The quiet suburban armoury

The disclosure by Nevada police that they have recovered 47 rifles, shotguns and handguns owned by 64-year-old Las Vegas mass murderer Stephen Paddock brings into sharp focus the dangerous inadequacy of existing US gun laws. So does our exclusive report yesterday in which a Brisbane relative of Paddock revealed that when he visited his peaceful retirement village at Mesquite he was “stunned” when he was shown a “gun room” well-stocked with weapons. We now know what Paddock was planning as he built up his arsenal. That he could do so speaks volumes about the failure of US gun laws, and not just in the permissive state of Nevada.

Paddock’s stockpile of weaponry is unlikely to have been what was anticipated by the drafters of the US constitution’s second amendment, which sets out the “right to bear arms”, when they promulgated it in 1791. Then, the most lethal weapon was a musket. Yet it is the second amendment that is used by gun lovers to defend America’s “gun culture” even after appalling atrocities involving high-powered automatic weapons which on Sunday, in the space of what police now say was nine to 11 minutes, killed and wounded so many innocent people.

As it invariably does after mass killings, the powerful National Rifle Association has “gone dark”, refusing to comment. The most Donald Trump, a strong supporter of the second amendment, has been willing to say is “we’ll be talking about gun control as time goes by”. It may be a sign of slowly shifting sands, however, that House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan has announced Republican leaders “have no plans to advance” an ill-timed bill making it easier to buy gun silencers and easing restrictions on carrying guns across state lines. Silencers would make it harder to pinpoint shooters in mass killings. Incredibly, the bill also was designed to prevent some ammunition being designated “armour-piercing” and thereby subject to federal oversight.

US legislators will do themselves and their country a grave disservice if they do not learn from the egregious ease with which Paddock was able to amass his vast armoury. They must act.