The Las Vegas Massacre (Bonus Episode)

this is sworn. I'm your host, Philip Holloway. This episode is dedicated to the memory of the lives lost in the October one mass murder in Las Vegas, Nevada. It's also dedicated in honor of the first responders and Seville and heroes who prevented this from being any more terrible than it already was. The uncomfortable truth is that mass

murder has been around as long as human kind. We'll explore the question of whether anything could have been done to prevent this tragedy in Las Vegas, while we also explore and break down the Second Amendment and what the Supreme Court has told us that the Second Amendment means. Joy six nine. We got shots fired for day and bringing any one. So I'm like, I'm out a fire up because that when you signed dammy shop, I'll start generally me. I'll play off like a shot gun. I'll

play up Drols. We have a we have an acre room, brave and the whole ward got the audience of the thirty sickond floors. One has explosive breach everyone and know how I need to lose it back. All units move back. We need the air flare for Debra. Twenty one suspicked down inside the room. Twenty one s picked down inside

the room. There's one down, thirty sick animal day. On the night of October one, America experienced an unspeakable tragedy, the largest mass shooting in modern US history and the most fatal attack on our soil since September eleven, two thousand one. A gunman named Stephen Paddock opened fire on the audience at the Root Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas, Nevada. Our hearts go out to the friends and the families

of any and all of the victims. Our deepest condolences are extended to those who lost their lives and the loved ones they left behind, and our greatest hope is for a swift and full recovery for everyone who was injured. Up to this date, the US mass shooting with the most fatalities was in Orlando, Florida, at the Pulse nightclub in June of The shooter in that case was Omar Matene, who killed forty nine people and wounded fifty eight at

the least. With mass shootings like the Las Vegas massacre at the forefront of everyone's mind, I'd like to take this opportunity to discuss the topical issues at hand. This tragic incident has brought a lot of attention to the ongoing political discussion of gun control laws and terrorism and what can we do to protect ourselves in situations like this. Of course, this podcast is not a political discussion, and

it's not our intention to make it one. But this is also a real part of the criminal justice system, and so it's relevant and appropriate for us to discuss the issue of mass murder. So to tie this into the greater theme of SWORN, I'll be discussing the issues that have risen in the media since the Las Vegas massacre, and I'll be discussing them through the lens of legality. Would gun control laws helped prevent this situation from occurring? How else would gun control laws affect us as a country.

Why isn't this labeled as domestic terrorism? Some people think that it should be. However, federal law defines terrorism as the use of violence to intimidate or coerce a government or civilians to influence policy. So if this isn't that, then what is it. Here's Sworn producer Meredith Steadman with a more detailed look at the events of the tragedy of October one in Las Vegas. The sadness surrounding the

events of October one has been inescapable. The Las Vegas massacre has permeated our news outlets, as it should given the devastating circumstances. Because there's been such constant coverage, it can be hard to keep the facts straight. We wanted to give you a brief overview of what information has been disclosed. The perpetrator of this massacre was sixty four

year old Stephen Craig Paddock. Paddock, who lived in multiple places throughout the course of his life, was currently a resident of Mesquite, Nevada, about an hour from Las Vegas. He was an accountant and a real estate investor, successful enough to sustain his gambling hobby, which brought him to Las Vegas fairly often. Paddock suggested that his girlfriend Mary Lou Danley go to the Philippines two weeks before the incident occurred. He bought her a plane ticket and later

wired her a thousand dollars. She said she had no knowledge of his plans or of any mental health issues that he may have been struggling with. Paddock's brother, Eric Paddock, said the same. The massacre began just after ten pm on Sunday night. From his room on the thirty second floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort. Paddock opened fired into the crowd at the Root Harvest Music Festival during the set of country singer Jason al Dean. Paddock has smashed out the window of his hotel room with a hammer.

Prior to shooting, Paddock placed cameras in and around his room, one in the people in, two in the hallway to monitor the hallways for security personnel. He had twenty three rifles in the hotel room and one handgun. Twelve of the firearms were altered with bump fire stocks, which allow semi automatic rifles to function as fully automatic weapons. After a search was conducted, nineteen more firearms were found in Paddock's home, along with explosives in severn a thousand rounds

of ammunition. Ammonium nitrate, often used in homemade explosives, was found in the trunk of his car. Paddock was found dead in his room with a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head. His motive is still undetermined. People were killed in this incident, with over five dred injured. This is now the largest mass shooting in modern UN's history, surpassing the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. Good afternoon, is this Dr Wilki, Good after day and how are you today?

