UPDATE: 2:30 PM 10/2/17: The death toll has risen to 58, with more than 500 injured. Though it was first reported that Paddock was killed by police it now appears he shot himself before the police entered his room. There are still no details as to Paddock’s possible motives. The original post follows.
As I write this, the media is reporting that 50 have been killed and more than 400 others have been injured in a mass shooting at an open-air concert in Las Vegas. Police have identified the shooter as 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, who opened fire on concertgoers from a hotel room in the Mandalay Bay complex overlooking the venue, killing dozens before himself being shot dead by police.
The staggering death toll, which seems sure to rise, makes this the worst mass shooting in American history. At this point we know very little about the shooter or what his motives may have been, but that hasn’t stopped 4Channers and far-right “media” sources from spreading disinformation and conspiracy theories.
We’ll know more soon enough, I assume. In the meantime, here are a few useful tweets I’ve gathered up so far.
A couple of thread on on the disinformation being spread about the shooting by many of the usual suspects.
For easier retrieval, I'm threading together the disinformation I've seen about the #MandalayBay Casino shooting in Las Vegas.
/1/
— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) October 2, 2017
Here Are All The Hoaxes Being Spread About The Las Vegas Shooting #MandalayBay https://t.co/L79J6iLuqU via @BuzzFeedNews pic.twitter.com/l2p9KOt8M7
— Ryan Broderick (@broderick) October 2, 2017
The execrable right-wing Gateway Pundit remains dedicated to getting everything wrong the fastest.
The @gatewaypundit wrote up Geary Danley as the #mandalaybay shooter and then deleted their post. pic.twitter.com/ocXtTOX6rL
— Ryan Broderick (@broderick) October 2, 2017
Other relevant tweets:
https://twitter.com/NivenJ1/status/914795331241484288
This week Congress is deciding to end background checks for silencers. No joke. #opposeSHAREact
— Jillzie 🟧 (@jcindc2002) October 2, 2017
Here is a rundown of Nevada gun laws. It’s lawful to possess a machine gun that is legally registered https://t.co/BjdQm68crz
— Sam Stein (@samstein) October 2, 2017
Just a reminder that it's only been 16 months since the last worst mass shooting in US history. https://t.co/jHQnDy30Lv
— Abigail Nussbaum (@NussbaumAbigail) October 2, 2017
My heart goes out to all those affected by this senseless tragedy. If you’re a WHTM reader who lives in or around Las Vegas, or if you’re visiting there, please let us know how you are doing.
My heart hurts.
Sorry, @PeeVee. I’m tired, too.
Hand squeeze if that’s acceptable.
A GOP coworker told me she’d heard the shooter was antifa. I pointed out antifa isn’t really known for shooting people.
It does whether you would like to admit it or not. You’re not surrounded by American culture every day from when you open your eyes in the morning to when you fall asleep. You don’t see people carrying their guns proudly in the 24hour familt pancake place in a nonchalant way that chills you to the bone. Step the fuck down.
My money is riding on him being a paleo-conservative or an Alex Jones type of libertarian follower. One deeply into anti-semitic conspiracy theories.
Otherwise I don’t see the angle or political motif behind shooting people attending a country music concert, which would most likely be attended by conservatives.
Americans should certainy should not end access to firearms, since the second amedment allows it. If you circumvent the parts of the bill of rights you do not like, someone will do the same to the part of the bill of rights THEY do not like.
This is why I think “hate speech” laws are unconstituional, since they are in effect the same thing as “counterrevolutinary speech laws” in communist countries or “speech denigrating the german volk” in germany. All such laws mean in effect, “criminalize speech I dislike”, and what is criminalized depends solely on what who is in power likes., which means there is no free speech.
But just like the first amendment does not give anybody the right to own a newspaper priting press in their home at public expense, I fail to see why the second amendment means one can have assault weapons. After all, you are not allowed to own a tank or an Atomic bomb. It was established long ago that it is not a violation of the second amendment that some weapons are regulated.
Fuck off, Skeptic. Now is NOT the time.
Looks like someone hasn’t actually read the 2nd amendment and doesn’t know the history behind it.
You do realize that we don’t actually have 100% free reign. You can’t call in a bomb threat. You can’t commit perjury. You can’t (technically if not in practice) sexually harass an employee or create a hostile work environment by calling them a racial slur. You can’t make false advertising claims. What’s the difference between that and narrow hate speech laws. I also find it interesting that you have hate speech in scare quotes. Do you think it isn’t a real thing or something?
Of course a gun is a tool. Everyone knows a gun is a tool. Guns are tools. It’s simple. Literally anything we use to do something else easier/impossible to do without said thing is a tool. That is what a tool is.
Tool.
A Thing.
