Authorities fear Las Vegas shooter used fully automatic machine gun
The rapid gunfire in Sunday night’s attack in Las Vegas sounded to many like a machine gun, adding a horrifying element to what have become all-too-frequent mass shootings in America.
Authorities said Monday evening that they had recovered 23 firearms the shooter had stockpiled in his hotel room, using them to rain death upon a country music festival on the ground outside the Mandalay Bay casino. Another 19 weapons were recovered from the Mesquite, Nevada, home of Stephen Craig Paddock.
Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said some of the weapons — ranging in caliber from the .223 associated with AR-15 style rifle to .308 associated with heavier tactical arms — appeared to have been mechanically converted to full automatic fire, though he said he wasn’t yet certain.
“The ATF hasn’t evaluated them yet. But I don’t know if the [firing] pins have been filed or converted to fully automatic,” Sheriff Lombardo told reporters in Las Vegas.
If he used a fully automatic weapon, it would be a first for mass shootings in modern American history.
If Paddock used other legal after-market adaptions, it would raise all sorts of questions about the firepower available to citizens. Such mechanical retooling, although not difficult to accomplish, is illegal.