Doing great? How are you sir? Well? I think all things are fine, looking forward to a nice week in the weather. Would you mind starting by letting us know just a little bit about who you are and identifying

yourself please? I served in the Atlanta area as the chief of police of the City of Aca George up in cop County for right at ten years twenty five years total in the law enforcement field, before retiring six years ago to go on exactly at Bob Jens University I've be in Greenville, South Carolina about James Is as a Christian College, and I teach in our criminal justice section, graduate the FBI National Academy, hold a doctoral degree in

public administration from Baldosta State University. For most of my time as a as a law enforcement officer, I also served as a police firearms instructor. How long have you been teaching firearms? How many years total teaching firearms? Probably somewhere in excess of twenty five years, and in terms of handling films, something excess of fifty years. Does that include what's commonly referred to as assault rifles as well, that misnomer that is given to platforms such as the

a R fifteen. Yes, I do handle those firearms and have shot them and have instructed in them. How about fully automatic weapons? I'm not certified and fully automatic weapons handled a number of them, both in the civilian law enforcement in the military context. I'm not actually certified to teach that particular file. So we want to talk about

what happened in Las Vegas. I'm sure you've been following the news, and one of the topics that I want to talk about first is go back and explain why you said the term assault rifle is a misnomer place that term is applied to some way that we've made in funt arms such as the ALE fifteen, the a K four seven similar firearms like that that are long rifles that have a magazine capacity, usually in excess of

ten rounds in the magazine. That's worthing. The term assault rifle really essentially showed about nowhere as far as I'm concerned, is a essentially a media term that has been handled and given to a number of different firms platforms such as the a R fifteen, a K forty seven, and other rifles that will handle magazines that have capacity of more than ten rounds or so your average hunting rifle magazine on the hulls somewhere around three to five rounds,

depending on what the state allows for hunting purposes. Pretty much anything over that, the media has just started calling them assault lines, which is I don't think really an appropriate term now. As a civilian and as a firearms instructor and as an advocate frankly for the Second Amendment, I think that there's the question that if you begin to limit the types of access that civilians in this country can have to firearms to an a K forty seven.

That's the camel sticking its nose under the proverbial tent. And you just have a whole population that just does not trust where the government will stop on that sort of thing. And I think that the answer is not to go after the gun. The answer is to go

after the violin. And if you have people in this country who commit crimes while they are armed, that's where our most serious penalties need to be, and to take people, put them in jail and leave them in jail if they committed a crime and had a firearm on their person. In the middle nineteen nineties, we began incarcerating people seriously in this country who had committed serious felts and we took them out of the pool of being able to

commit additional crimes. And since the middle nineteen nineties, across the country, violent crime has plummeted because we are taking the repeat offenders out of circulation. They couldn't do their crimes anymore. We put them in jail, We put them in a place where they cannot harm people. In South Carolina alone, since ninet, violent crime has dropped over and that statistic is fairly well mirrored across the country. That

gives us a pretty good answer right there. Take the people who couldmit gun crime, put them in jail, and leave them in jail. And I commented to this group that to date to that day, a couple of weeks ago, the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando ranked as the highest mass shooting that we had in the United States. But I told that as I said, but don't worry. There's someone out there right now who was thinking about the Fulse nightclub shooting and saying to themselves, I'm going to

go set the new record and long behold. Two weeks or so after I made that statement, someone comes along and does what this individual did and killing all of those people. When the Second Amendment was drafted and adopted, basically they were dealing with muskets, and obviously an air fifteen is much more powerful than a musket. So back in that day, you know, if they wanted to, they could afford one. They could own a cannon out in the backyard instead of shooting skip that's our cannonballs if

they wanted to. I'm saying that someone is just, but I'm also seeing it to make a point exactly what the militaries have in terms of their firepower and their weapons. This is exactly what the civilians were entitled to have under the Second Amendment. It would be not that difficult to take a semi automatic firearm of any nature and

converted into an automatic firearm. It would not be that terribly difficult to do that with anything, which when you stop and think about that, if that's what happened, and I don't know that that's what happened, all the details not at yet, but if that's what happened with demand few is responsible for shooting all those people in Las Vegas, then he already demonstrated going to break the law to do what he did. What law can we pass that

would have stopped that? Well? As us needed. The District of Columbia as a model policy and model city ordinance that prevents the distribution and ownership firearms and restricts them and so forth. And that's why the District of Columbia has one of the lowest Oh wait a minute, no, it don't. The District of Columbia, even with their stringent laws that were founded in a constitutional has one of the highest NERD routes for Capola in the country, so