You use thing to do thing.
Now that we have established, to everyones delight and understanding, exactly what pedantically semantic lexicographical context of language we are discoursing in, what is a gun used for.
A gun is a tool.
Tools are used to do things.
A gun does a thing.
What does a gun do.
“A gun fires bullets.”
Okay, well done! So, a gun is a tool which fires a projectile, or “bullet”. Now. What is the goal of firing a bullet?
“Well, to shoot a bullet.”
Okay. So, that makes it a very specific kind of tool we use all the time in this modern day and age, and it is called a toy. Toys are used to produce an effect for the sheer joy of having this effect, sometimes in the process of a game. That’s great, that’s awesome, toys are cool, guns are cool too! I fucking love guns. Lemme tell ya, the number of times I’ve pretended to have one, in a game or just day dreaming, making big booming noises and exploding something downrange. Sometimes just a paper target, even in my imagination (I’ve very rarely actually shot firearms, but it was neat when I did)! Boy-howdy, that’s some good times. Even without the big booms, they’re just fascinating pieces of machinery. There’s a youtube I watch from time to time with this guy, and he just loves all sorts of guns. He researches them, visits auctions where they’re being sold or exposed, fires them, explains their history and mechanisms. There is some amazing things out there, and some goofy shenanigans that can bring only smile to peoples faces. Man, seeing his face when he fired that Barret .50 was something else.
Now, here’s a problem though. That? That was disingenuous, a lot more so and obviously than saying a gun is a just tool. Guns are not toys, toys are harmless, that’s the point. You’re never going to play with Batman and actually kill your parents. A toy which is dangerous is, at the very least, restricted to properly trained and licensed individuals (See, personal airplanes often, motorcycles, hang gliders, scuba gear, etc).
So, lets leave guns being (even very dangerous) toys off for now.
So what is a gun used for?
Fire bullets yes don’t be a smart ass.
Why are you firing bullets.
Why do you require a tool with which to fire bullets from.
“Hunting.”
So it’s a weapon.
“No it’s a hunting tool,”
Yeah, but it’s the tool you use to kill the thing you’re hunting. When you use a tool to kill something, it’s a weapon. Even tools which are not weapons become weapons when used to kill something (And yes sometimes a weapon becomes a tool, like when you club down a door with an AK-47. But then you’re probably wrecking your weapon and now it’s just a club)
It’s not the call, or the musk, or the hide, or the camo. It’s the weapon.
“Defence.”
So it’s a weapon.
You have a choice.
You see the picture of a gun.
You have two words on buttons in front of you.
Which do you press?
“Tool”
or
“Weapon”
Outside of the context of answering “What is an example of a tool used by humans,” when is it a better fit for “Gun” to equal “tool” than “weapon”.
You are presented with a Zweinhander, and the same two buttons.
A longbow.
A great maul.
A cruise missile.
A nuclear bomb.
How is it a better fit for “gun” to equal “tool” than “weapon”? How is it useful, in a conversation about a mass murder more than fifty people, would it be at all a useful point and something worth considering in the conversation that will invariably turn to the causes and possible solutions to this kind of thing, is the perfectly understood nomenclature that all weapons are tools something to bring up.
Everyone knows that weapons are tools. But the only people who will define guns as such in a conversation about their use as a weapon has an agenda, is an asshole, or is just happens to be a tool themselves.
And Kupo says it so much more efficiently than I.
I’m not sure why we have two non-USians splaining US law and culture to us right now. But I know I’m not into it.
I am now just going to stare at the dryer until my clothes are done.
I thought for sure it’d be done by the time I hit post.
We need to call things by their proper names. You call a gun a “gun”, not a “weapon” or a “tool”, for the same reason you call a dog a dog, not a “mammal” or an “animal”. If someone uses the less specific term without a good reason, they likely have something up their sleeve. I 100% agree with that, I just pointed that a gun is literally a tool, just like a dog is an animal.
Skeptic pick another time to your agenda. Tash already explained to you in great detail about the semantics of your argument. Again just stop.
Dreemr,
Definitely accepted.
Thank you.
Diego and Skeptic,
Stop.
There’s one tool that I really love.
It’s called a banhammer. Skeptic is perilously close to having it used on him.
I know this one’s bad enough without borrowing trouble, but I can’t help think that the chats rooms full of disaffected young guys must be currently buzzing over the age of the shooter and resolving that if an older man just set a new record for victims, they’ve just got to try and outdo him, for the sake of their own fragile masculinity…
PeeVee,
Did you mean Ohlmann?
I’m not really seeing what Diego did wrong?
@Skeptic the constitution is a living document which can be ammended if the people see fit to do so. That’s how the second ammendment got in there in the first place; it wasn’t part of the original document.
