Anniversary of Las Vegas massacre renews gun control debate
LAS VEGAS (AP) — In the two years since the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, the federal government and states have tightened some gun regulations.
But advocates say they're frustrated that more hasn't been done since 58 people died at a concert on the Las Vegas Strip, and that mass shootings keep happening nationwide.
"People are genuinely afraid of going places," Nevada Assemblywoman Sandra Jauregui said.
The Democratic lawmaker and her now-husband were among the 22,000 country music fans that fled as gunfire rained down from a high-rise hotel into an outdoor venue on Oct. 1, 2017. Neither was wounded.
"You cannot go to the grocery store. You cannot go to your place of worship. You can't even go to school and feel safe," said Jauregui, an advocate for gun control in Nevada. "I think people are tired of that."
The U.S. government this year banned a device that helped the Las Vegas gunman shoot more rapidly. Nevada and some other states also have tightened gun laws, including passing "red flag" measures that allow a judge to order weapons be taken from someone who is deemed a threat.
Those and other efforts to combat gun violence follow mass shootings in the two years since the Vegas massacre, including an attack on a Florida high school last year that killed 17 and attacks in Texas and Ohio that killed 31 people in one weekend this summer.
"It's a shame that it takes more and more of these shootings to bring attention to a topic," said Liz Becker, a volunteer with the gun control advocacy group Moms Demand Action.
But "I do think that the tide is turning on these issues," Becker said. The Las Vegas shooting "really galvanized people who, not that they didn't feel a connection to gun violence survivors, but they just never thought it would be them...