let's go out to it. How about the city of Chicago. They have some pretty good ordinance there. They're restrictive on gun possession and ship and that's why they have some of the lowest crime rates and the nerd Wait, wait, no, they don't. They have some of the highest actions of gun violence and murder in the country. I'm not sure that we can come up with the law because of those that we have on the bucks have not been

factored in deterring gun violence. And that's why I'm contending, you know, the focus ought to be on the offender, not on the firelar. You do any kind of crime with a gun, then you have demonstrated a willingness to use that gun and kill somebody. The mere fact that you have it with you when you're committing a crime shows that you're willing to use it. Maybe you didn't use it when you robbed that bank. Maybe you can't

shoot anybody, but you had it with you. And you know why, as a society, we are not going to give you that chance again. We're gonna take you and put you in jail, put the rest of your natural life. What would you advise people to do in the event of an active shooter if they find themselves, you know,

in a situation like we saw in Las Vegas. There are a number of different training systems that are out there, but most of them come down around three fundamental things that an individual should do if they find themselves subject to an active shooter. And the number one thing that is recommended by in the training systems and I think by law enforcement as well, this is on the FBI website, is to run, at the minimum, create a moving target. It's hard hit one that is moving than it is

to quiet wom that is just simply standing there. But get out of there, run as fast as you can and remove yourself from the scene. That's the number one recommendation from all circles. Secondly, if you cannot run, perhaps the shooter is somehow between you and you and an egress from the building, your point of exit from the building.

If you cannot run, then you hide, hide under something, Barricade yourself in a room, lock the doors, turn out the lights, get furniture in front of the door, making yourself as a flat on the floor as you can't, and be absolutely silent and hide because maybe as the shooter moves to the building looking for victims. Maybe he'll miss you because you are well hidden. But then failing that you can't run and you can't hide, or perhaps

the shoot find you. Your last option is to fight, and by fighting, that means you offer everything you've got to try to stop that shooter from killing you or injuring you or someone else. At that point, it's your life against the life of the person who's a sailing and you throw everything you possibly have at that individual

to stop them. If you happen to be an armed citizen, you know, someone who is authorized by your perspective state to carry your fireing on your person, if you have the opportunity to engage that individual with that firearm, then you would certainly do so to try to protect yourself

and others. That's not something you want to do in the middle of your church congregation with six hundred people standing around, or as Philip and I've talked about in the past, and you know, maybe crowded movie theaters or places like that, that just limits your options because you cannot go shooting in there, you know, and take a chance on on missing and hitting an innocent person. You fight for your life because your life is on the line.

You cannot legislate evil into non existence. Let's be clear about one thing. Sworn is not a political podcast, but we cannot forget that there are lots of people whose opinions differ from Mike Wilkis. On the other side of his argument. There are also those who believe that gun restriction is truly the only way to see a definitive decrease in these tragedies. For a differing viewpoint, we talked to Antoine Seawright, a Democratic strategist who, like Mike Wilkie,

is from South Carolina. So just to give your background, I'm a political consultant and one of my clients was killed in a church two years ago here in South Carolina is the state Senator Clemente Pinkney. And I don't know if you remember when Dylan Ruth, the white terrorists who killed nine people in the church here in South Carolina. Clemented the past of the church was my client. It's

a simple thing we called the Charleston loophole. His background check in the time period did not come back, but they still sold him the gun. And so had there been a law in place that says, look if the background check does not come back within three days, then you can't purchase a gun. Then perhaps he never would have been able to have a gun to shoot nine people. So my name is Antoine ce Right. I own a public relations, advertising and political strategy firm called Blueprint Strategy,

is based here in Columbia, South Carolina. I've done from a pain perspective. I've probably been involved in well over a hundred and fifty campaigns and well over a hundred ballot initiatives represent a number of political entities as well as elected officials, from members of you guys Congress on down to dog Catcher. I also am on Fox News on occasion to provide some political commentary, and I have

a radio show. Can we just go straight into it and have you explained to us your standpoint on gun control us. Well, first of all, let me just say my thoughts and prayers are with the families and the community of Las Vegas, because when one of our brothers and sisters in this country are hurting or have feel some sort of pain, I think we all hurt. And

it's very tragic. What happened one of the largest killings on record, and I call the massacre is very unfortunate that the person who shot and kill these people and injured so many others has not been labeled as a domestic terrorist. There's another shooting, and here we are having another conversation about gun laws. Yet some of my Republican friends and Republican leaders say, as soon as these things happened,

