Las Vegas shooter spent decades buying weapons

Police say Stephen Paddock spent decades planning and stockpiling weapons for the Las Vegas shooting.

Young killer Stephen Paddock. Photo: CNN

Las Vegas police said on October 4 that Stephen Paddock, the man who carried out the deadliest mass shooting in US history, had meticulously planned and spent decades amassing an arsenal for the massacre. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirmed that there was no evidence that the shooting was an act of terrorism, Reuters reported.

Paddock smashed the window of his room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel around 10 p.m. on October 1 and opened fire on a crowd of 22,000 people attending a music festival below, killing 59 people and injuring 527.

When the task force stormed the room, Paddock was found to have committed suicide. US authorities announced that they had seized 47 guns from three locations, including 23 in the hotel room, 19 at Paddock's home in Mesquite, Nevada, along with thousands of rounds of ammunition and explosives.

The United States has relatively strict gun control regulations, especially when it comes to buying guns in large quantities and multiple times. However, lax gun ownership laws in states like Nevada make it easy for people like Paddock to accumulate large amounts of guns legally and without attracting attention.

Las Vegas Police Chief Joseph Lombardo said hundreds of officers were focused on profiling the shooter. "This is a very unstable and dangerous individual," Lombardo said. The FBI has questioned Paddock's girlfriend, but no one has been arrested as an accomplice. Of the 489 victims who were hospitalized, 317 have returned home.

Panorama of the Las Vegas shooting on the night of October 1. Click on the image to see the full picture.

According to VNE