The best way to respond to Las Vegas massacre
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Story highlights
- Marc Randazza: Another mass shooting, this time in Las Vegas. Many are quick to politicize it. That's a mistake
- He says shooter was terrorist. His actions draw strength when we react by curtailing our freedoms. We should change nothing
Marc J. Randazza is a First Amendment attorney and managing partner of the Randazza Legal Group. Follow him on Twitter: @marcorandazza, and read his academic publications here. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN)I
woke Monday morning, safe in my bed in Las Vegas, but quite annoyed by
the pinging of the phone. And then I heard the details. Mass shooting,
many dead, and many more injured. Motivation unknown.
This
brought me to a familiar emotional place. When the Tsarnaev brothers
attacked the Boston Marathon, they attacked my home. They did so to try
and make us feel unsafe at an event that ties that great city together.
When subhuman animals
attacked the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris, they attacked something
dear to my heart: freedom of expression. Their intent was to try to
make us afraid to use that freedom. When Dylann Roof, a white man,
killed eight black parishioners and their pastor at a church in
Charleston, he tried to make us feel that we could not all live
together.
And
while the motivations of Stephen Paddock, the now-dead suspect in the
Las Vegas massacre, are unknown, they surely weren't simply personal.
Nobody fires thousands of rounds from a hotel window into a crowd of
strangers without a motive.
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
A man in a wheelchair is evacuated from the festival after gunfire was heard.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
Victims of the shooting are tended to in the street.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
Concertgoers help an injured person at the scene.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
People gather around a victim outside the festival grounds.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
A couple huddles after shots rang out at the festival.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
An injured woman is helped at the Tropicana.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
Police and emergency responders gather at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
A police officer takes position behind a truck.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
A crowd takes cover at the festival grounds.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
Police officers advise people to take cover in the wake of the shooting.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
People tend to a victim at the festival grounds.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
Police stand at the scene of the shooting.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
A woman sits on a curb at the scene of the shooting.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
Police are deployed to the scene.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
A man makes a phone call as people run from the festival grounds.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
Debris
is scattered on the ground Monday, October 2, at the site of a country
music festival held this past weekend in Las Vegas. Dozens of people
were killed and hundreds were injured Sunday when a gunman opened fire
on the crowd. Police said the gunman fired from the Mandalay Bay hotel,
several hundred feet southwest of the concert grounds. It is the
deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
Broken
windows of the Mandalay Bay are seen early in Las Vegas on Monday.
Police said the gunman fired on the crowd from the 32nd floor of the
hotel.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
People
cross a street near the Las Vegas Strip just after sunrise on Monday.
Thousands were attending the music festival, Route 91 Harvest, when the
shooting started.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
People embrace outside the Thomas & Mack Center after the shooting.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
Police arrive at the Sands Corporation plane hangar where some people ran to safety after the shooting.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
A woman cries while hiding inside the Sands Corporation plane hangar.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
Concertgoers dive over a fence to take cover from gunfire on Sunday night.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
Police take position outside the Mandalay Bay.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
A man lays on top of a woman as others flee the festival grounds. The woman reportedly got up from the scene.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
People are seen on the ground after the gunman opened fire.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
People run from the festival grounds.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
A
woman is moved outside the Las Vegas Tropicana resort. Multiple victims
were being transported to hospitals in the aftermath of the shooting.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
People are searched by police at the Tropicana.
Hide Caption
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
An ambulance leaves the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue.
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Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
A man in a wheelchair is evacuated from the festival after gunfire was heard.
Hide Caption
16 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
Victims of the shooting are tended to in the street.
Hide Caption
17 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
Concertgoers help an injured person at the scene.
Hide Caption
18 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
People gather around a victim outside the festival grounds.
Hide Caption
19 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
A couple huddles after shots rang out at the festival.
Hide Caption
20 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
An injured woman is helped at the Tropicana.
Hide Caption
21 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
Police and emergency responders gather at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue.
Hide Caption
22 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
A police officer takes position behind a truck.
Hide Caption
23 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
A crowd takes cover at the festival grounds.