not the time. Well we've had almost a week now in between the incident and we still have not had a legislative conversation about gun control laws. And one could argue that, oh, well, we don't need more gun control laws. We just need to pray for our country, or we just need to deal with the people who have been committing these crimes because they have mental issues, and we

can keep making excuses. But the more excuses we make, the more people literally will die on American soul, not by anyone from any country that Mr Trump proposes Muslim band form, but these are homegrown American terrorists. So with Las Vegas specifically, do you think that it could have been prevented? Absolutely, But we have learned so far is that one perhaps change in the law to deal with

bump stocks could have perhaps prevented this is happening. We also spoke with Kim Alfano, a parent and GOP strategist. She told us about a personal experience with a shooting close to her daughter's school. Even as a representative of the Republican Party and their candidates, she believes that there are some modifications that could be made to existing gun laws that might increase everyone's safety. I'm Kim Alfano. I own a political media consulting firm on the Republican side

for twenty seven years now. I also worked in education advocacy and education reform advocacy, criminal justice reform advocacy, and do some types of things like that on the side versus just candidate work and raise my daughter. Speaking of your daughter, could you tell that story and then kind of tied into your thoughts on gun control? When might it was in first grade? It was shortly after Sandy Hook. We lived in downtown Alexandria, Virginia, right outside DC. She

went to an adorable little public school. They were outside playing on playground, and the playground is kind of It's a very pedestrian city. It's not, you know, like being in downtown New York. But it's also not like being in the suburbs where the schools are kind of off

in a field. There are people walking by at all times and cars and things, and their playgrounds sort of fenced in by three sides, and the kindergarten and first graders were all out on the playground at that moment, and she happened to be back by the back part of the fence that sort of faced the neighborhood street and was playing on the swings and there was a guy who had committed some crimes and was I guess

he was walking through the streets of Alexandria. Basically officer little boy whose children had gone to Belas School, so he was very familiar to the kids at the school. He happened to pull this guy over and he walked up to the car. He didn't realize this guy had committed a crime. He wasn't looking for him. I think he pulled him over for a traffic violation and the guy had pulled out a gun and shot him point blank in the head. And he was on the other

side of the car from the kids. You know, there was basically the road the sidewalk, and the kids are inside the fence, so some of the kids were right up against the fence he was luckily on the other side of the car, so they didn't see everything go down. But basically, you know, my daughter said she heard pops because she had her back to it. She was swinging on the swings, and some of the kids said they

heard something, you know, heard like a bag thud. So basically it was the officer falling down like some really smart teachers heard it, realized what was going on, grabbed all the kids. They all were brought inside. They were locked down in the gym. Again, this is right after Sandy Hook, so everybody was completely on edge anyway, locked him down, They did the drill where they all had to sit in the gym, and then there was an email sent out to parents, Hey, we're locked down. Here's

the situation as we know it. And then probably about thirty five minutes later, they realized it was an isolated incident. They had gone to catch the guy. He fled. The metic Metavac helicopter landed in the schoolyard to take the police officer off to the hospital, and the kids were out of their sort of Jim lockdown by then, so a lot of them looked out the window and saw

that happening. They kind of didn't, you know, since such little grades it's in elementary school, they didn't really tell him what was going on, but a lot of kids sort of pieced it together, and then about o'clock we were alligable back in the level. I know hunters, I know clients who are staunch advocates of the Second Amendment, and I understand why they are, and I know them to be good people. So I had never been a huge advocate one way or another on it. But I

was never such an anti gun person. I know so many responsible people who have guns, but when that happened, I was terrified. Now, my my thoughts didn't run towards why does that guy have a gun? Because it was a you know, a gun that was it's common, It wasn't a machine gun. He didn't shoot up the school, he didn't do anything. But just how can this stuff happen right near my kid? You know, what's the world

coming to? Where the suburbs and the Bucolic you know, rolling hills of our neighborhoods are now kind of up for grabs. In the case of Oklahoma City, in the case of this guy that shot officer lit boy, in the case of Sandy Hook, it was all mental health. There are people out there that are hurting, that are not getting help, and they go down these rabbit holes and do not come out, and we have tragedies as

a result. I know, the guy in Las Vegas, there wasn't any indicator that anything that that would have popped on a background check, on mental health background check, but clearly he's mentally unstable because he shot up a lunch of people. So I think stronger mental health, stronger education about spotting and understanding when people are in difficult situations, you know, with the opioid crisis, you know, mental health and addiction counseling, all of that, I think is how

you answer this. It's not necessarily a gun law because of the people who own all those guns. Everybody's freaked out about don't commit crimes. You know, we hear about these outrageous, sensationalized ones. But in you know, Illinois and Chicago where there's horrifying gun violence, it's happening with illegal guns, and they have strict gun laws. So gun laws don't prevent gun crime. It's criminals and the unstable people using guns.

