of self control & personal responsibility." Tweeter Val Farrelly replied: "It's nothing to do with self control and everything to do with a lack of gun control." Another Beck gem about the shootings: Glenn Beck✔ @glennbeck It is not the gun. It is the soul. 15 Dec 12 6. Larry Pratt: Making schools gun-free zones caused the problem. The executive director of Gun Owners of America, a far-right group allied with the militia movement, makes a leap of logic by claiming that because the massacre happened in an school designated as a "gun-free zone," that the absence of guns in Sandy Hook Elementary School must have caused the problem. Despite the fact that Pratt once addressed a group of white supremacists and advocated for the creation of militias in the U.S. based on the model of anti-communist Guatemalan death squads, the USA Today Web site gave Pratt a big megaphone to its millions of unique viewers (23 million in May 2011, according to the company's media kit), the day after the Sandy Hook tragedy, in the opinion section of the site. There, Pratt asserts: Hopefully, the Connecticut tragedy will be the tipping point after which a rising chorus of Americans will demand elimination of the gun-free zone laws that are in fact criminal-safe zones. One measure of insanity is repeating the same failure time after time, hoping that the next time the failure will turn out to be a success. Gun-free zones are a lethal insanity. As AlterNet reported in 2010, Pratt told a rally of gun owners at the Washington Monument that the Oklahoma City bombing was but a battle in a war between the citizens and the government. (He cited the assault on David Koresh's compound by federal law enforcement in Waco, Texas, as evidence of a purported war on citizens by the government. As we reported in April 2010, Pratt continued his rally speech, saying: We're in a war. The other side knows they're at war, because they started it. They're comin' for our freedom, for our money, for our kids, for our property. They're comin' for everything because they're a bunch of socialists. Shame on USA Today for publishing Pratt as some kind of expert. Guess they couldn't find a Ku Klux Klan official. 7. Louie Gohmert: If only Sandy Hook principal had an assault rifle, everyone would have been saved. Speaking to host Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, the Republican congressman from Texas let loose with this, as transcribed by the Huffington Post: "Chris, I wish to God she had had an M4 in her office, locked up so when she heard gunfire, she pulls it out ... and takes him out and takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids," Gohmert said. The M4 is the rifle favored by the U.S. military; you can view its specs on the site of its manufacturer, Colt. Yeah, that'll fix everything. This article has been corrected. The category of gun represented by the M4 was originally misidentified; it is an assault rifle. Adele M. Stan is AlterNet's Washington correspondent. She co-edited, with Don Hazen, the AlterNet book, Dangerous Brew: Exposing the Tea Party's Agenda to Take Over America. Follow her on Twitter: www.twitter.com/addiestan . Send tips to: adele@alternet.org ======================== NRA wants armed guards in schools Fri, Dec 21 13:23 PM EST 1 of 18 By Patricia Zengerle and Dan Burns and Edith Honan WASHINGTON/NEWTOWN, Connecticut (Reuters) - The powerful U.S. gun rights lobby went on the offensive on Friday arguing that schools should have armed guards, on a day that Americans remembered the victims of the Newtown, Connecticut school massacre with a moment of silence. Speaking in Washington, LaPierre urged lawmakers to station armed police officers in all schools by the time students return from the Christmas break in January. LaPierre did not take questions from reporters. Earlier on Friday, church bells rang out in tree-lined suburban Newtown and up and down the East Coast at 9:30 a.m. EST in memory of the victims of the attack on December 14 in which 28 people, including the gunman, were killed.

"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," said Wayne LaPierre, chief executive of the National Rifle Association, noting that banks and airports are patrolled by armed guards, while schools typically are not. His remarks - in which he charged that the news media and violent video games shared blame for the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history - were twice interrupted by protesters who unfurled signs and shouted "stop the killing." LaPierre's comments came at the end of a week when President Barack Obama commissioned a new White House task force to find a way to quell violence, a challenge in a nation with a strong culture of individual gun ownership. "We have to have a comprehensive way in which to respond to the mass murder of our children that we saw in Connecticut," Vice President Joe Biden, who heads the task force, said on Thursday.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms and hundreds of millions of weapons are in private hands. About 11,100 Americans died in gun-related killings in 2011, not including suicides, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some U.S. lawmakers called for swift passage of an assault weapons ban. Some Newtown residents have already launched an effort aimed at tightening rules on gun ownership.

"What I feel is a sense of guilt because I've been a strong advocate of gun control for years," said John Dewees, 61, who was in downtown Newtown, where a makeshift memorial rose several feet around two Christmas trees with teddy bears and flower bouquets. "I wish I'd been more vocal. You wonder, had we all been, could we have averted this?"

SHATTERED ILLUSION OF SAFETY The attack, which killed 20 first graders ages 6 and 7, shattered the illusion of safety in this close-knit town of 27,000 people where many residents knew someone affected by the attacks. "There's just so many connections," said Jay Petrusaitis, whose son was in the same high school class as the gunman. Churches as far south as Florida and at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., rang their bells. Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy had called for residents of his state to observe the moment of silence to mark a week since a 20-year-old gunman killed his mother and then stormed Sandy Hook Elementary School. He killed a total of 28 people that day, including six school teachers and staff in a rampage that ended when he turned his gun on himself. Governors in Maine, Illinois, Michigan and several other states also called for moments of silence. The gunman, Adam Lanza, used a military-style assault rifle and police said he carried hundreds of bullets in high-capacity magazines, as well as two handguns. The weapons were legally purchased and registered to his mother, Nancy, his first victim. (Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Will Dunham and Vicki Allen) ============== Arizona sheriff plans to form armed posse for schools Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio Fri Dec 28, 2012 5:15PM GMT 0 3 1 Related Interviews: 'Drugs generate violence in US society' ‘American militarism promotes violence’ Related Viewpoints: Moral decline triggers US mass killings A sheriff in the US state of Arizona says he is planning to form an armed volunteer posse to protect students from a repeat of the mass shooting in Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary school. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said on Thursday that he did not plan to put posse members inside schools but to post them around the perimeters. Arpaio announced his plan after two other Arizona officials revealed ideas for boosting school security. In a statement released on December 26, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne proposed a plan to train and arm one administrator or teacher in each school as a way to prevent shooting incidents. Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu also proposed training multiple educators per school to carry guns. There have been several deadly shootings across the United States over the past few weeks, putting the issue of lax gun control laws back in the spotlight again. On December 14, twenty children and six adults were fatally shot by a gunman - who later killed himself - at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown in the US state of Connecticut. The assailant had killed his mother earlier in the day. In a shooting incident a week later, four people, including the shooter, were killed in the state of Pennsylvania. A number of police officers were reportedly injured during the fire exchange. More than 100,000 Americans have signed an online petition to the White House, dubbed “We the People,” asking the President Barack Obama administration for a renewed national debate on gun control.