As the country awoke in horror on Monday to discover what happened last night in Las Vegas, Hillary Clinton wasted no time in tweeting an exceptionally hot take on the entire incident. The country needs to stand up to the National Rifle Association, of course!
Clinton, a noted firearms expert, said that had silencers been legal (which the NRA has been pushing for), more people would have died as they would have not been able to flee the scene.
Las Vegas, we are grieving with you—the victims, those who lost loved ones, the responders, & all affected by this cold-blooded massacre.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 2, 2017
The crowd fled at the sound of gunshots.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 2, 2017
Imagine the deaths if the shooter had a silencer, which the NRA wants to make easier to get.
Our grief isn't enough. We can and must put politics aside, stand up to the NRA, and work together to try to stop this from happening again.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 2, 2017
Okay, wow.
First of all, despite the name, a silencer doesn't make a gun silent. That's video game fake-life guns. Real-life guns still make noises even with a suppressor. Here's a video of a suppressed full-automatic gun.
Call me crazy, but unless a person is profoundly deaf they should still be able to hear that.
Further, the shooter was perched on the 32nd story of a hotel, and had a clear vantage point into a crowd of more than 30,000 people. Regardless of any type of suppressor present, people still would have died from the initial volley of bullets.
When a person purchases a suppressor, their name goes into a database that tracks these items. They're tough to obtain and the government keeps tabs on people who have them. They don't make the weapon deadlier.
Regardless, it's incredibly inappropriate for a public figure to tweet this kind of thing before any and all information is known. This is not helpful. Clinton should know better.