About Oklahoma City, somebody with a car and some fertilizer killed three times as many people as occurred in you know, Las Vegas. Not to diminish what happened in Las Vegas, but anyone with evil intent, where an unstable mind will find a way to create a weapon. So solving this or that issue. Obviously, bump stocks need to be addressed. Nobody wants people out there with automatic weapons. And there's some pretty common sense things, but you're not getting to

the underlying cause. How do you think we become more proactive in addressing mental health issues? Where does that come in in play when trying to purchase a firearm? I just knee jerk reaction, as a mom would be. There needs to be some sort of element of the background check that allows for part of the process of get I mean, if I want to be a daycare worker, you do a mental health check on me, right, So if I'm gonna have a gun, you should be able to do a mental health check. I mean, now to

keep that record. I get how gun rights advocates are saying, no, you can't build a database of those of us with issues, So the record goes away, just like the background check goes away. It doesn't get stored anywhere it doesn't get kept. There's gotta be a way to at least screen out the low hanging fruit of people who have been in mental health treatment before, or who have been cited for domestic violence, or who have been cited for any number

of things. Like I said, I work on education reform issues, and I work on criminal justice for warm issues. Weal there's two places right there that nip issues in the butt. Kids that are caught in horrible cycles of poverty and dependence and lack of a good education, so there's no way for them to get out of that cycle. Those are kids that are gonna get sucked in the neighborhoods and become drug dealers. Those are kids that are going to become parts of gangs, that are going to become

parts of violence. Let's give them the opportunity to get out of those situations and break that cycle for their family.

And so the kid that's nineteen that gets picked up because he has you know, drug paraphernali in his car and goes to prison for five years or eighteen months or whatever it is, is in a prison for eighteen months with a career professional drug dealer who could teach them how to cook meth, And who's going to indoctrinate him into a gang in those eighteen months, And who's going to get them in the into a cycle where someone had given him drug addiction treatment. Send him to

a boot camp. That kid might turn around and have a productive life. So another place to sort of hide and help you bowl just your criminal justice reform. Instead of putting them into the system. Let's find ways and treatments and and put some government money into helping people with addictions and with mental health issues. I'm not sure there's a gun law that we could have passed in

the wake of that that next day. And I think anyone Republican Democrat, if you had a heart in your chest, if someone said this is something that would stop this from ever happening again, gun rights advocate or not, you would have said, let's do it. But I don't think that there was any one thing that anyone could point to that would have said this will never happen again.

I don't know what the answer is, but I'm not sure the answer is to say, you hunter in New Hampshire can't have a gun, you know, I mean, after all these truck deaths and like we saw in Charlotte. So do what you say. You can't have cars? I mean, how do you address the underlying problem by just focusing on the equipment. Mason stopped by a local firearms store to walk us through the steps of buying a gun. If I were to come in here, I'm gonna a bunch of the stools, shotguns, see a RS on the wall.

What process would it be for me to buy again? All right? So, first and foremost, if you even want to come in here and hold a gun, you got the eighteen for a long rifle. You gotta twenty one for handguns. Check your i D. Make sure you got valid driver's license, carry permits something. If you have no government issued i D with that current address, I can't even let you do that. If you want to actually buy something, you gotta at least have a valid driver's license.

You've got to be of age, and you've gotta have a current address on your government achieve documentation, so you know if you have a driver's license INSE valid. Even if you got a carry permit, if nothing's got your current address on it, I can't sell you anything. Once you've got all that, all that checks out. We gotta sit you down and do some seventy three paperwork which basically fill out you know, your name, place of birth, address, all the kind of pertinent information. Are you the actual

buyer of the gun? Where you ever unlawfully and are you wanted for a felony or you a fugitive from justice where you ever dishonorably discharged. All that kind of stuff will disqualify you just like that. On top of that, if you don't have a carry permit, we have to run a background check on you. And if that doesn't come back, you can either get delayed or denied, and you can you can just get let go, depending on

how the background check goes. But that's the part that kills a lot of sales is someone will come in put their background check in, it will get sent to the FBI, and the FBI I'll be like, don't do it right. You mentioned age, So what age is it to buy a firearm. There's certain type of firearms I can or cannot buy a certain age. At eighteen years old, you can buy long rifles and shotguns. At years old you can buy handguns. And that's pretty much it for age.

