To minimize the chances of another horrific massacre like that in Las Vegas, imaginative risk assessments must be made and acted on by ordinary citizens, organizations that sponsor events, and state and local authorities.
The most ineffective, irrelevant reaction would be for Congress to enact yet more gun control legislation.
While the federal Gun Control Act is as complex as antitrust law, it did nothing to prevent the murder of 58 innocents.
France has far stricter gun laws than the U.S., but 130 were slain, mostly with illegal guns, in the 2015 Paris attacks.
In reaction to such Islamic State-inspired assaults, the European Union imposed diktats against law-abiding gun owners. But it did nothing to ban motor vehicles after a single terrorist murdered 86 with a cargo truck in Nice in 2016.
Pseudo protection offered by paper laws guarantees nothing. Every person is ultimately responsible for his or her safety. While critical in many contexts, armed self-help by concertgoers was no option in Las Vegas. Flight was the only choice.
Risk assessments for mass events typically involve security armed with pistols and the screening of entrants with metal detectors. That is irrelevant when a killer such as Stephen Paddock secures a towering location above the event. He was not screened and was out of range of handguns.
by Stephen P. Halbrook
