Our “Political Insiders” say they don’t expect any action on meaningful gun legislation following the horrific massacre in Las Vegas that left 59 people dead and hundreds injured.
On October 1, Stephen Paddock opened fire on attendees at an outdoor concert from his 32nd-floor suite inside the Mandalay Bay hotel. When the shooting stopped, the assault was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
Paddock used a “bump stock” to allow his semi-automatic guns to fire at a rate similar to that of a fully automatic weapon. Members of Congress have expressed some interest in banning those devices.
But, aside from that, our panel says neither Congress nor the Utah Legislature will take action on any sort of meaningful gun legislation in the wake of the shooting.
81% of Republicans, 100% of Democrats and 91% of our readers say Congress will not act on meaningful gun legislation following the shooting.
96% of the Republicans on our panel, 100% of the Democrats and 93% of our readers say the Utah Legislature will not take action on gun control following the slaughter.
Selected anonymous comments:
Additional gun control legislation would neither be meaningful nor effective.
At the end of the day, the Second Amendment will still stand. The Democrats and the weak-kneed Republicans will always lose on this issue!
Just because they won’t – doesn’t mean they shouldn’t. They need to!
Cowards, all of them. They will put party over people any day. Shameless GOP sold out to the NRA along ago.
The gun lobby rules the world.
They both already have passed meaningful gun control legislation. More laws will not stop things like what happened in Las Vegas.
Meaningful gun control legislation is a contradiction in terms. Perhaps more than any other this issue demonstrates the difference between those with a realistic picture of human nature and those who think that good intentions are all we need.
With a quarter of all people in America owning guns and the highest gun ownership per capita in the world, there is not a lot of support among US citizens for dramatically limiting the Second Amendment. There could be limitations on things such as bump stocks though.
Why use the word meaningful? It’s either gun control or not. I do think Congress will pass gun control. I do not think Utah will pass any gun control.
What is meaningful? Until we know more about the LV shooter’s motive or mindset, we don’t know what we are trying to prevent. No amount of security at the event could have prevented shooting from outside the venue. The Utah Legislature cannot regulate interstate commerce. When more is known perhaps there will be something the Utah Legislature can enact, but there are too many questions and not enough answers at this point.
The answer to both questions is “NO” because there isn’t such a thing as “meaningful gun control legislation.”
We’ll probably see a bump stock ban, but that’s it.
Please tell me exactly what kind of gun control measures could have stopped this depraved individual short of repealing the Second Amendment. The criminal, psychotic mind will always find a way to carry out their evil designs.
NRA & Republicans are so firmly locked in together nothing will happen except more tap dancing around any real gun control. Party politics and NRA money will continue to trump any regard to the death count.
New restrictions on liberty are not justifiable regardless of the level of violence committed by others.
Some sort of restrictions will happen at the very least. You cannot have a tragedy happen like this and do nothing about it. To not take concrete action is inexcusable.
I think there will be steps taken to outlaw or restrict bump stocks, but there will be nothing done to restrict guns in general.
Rather than attempting to protect the rights of gun owners to own a firearm for protection and limit the number and type of weapons they own, we will see everyone retreat to their political ideologies. A system established to function on disagreement, discussion and compromise Is rendered inept by an insatiable desire to win. In the end, we all lose with this approach.
The key word is meaningful. Congress might consider legislation but the Republicans and NRA will prevail over the wishes of the population.
This is NOT the first mass shooting and the past mass shootings have not resulted in meaningful gun control legislation. Utah legislature will probably have their specially made gun again in 2018, and will NOT pass gun control legislation as too many Utah legislators have gun collections and hunt.
Congress will ban bump stocks before the Utah Legislature convenes. That’s the only issue that would have had a chance in Utah, but the federal ban will make action in Utah on that issue moot. Neither Congress nor the Utah Legislature will have an appetite for anything further.
I think the US Congress would have a reasonable probability of passing something small if the gun control lobby knew how to take a win and not ask for more. But they don’t.
They will talk about it, but that’s about it.
There is no such thing as “meaningful gun control” unless by “meaningful” you mean infringing on the Second Amendment to make you feel accomplished without actually accomplishing anything for security and safety.
Bad people will always be able to find guns. Gun control only controls law abiding people and their guns which they use for personal protection and recreation/shooting sports.
Congressmen and local legislators all receive too much NRA money to seriously change anything. In Utah, the hunters don’t seem to realize that guns that can reasonably be used for hunting are not the problem – so they unthinkingly press to leave assault-style weapons in place, and reject universal background checks for weapon purchases. Sad… (By the way, I’m a hunter, too!)
It is certainly time to have a meaningful discussion on this issue — too many have died…..we cannot continue on this path of unfettered access to weapons. Most reasonable people believe that hobbyists & hunters should have access to a limited number of guns. The fundamental purpose of guns is to harm, maim and kill — we regulate hair salons more closely than we do guns. What happens when a good person with a gun goes bad?
I have no faith that our elected officials will take any action to control gun violence in the United States.
NRA has too much power, and people don’t realize it is a manufacturers’ lobby. They may vaguely restrict bump stocks, NRA doesn’t want them eliminated. NRA wants silencers, arguing about hearing problems. Not hearing the shooting would have been a REAL hearing problem, they won’t give silencers up either. Profit, profit, profit, and greed…
Whether new gun laws are passed or not, current laws need to be enforced more carefully and red flags need to be given to law enforcement, knowing that some may slip through the cracks. I don’t know if we can fill all of the cracks in this issue.
No more laws are needed, just enforce what already exists. If we can get the left to shut up, things can calm down.