So in eighteen year old with the proper identification and checks out coming here and buy an a R. The problem in an eighteen year old would have to come in, have their proper identification and have I do with their current address and everything, have their background check go smoothly, no problems, no delays, no hold ups. If everything went perfectly, we could have them out here the same day. But that's provided everything went perfectly. We as the sales people,

have the ultimate authority to cancel any sale. We don't necessarily have to have a reason. It can be I'm getting a bad vibe from this situation, I don't want to sell this. We don't have to. We can go to a manager and to be like, look, we're not doing this. The big, huge red flags, some of the really obvious ones are if somebody comes into the store and gives money to somebody else and that person is

buying the gun. So as a as a gun a salesman, you would say, how do you advise to do the best sale to make sure you're putting a gun in the right person's hands. As a gun salesman, it's pretty much just gauge whether the person knows what they're talking about, if they seem inexperienced, if they don't seem to really know what they're doing. They're like, have you ever shot a gun before? Do you have much practice? Do you

go to the range very often? And if the answers to any of those questions are, hey, no, I don't really know what I'm doing. You know, Georgia Firing Line is right down the road. They're building a complex right across the street. There's Wild West Traders in Austell. No matter where people are coming from, I can generally say, there's a range near you, and they offer rental guns, so go out there rent a gun. You know, they

offer safety courses as well. Like my dad works over a while West Traders in Austell and he teaches safety courses there. So I can say, hey, sit down with these people and now at least give you a rundown of what you need to know. But here it's like, look, we're selling guns, so we have to make sure it's done safely, that we go through the proper channels, and that we avoid any bad situations. Mason asked if it is anywhere difficult to bind a R versus afore ten.

The man said, besides cost, no, you just need to be a teen. To give some perspective, in this country, you have to be twenty one to drink, but at eighteen you can walk around with an air in public. Even with current regulations, it turns out it is pretty easy to purchase. Again, probably easier than it should be. One debate that has surfaced since the massacre in Las Vegas is what do we label this? Is this an act of terrorism domestic terrorism? What exactly is the difference.

We discussed this topic and more with Rebecca Grant, highly experienced national security and military analyst. My name is Rebecca Grant. I have a PhD and international relations. I'm a national security analyst and defense consultants here in Washington, d C. After an incident like this, the first question in people's minds could there be any link to known terrorist groups?

So one of the first questions is they begin to identify a perpetrator is to look and see in this case, were there any links to ISAIS a lot of confusion occurred when ISIS decided to take advantage and claim that they had been responsible in some way for this event. There's done no corroboration of that. That was just the

terrorist being very very opportunistic. So right now we have not heard of any ties between Haddock and a designated terrorist group, or at least a designated international terrorist group. And the crazy thing was that ISAIS had issued one of its periodic warnings a few days before this took place, saying that citizens in big cities of the world Paris, Los Angeles, etcetera. Should really take cover and not go

out in public. So that non specific warning had popped up, and I think for some people there was an immediate question of, oh my gosh, was this link? Was there a warning? And then was this the link? You know. The other thing that was terribly similar, of course, was the attack in Las Vegas and the attacks several months earlier this year in Manchester where we saw a concert

as of target. So I think there were enough superficial similarities to raise but right now we're just not seeing anything that definitively links Paddock to a radical Islamic group of any kind. The main definition of terrorism is a lawful force and violence terrorist act, but it has to have a purpose to it to intimidate or coerce the

government or the civilian population or any segment thereof. So we think of terrorism as part of a cause very evil, very bad, but that it has to have this political objective attached to it. So under the strict definition, it doesn't look like the Las Vegas incident is an act of terrorism strictly defined. Now, does that mean it's not horrible and terrifying? Oh my gosh, it was absolutely terrifying. The Las Vegas shooting doesn't meet the strict definition of

terrorism because there's not that political element to it. So the Las Vegas shooter fits a little bit better into a kind of a subcategory of domestic terrorists. And to me, they would include people like Eric Rudolph with the bombings, individuals who are carrying out horrible acts of violence but without that attachment to an international group or a big political movement. Now, our government has tracked what we sometimes

call homegrown terrorists for a long time, you know. Another big example, of course, is Timothy McVey in the Oklahoma City bombings, which were very, very tragic. In some cases, these individuals have a political agenda of their own, They've made statements in some cases they have it. So these lone wolf domestic terrorists are particularly hard to track unless they meet some of the profile criteria that look for.

