Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Chris Long is no stranger to voicing his opinion, and he was back at it Monday after a horrific mass shooting Sunday night in Las Vegas.
The shooting occurred at an outdoor country music festival with the gunman, identified by authorities as 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, firing from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel. Paddock had “in excess of 10 rifles,” Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said, per The New York Times, and audio recordings suggest at least one weapon was automatic.
It’s that last fact that led to Long questioning why American citizens would need a weapon capable of such carnage.
There are federal laws that regulate the sale of such weapons, making automatic weapons much more difficult to purchase than semiautomatic ones. But Nevada’s gun laws, in general, are lax, including the fact that the state “has no laws limiting ammunition magazine capacities, meaning the shooter could have purchased equipment locally that could hold scores of rounds, allowing him to fire longer without reloading,” The Times wrote Monday.
So far, 58 people are confirmed dead, and at least 515 were injured.
Thumbnail photo via Bill Streicher/USA TODAY Sports Image