Hide Caption
24 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
Police officers advise people to take cover in the wake of the shooting.
Hide Caption
25 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
People tend to a victim at the festival grounds.
Hide Caption
26 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
Police stand at the scene of the shooting.
Hide Caption
27 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
A woman sits on a curb at the scene of the shooting.
Hide Caption
28 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
Police are deployed to the scene.
Hide Caption
29 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
A man makes a phone call as people run from the festival grounds.
Hide Caption
30 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
Debris
is scattered on the ground Monday, October 2, at the site of a country
music festival held this past weekend in Las Vegas. Dozens of people
were killed and hundreds were injured Sunday when a gunman opened fire
on the crowd. Police said the gunman fired from the Mandalay Bay hotel,
several hundred feet southwest of the concert grounds. It is the
deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.
Hide Caption
1 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
Broken
windows of the Mandalay Bay are seen early in Las Vegas on Monday.
Police said the gunman fired on the crowd from the 32nd floor of the
hotel.
Hide Caption
2 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
People
cross a street near the Las Vegas Strip just after sunrise on Monday.
Thousands were attending the music festival, Route 91 Harvest, when the
shooting started.
Hide Caption
3 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
People embrace outside the Thomas & Mack Center after the shooting.
Hide Caption
4 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
Police arrive at the Sands Corporation plane hangar where some people ran to safety after the shooting.
Hide Caption
5 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
A woman cries while hiding inside the Sands Corporation plane hangar.
Hide Caption
6 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
Concertgoers dive over a fence to take cover from gunfire on Sunday night.
Hide Caption
7 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
Police take position outside the Mandalay Bay.
Hide Caption
8 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
A man lays on top of a woman as others flee the festival grounds. The woman reportedly got up from the scene.
Hide Caption
9 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
Hide Caption
10 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
People are seen on the ground after the gunman opened fire.
Hide Caption
11 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
People run from the festival grounds.
Hide Caption
12 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
A
woman is moved outside the Las Vegas Tropicana resort. Multiple victims
were being transported to hospitals in the aftermath of the shooting.
Hide Caption
13 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
People are searched by police at the Tropicana.
Hide Caption
14 of 30
Photos: Mass shooting at Las Vegas music festival
An ambulance leaves the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue.
Hide Caption
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Terrorism
has become a new normal for us. Mass shootings happen all the time in
America, yet we seem to have no idea how to prevent them.
Monday
morning, with the blood of the victims still wet on the ground, people
jumped to politicize the event. Those whose stock in trade is racial
identity politics pointed to the race of the shooter (he was white) and
the different response the attack would have drawn had his skin been
darker.
Some may claim that the
shooter was motivated by anti-Trump animus, and that an assailant with
murderous intent would find more Trump supporters at a country-western
concert than elsewhere. Anti-gun activists jumped on a new bill that is
advancing in the House of Representatives that would loosen the rules on
buying silencers for guns, claiming that if Paddock had had a silencer,
more people would be dead.
What we know about the Las Vegas shooter 04:12
The question today is what do we do? What do we change?
I say: Change nothing.
Do
nothing but mourn, care and investigate. Yes, at some point this event
will inform decisions on how we govern ourselves. But not today.
I
find it very difficult to believe that the alleged shooter acted alone.
And if there were accomplices, I want to know who they were, and why
they helped him.
But I do not
want to walk through new metal detectors, or deal with other
infringements upon my civil liberties as a knee-jerk reaction to this
event. Far too often, in fact, every damn time, this kind of thing
happens, the response is that we must rein in our freedoms.
Let
us remember that those who kill innocent victims do not do so simply
because they wish them dead -- terrorism is about killing a few to
strike fear into many. Terrorism is a form of activism coupled with
narcissism.
This shooter, in a sick way, may well have thought he was making a difference—that he was changing something.
Would
it be that he was ushering in a further curtailment of our freedoms? I
don't know. What I do know is that giving them away will not bring back
the (at this writing) 59 dead.
For
a period of time, Paddock will remain the gold medalist in mass
shootings in America. But let that be his only legacy. Let us not
succumb to the narcissism of this act and the desire to scare us.
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