We've been using a set of profile criteria to watch kind of homegrowner domestic terrorist candidates for quite a long time. But when like Stephen Paddock, they really don't fit that profile, it's hard to figure out what they're up to, and it's hard to really know how to classify the terrible

deeds that they've done. For many years now, part of the study of terrorism has been to try to figure out why individuals decide to commit these acts of terror, and in that study, there is extensive study of people

within the United States who meet a certain profile. The typical profile and you'll find us in any of the academic literature would be someone who has had access to firearms, someone who's had military training, someone who lives in isolated life, someone who may have had relatives or close associates involved in terrorist acts or incarcerated. Their number of profile elements that have been used for many years to try to spotlight individuals within certain social groups in the US who

may be heading towards committing an act of violence. I think the profile has been pretty useful in helping law enforcement keep watch. Particularly let's say if you have a radical group, you know radicals of Maryland. What was so tragic and heartbreaking with the Las Vegas shooter was he really didn't meet any of that profile that has been helpful in the past. He was older, he was financially well off, and there was nothing in his background that

was going to trip this profile. He owned a lot of guns, which means he had passed multiple background checks, and what is so scary about him was that he didn't match that profile which has been new successfully in other cases. Like everyone else, I'm desperate to find a reason why this happened, and we want to find a reason so we can work to prevent it in the future. When we don't have that reason, I think it's doubly painful.

Not only is it a senseless act, but we don't know what steps we might be able to take in the future to make sure things like this don't happen again. So my view is that unless we get more evidence that hasn't come forth yet. You know, he wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. It was very personal to him. Some have said he had become mentally ill over time. There may be an element there, but he's going to turn out to be just a unique force of evil that sprang up and committed this terrible act.

I don't see connection to a terrorist group. I don't think that his horrible act means that there's something wrong with our country or with American culture in general. He's going to turn out to be just one of those evil, evil people. We used to call it the work of the devil, and I think he's going to turn out to be just one lone evil man. Could this has been prevented, No, I think Stephen Paddock was determined to create a horrible incident of violence. He had the guns,

he had planned very carefully. Some reports have said he had ammonium nitrate in his car. That says to me he was going to carry out the fact one way or another. Well, I would guarantee there have already been changes on the Las Vegas strip. You know, Las Vegas is a tightly regulated environment, and it works partly because there is a sense of freedom and security. I think, you know, a casino four in Las Vegas is probably

one of the safest places in the world. So I'm sure that the casino owners, the businessman of Las Vegas, and the state of Nevada will be working hard to try to make the Vegas much more secure. Something that they can do possibly may include some additional aerial surveillance. Their technology is available for that. I'm sure that all the casino owners are looking through their databases of people that they keep track go because their guests and you know,

high rollers coming in. I think that those specialists in security will be doing everything they can in Las Vegas and other popular tourist destinations. I wouldn't be surprised to see Atlantic City thinking about it. You know, even Florida, some of the big destinations there. There's already a lot of behind the scene security, and I think that's where we'll see people really studying the lessons of Las Vegas and moving forward to try to help crowds and gatherings

be safer in the future. You know, whatever you think about Las Vegas, one lesson really stands out to me. That is, there's nothing wrong with American culture. We don't need to have a big discussion about American culture. This was the act of one evil man. So there's nothing wrong with American culture, and we're barking up the wrong tree if we try to pursue it that way. This podcast is not a political podcast. And we're not here

to settle the gun control debate. This is a podcast, however, about the criminal justice system, and the tragedy in Las Vegas was a crime. By way of background, I wanted to clear up a common misconception about the Bill of Rights. It's the first ten amendments to our Constitution. You see. The Bill of Rights doesn't grant any particular right to anybody. The Bill of Rights serves as a limit on the

power of the government versus the people. So what the real issue in all of this discussion is to what length does our government have the authority to regulate our rights, including our Second Amendment rights. Surprisingly, there was not a lot of case law from the U. S. Supreme Court pertaining to the Second Amendment until two thousand and eight, when the Court decided a case called District of Columbia

versus Heller. Before we get into Heller, it's important to understand that when interpreting the Constitution, it's not what the Constitution says that matters. It's what the Supreme Court says that it means is what matters. The text of the Second Amendment says a well regulated militia comma being necessary to the security of a free state comma. The right of the people to keep and bear arms comma shall

not be infringed, period. So DC versus Heller is a landmark case where the U. S. Supreme Court decided on June two thousand and eight by a five to four majority, that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to possess firearms and that right has nothing to do with serving in any state militia. Further, it clarifies the right extends to the use of firearms for traditionally lawful purposes, including

the ancient right of self defense. The Heller case started because the District of Columbia, by local law, banned handgun possession and made it a crime to carry an unregistered firearm, and it also prohibited the registration of handguns altogether in d C. D C law also said that no person may carry an unlicensed handgun, but it authorizes the chief of police to issue one year licenses. Additionally, it required residents to keep lawfully owned firearms unloaded and disassembled or

