By now, you have undoubtedly heard about the Las Vegas Strip shooting. If you have not, get out from under that rock and listen up. It was a mass shooting that took place at a country music festival on the Strip on October 1, 2017. This is yet another horrifying tragedy in a seemingly endless string of shootings and attacks, but this one is significantly more than that; it is the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States.
Obviously, a large-scale attack like this will capture anyone’s attention. You should wait until you hear the details of the attack. The Route 91 Harvest festival in Las Vegas, Nevada was in full swing and country music singer Jason Aldean had the stage. He was performing his song “When She Says Baby” when gunfire rang out. A man opened fire on the crowd with a rifle through a window of a hotel room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel directly across from the festival.
Unfortunately, the crowd thought the gunfire was the sound of fireworks and several people were easy targets for the shooter. Aldean managed to escape, but the man murdered at least 58 people before committing suicide to avoid police confrontation. This makes it the most devastating mass shooting in U.S. history. The perpetrator of this attack was 64-year-old Stephen Paddock.
His motive for this atrocity is unknown at this time.
I have noticed something peculiar over the past two years. The number of high-profile attacks like the Las Vegas Strip shooting has increased, and United States citizens are becoming more and more frantic. I myself have felt a distinct sense of fear trembling through me, and it is not exactly reassuring when I hear that all I can do is hope for the best.
There is an abundance of changes that need to be put in order. Most notably, gun control regulations.
I am not attempting to push a political agenda; I think it is reasonable to believe that enforcing limited access to dangerous weapons will put the United States on the right track. When I say this, I am not referencing every single gun in existence. I am aware of the Second Amendment in the U.S. Constitution and its right to bear arms, and U.S. citizens can efficiently protect themselves from burglars and other criminals with it.
However, I do believe that we need to restrict access to rifles, assault weapons and the like. Civilians should have no right to wield those weapons unless they are at a gun firing range, because they can kill a sizable number of people in a relatively short amount of time. I think that wielding a handgun is acceptable, but having weapons that breach the safety perimeter is not.
I think there is at least one thing that everyone can agree on: there are too many disasters in this world in the present day. This latest massacre in Las Vegas is only an extension of the terror we are experiencing, and I believe that it will not stop until we decide on a course of action (i.e. gun control laws) to stem the tide.