Hillary Clinton is already trying to exploit the Las Vegas tragedy to build opposition to the proposed Hearing Protection Act. (Screen capture, YouTube, CBS)
Former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton and fellow Democrats wasted no time exploiting the worst mass shooting in U.S. history in Las Vegas Sunday night that so far has claimed 58 lives and resulted in more than 500 people injured.
Clinton sent a tweet attacking the proposed Hearing Protection Act, which would remove onerous paperwork from the process to own a sound suppressor, also known as a “silencer.”
Here’s what Clinton had to say on Twitter, according to Fox News:
“The crowd fled at the sound of gunshots. Imagine the deaths if the shooter had a silencer, which the NRA wants to make easier to get. Our grief isn’t enough. We can and must put politics aside, stand up to the NRA, and work together to try to stop this from happening again.”
Anti-gun Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy railed in a statement: “This must stop. It is positively infuriating that my colleagues in Congress are so afraid of the gun industry that they pretend there aren’t public policy responses to this epidemic. There are, and the thoughts and prayers of politicians are cruelly hollow if they are paired with continued legislative indifference. It’s time for Congress to get off its ass and do something.”
Likewise, Massachusetts Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey both chimed in on Twitter, and Markey got some heat for his remarks.
The investigation is still in the early stages. Authorities recovered several firearms from the room at the Mandalay Bay hotel from which alleged killer Stephen Paddock, 64, opened fire and rained down a hail of bullets on thousands of people gathered for an outdoor country music concert. When lawmen burst into the room, they found Paddock dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The presumed killer’s motive remains a mystery at this point, although there appears to be plenty of conjecture showing up on social media.
However, Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, noted in a message to The GunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, “If the gun grabbers want to control something, they should control themselves and their mouths. This tragedy was unpreventable.”
He may be correct, since it appears the alleged killer did not have any kind of criminal record that would have prevented him from owning or purchasing firearms.
That evidently is the same assessment from Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo, who told reporters Monday, “This individual was described as a lone wolf, I don’t know how it could have been prevented. We didn’t have any prior knowledge to this individual. It wasn’t evident that he had any weapons in his room. We have determined that there has been employees going to and fro to his room and nothing nefarious was noticed at this point.”
This is just the beginning of the investigation, and the effort to capitalize on the Nevada tragedy.