bound by a trigger lock or a similar device. Heller was a d C Special policeman. He applied to register a handgun that he wished to keep it home, but the district refused, so he filed a lawsuit in the Federal Court in d C. On Second Amendment grounds, asking the court to prohibit the city from enforcing these laws. Up until this point, a lot of scholars and even courts interpreted the Second Amendment to be limited by the very first few words, which say a well regulated militia

being necessary to the security of a free state. But the Supreme Court said in the Heller opinion that the operative cause was the right of the people to keep in bear arms shall not be infringed. And they said that codifies individual right, a right that existed long before the Constitution was written, and a right that exists in nature.

The Court said that the preamble, the part about a well regulated militia was simply an expression of the framer's belief that the most effective way to destroy a citizens militia was to disarm the citizens, which is exactly what the British attempted to do at the battles of Lexington and Concord at the very beginning of the American Revolution. Justice Scalia, writing the opinion in Heller, tells us, though, that like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited.

For example, there's not a right to keep and carry any weapon or gun whatsoever, in any manner, whatsoever, or for whatever purpose. Also, the court's opinions should not be taken to cast doubt on long standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons or the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms and sensitive places such as rules and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and

qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. As a rule, rights do not require any government issued license for a person to exercise that right, as opposed to a privilege. Privileges are granted by the government unlike rights, so privileges frequently do require a license, such as a license, for example, to drive a car. So from a purely legal perspective,

what is the bottom line? Well, in light of the Heller case, it's clear that while guns can be regulated to a point, I can't think of any new law or any new regulation that would have prevented the Las Vegas massacre. I think it's also clear that the bump stock device which the shooter used to increase his rate

of fire, could legally be outlawed tomorrow. But it's important to remember the bump stock device is nothing more than a commercially sold aftermarket device, and that device is not needed for a shooter to achieve the same or similar result using homemade means. The bottom line is that nobody has a crystal ball. The future cannot be predicted. A determined killer will find a way to kill, whether it be with a gun, twenty guns, a box truck, a

homemade bomb, or whatever the evil mind can conceive. To make the USA truly safe from gun violence, you have to basically take away or get around somehow the Second Amendment. First, Then you'd have to confiscate all of the guns, and if you did that, you'd be violating the Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. Then you'd have to get around the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, and the list goes on and

on and on. By the time you're done, that really wouldn't be much of a bill of rights left. And that is what Justice Scalia, writing for the Court in Heller, would call tyranny. And if that were to happen, the only people who would have the guns would be the folks in the government, and that is why the United States exists today, because an armed citizenry took up arms against an oppressive government when the British first tried to

confiscate guns at the battles of Lexington and Concord. As of the time of this recording, there's no known motive that can be attributed to the Las Vegas murder, and so we really don't know if there was any intention to influence any kind of policy. So was it terrorism or was it just a lone mad men In the absence of any evidence that the shooter was using this violence to intimidate or coerce some type of policy change, my belief is that it was simply the work of

a madman. But that's just my opinion. Many other people have other thoughts about this. We know that the Islamic State has claimed credit for it, but according to the FBI, there's no credible evidence that this was actually related to international Islamic terrorism. We extend our most sincere condolences to the families of the victims in the Las Vegas massacre. It is our sincere hope and wish that those injured

will recover as much and as fast as possible. We hope that law enforcement can figure out just what motivated this evil mind to commit this most heinous of atrocities, so that they can better prepare in the future to respond to any criminal act. Sworn is produced by Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta. Story and production by Payne Lindsay, Mason Lindsay and Meredith Steadman and myself Philip Halloway executive producers

Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay. And if you have it yet, please check out our sister podcast, Up and Vantage, that follows the investigation into the disappearance of Georgia High School teacher and beauty queen Tara Grinstead. Up and Vantage is available now on Apple Podcasts. Sworn is mixed and mastered by Resonate Recordings. If you're in the market for podcast production, go to Resonate Recordings dot com to get your first

episode produced for free. If you haven't already, please head over to iTunes now to subscribe, rate, and review Sworn, and make sure you check us out online at Sworn podcast dot com and follow us on social media at Sworn podcast on Twitter and Instagram, and you can follow me your host, Philip Holloway at phil holloway e s Q on Twitter. Thanks for listening. This is Philip Halloway and I'll see you next time. On Sworn and Lundy

and Rusty was see I See Blood in the Water. Charming, charming, See Blood in the Water.