I’m not necessarily in favor of completely banning access to firearms myself, but to say ‘you can’t because the second ammendment says so’ is nonsensical. If the constitution were a sacred unchanging document, the second ammendment would not exist.
@Skeptic
Up. Shut.
I’ve followed along quietly for a while, but you simply need to stop parroting talking points used in my country to encourage mass proliferation of lethal weapons, and not just lethal weapons but weapons designed for mass lethality. To desensitize people who should know better to their community becoming an objectively more dangerous place to exist.
awright, somebody brought up the 2nd amendment to the U.S. Constitution, so I want to address that….
How does the 2nd Amendment begin? Those of you who answered “A well-regulated militia… , yada, yada…” have never, apparently, been to an American gun shop, gun show, or pawn shop which sells guns, nor, apparently, seen the bumper sticker in the back window of a pickup truck with a gun rack.
The 2nd Amendment begins “…” and continues “Congress shall make no law…”
Neither well-regulated militias, nor defense of free states have any bearing on the American gun culture. It is all about the right to have guns. No, check that… IT IS ALL ABOUT THE HAVING OF GUNS
In this culture, the 2nd Amendment would more appropriately read:
“The existence of Blacks, Muslims, Jews and women being frightening to white men, the ability of white men to arm themselves to wretched excess shall not be regulated.”
Western society glorifies those traits in men. We teach those traits to them as children. Our society seethes with violence. Gender norms, patriarchy, blah blah blah. Preaching to the choir, here.
I’m with you, I don’t buy it either. They can’t take those signs seriously, though, or they’d have to conclude that an enormous chunk of the men in western societies exhibit the signs of violence.
Cars are tools for transporting people and things. We call them cars, not tools.
Ovens are tools for baking and roasting food. We call them ovens, not tools.
Paints are tools for pigmenting surfaces. We call them paints, not tools.
Weapons are tools for killing people. Apparently we have to call them tools, not weapons?
By blunting the word, by classing them in the same category as can openers and collanders, you are concealing their violence.
Stop that. They’re weapons. For violence
I’m sorry if this comes across as aggressive or rude, my duck, but – your personal thoughts or reactions are meaningless here. Unless you can somehow magically appear whenever anyone suggests that tools should be unregulated, unles you can wave your hand and change the meaning of words, your opinion here is meaningless.
What’s important here is what society-in-general thinks. And, semantically, a tool is not dangerous – a tool is useful. Some tools need regulation, but the word “tool” doesn’t relate to those. “Tool” means “hammer-or-screwdriver, and that-class-of-things.”
Guns are weapons. Calling them tools lends them an associative relationship to benign, useful objects that don’t hurt people. That relationship is the exact relationship that the NRA uses to push back against gun control. Stop giving them your f’ing fire.
@Weird Eddie
Actually that’s also the text of the whole amendment if you consider that said militias were often used to quell slave revolts and might have been one of the main impetus behind the amendment so uh
a bit on the nose :v
Yes, WWTH; sorry, Diego.
(Although I do find it speculative that this event was targeted because country music fans are conservative. I have read this theory from alt-righters, and I feel that THESE types of generalizations are basically useless.)
FINE, YA DUMBSHIT, IT’S A FUCKING TOOL!!! WHAT IS IT USED FOR??? IT’S USED FOR KILLING!!! WHAT IS A REMINGTON 700BDL IN 30-06 WITH A SCOPE USED FOR KILLING???? DEER!!!!
WHAT IS AN AR-15 USED FOR KILLING??? PEOPLE!!! NO, DON’T FUCKING EVEN THINK IT… THE AR-15 WAS ORIGINALLY DESIGNED FOR KILLING PEOPLE, IT WAS MARKETED FOR KILLING PEOPLE, AND IT IS BEING USED REPEATEDLY, ALL OVER THE WORLD FOR KILLING PEOPLE. THIS “TOOL” HAS KILLED ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE MORE PEOPLE THAN DEER. IT IS NOT BEING “MISUSED” WHEN IT IS USED TO KILL PEOPLE, IT IS BEING USED EXACTLY AS ITS DESIGNERS INTENDED IT TO BE USED.
IF ONE USES A HAMMER TO DRIVE NAILS, WOULD THE NRA SAY IT IS BEING MISUSED??? I THINK NOT, BUT THEY ARE WAY HAPPY SAYING THE MILITARY-GRADE “HARDWARE USED IN SO MANY MASS SHOOTINGS IS “just being misused….”
FUCK, THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU’RE SAYING!
I think the most that can be ever said, or known, about his specific pick of target is the crowd.
I have a suspicion that in the end, the only thing which mattered is the fact there were a lot of them. Now who they were, or who was playing, just the number and placement.