Vegas massacre dead and 515 wounded

FORMER Australian Prime Minister John Howard has re-entered the US gun debate, declaring it is “incontestable” gun-related homicides fell significantly after he introduced strict laws following the Port Arthur massacre.

Speaking on CBS’ Sunday Morning TV news program, Mr Howard said he was compelled to act after 35 people were gunned down at the Tasmanian historical site in 1996.

“It is incontestable that gun-related homicides have fallen quite significantly in Australia, incontestable,” Mr Howard said. “I mean, if you had 13 mass shootings before Port Arthur and you had none since, isn’t that evidence?

“And you had a 74 per cent fall in the gun-related suicide rates, isn’t that evidence? Or are we expected to believe that was all magically going to happen? Come on.”

“People used to say to me, ‘You violated my human rights by taking away my gun’,” Mr Howard, who is regularly called upon by the US media to explain Australia’s gun laws, said.

“And I’d (say), ‘I understand that. Will you please understand the argument, the greatest human right of all is to live a safe life without fear of random murder’.”

CBS also interviewed pro-gun Australian senator David Leyonhjelm, Australian lawyer and wine-maker Greg Melick and Port Arthur survivor Carolyn Loughton, who lost her 15-year-old daughter Sarah in the massacre.

“I don’t think there’s any relationship between the availability of guns and the level of violence,” Mr Leyonhjelm said.

Asked if Australia could provide a lesson to the US, Ms Loughton replied: “I am loath to comment, but my question is, ‘How is it going for you over there?’.”
The most startling interview for Americans was probably Mr Melick who is pro-gun, but agreed with the strict laws that took some of his high-powered guns away and forced him to lock up his weapons in different safes on his rural Australian property.

Mr Melick said he views gun ownership as a privilege, not a right.

“It’s just bizarre the number of people getting killed in the United States and you have these ridiculous arguments: ‘Well, people carry guns so they can defend themselves’,” Mr Melick told CBS journalist Seth Doane.

The Project's Waleed Aly has given a scathing assessment of US President Donald Trump's response to the Las Vegas shooting massacre, calling the United States "a nation in denial".

"We're all still reeling right now ... But I think what's shocked me most is how familiar this all feels," he told Channel Ten viewers on Tuesday.

"This will happen again. It always does and it always happens the same way and it goes like this: First you have a shooting; you have the chaos; you have a police response to neutralise the situation. And inevitably, you have the world's attention turn to the shooter.

"Here we have a man with no criminal record, no ties to religious or terror groups and as far as his family knows no mental health issues and no military or weapons training.

"And yet, he was a man capable of pulling off a military-grade attack on US soil."

Lone shooter Stephen Paddock peppered 10,000 bullets into the 22,000-strong crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest festival from his Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino room, killing 59 and injuring 527 on Sunday (Monday AEDT).

Paddock was equipped with 22 guns, including two on tripods and two converted into fully automatic machine guns.

Aly said Trump's "act of pure evil" denunciation of what actually appeared, by all accounts, to be a "regular guy" was glossing over the reality.

"The truth is, the thing about this act is not how evil it is, but how incredibly ordinary it's become. And this will happen again."

He said instead of gun reform, the mere talk sends gun-loving Americans flocking to stores so gun sales rise in the US, with the biggest manufacturers "American Outdoor Brands, which used to be called Smith & Wesson, and Sturm, Ruger and company [surging] nearly four per cent since last night's shooting."

"Over the last 50 years, per capita, the number of guns in America has doubled, from one for every two people, to one for every one person," he said.

"There are now more than 300 million guns in the USA."

Aly said US gunmakers produced almost 11 million guns following the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre.

"And so with Americans out today, buying more guns than they were yesterday, what's the NRA got to say? Nothing... because that's what they do every time. After 49 people were gunned down in the Orlando [nightclub shooting] in 2016, the last deadliest mass shooting in US history, they took two days to respond.

"And tomorrow, or the next day, they'll be back at what they always do: lobbying politicians to make sure that absolutely nothing changes.

"That's because the NRA spends more than $3 million every year just on lobbying politicians ... Last year, the NRA reportedly spent $30.3 million dollars in support of Donald Trump."

Earlier today, the White House dismissed talk of gun reform from Hillary Clinton and other political opponents, with press secretary Sarah Huckabee saying: "Today is a day for consoling of survivors and mourning those we lost. There is a time and place for political debate but now is a time to unite as a country."

But for Aly, it was a sign of the lack of action to come.

"That's why instead of even allowing themselves to understand the actual causes of the shooting, we get [Trump saying 'it was an act of pure evil'].

"It's too easy to say that, it's too easy to make this about one person and not a nation in denial, it's too easy to celebrate the brave community response but not decry that there's no brave political one.

"And it's too easy to mourn the victims and choose to do nothing to protect them ... 11,660 people have been killed by guns in the US this year.

"And this will happen again."

Wehe . . . how can we be sure that's really you, Baboon-ou? I mean with all that egg dribbling down your stupid face!

LMAO!