[Mariner]

Please let the rest of us know what you think.

[Mr. K]

not as hard as some are trying to make it sound like.

[Mathews]

Not hard at all. Especially with the optics he supposedly had on the guns purported to be his.

[Nifster]

Sweeping. Not that amazing

[marktwain]

Very easy with very little experience necessary, especially form a fixed, known position with optical sights.

Fish in a barrel comes to mind.

[umgud]

Pretty hard to miss shooting into a crowd of 22 thousand.

[Redbob]

Who says all his rounds landed where intended?

It’s not that difficult to put a fair number of rounds into a target that size.

[x1stcav]

Area was well lit. Plunging fire. No return fire. Piece of cake.

Barrel and action heating would’ve been bigger issues not to mention shooter fatigue.

From what we know so far, the whole thing stinks.

[vicdoc]

Not what I’d call professional grade.

Let’s just say he had the tools, adequate knowledge and plenty of time with the intent to accomplish his evil task.

[VietVet876]

If he had real full auto belt-fed rifles and more skill, the body count could have been ten times what it was for all the rounds expended. Looking at the photos available online and being familiar with that section of Vegas, the kill box was a good bit larger than two acres. Probably 15 to 20 acres to accomodate 20,000 plus targets.

[Justa]

I’ve operated a few M16s which would cook off after a magazine or two. As soon as I loaded the next magazine and released to bolt it would zip thru the 30 round magazine in about 3 sec.s. I just had to hold on.

[JimBianchi11]

Not hard to do.

Just spray and pray.

No individual accuracy involved, he just aimed for the 25,000 people in the crowd.

Almost impossible to completely prevent .

[smokingfrog]

I’m no expert, but seriously, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. 20,000 targets all bunched together, at least initially, anyway.
At 300 to 500 yards the amount of bullet drop is not that much, and the elevated platform not changing the trajectory that much either. The hardest part would be trying to hold the gun steady using one of those bump-fire type stocks.

[Swordmaker]

Easy. No accurate aiming required really. Point in the general direction and pull the trigger. Spiral the barrel around in the crowd and he will hit people. He had good optics on the guns and could see the general area he was aiming at.

Pick out specific targets? Not so much. But I doubt he was looking for anybody specific. General carnage was his end game.

[Azeem]

It’s the caliber. 5.56 and 7.62x51mm are pretty flat trajectory at 500m. With the angle down, he would hit close to where he aimed. Longer barrels also make it easier with a little more FPS plus a brightly lit target area and supported firing position.

[Nachoman]

One of the primary missions of automatic weapons is being an area denial weapon. In other words, the gunner picks a piece of real estate that he doesn’t want occupied and proceeds to hose it with lead. The Vegas shooter had all the right ingredients for this which resulted the high casualties.

[Avalon Memories]

He wasn’t a sniper in the usual sense of that term. He wasn’t picking off individuals. He was firing indiscriminately into a crowd numbering in the tens of thousands. He came equipped with the firepower to do it with comparatively little skill. Given his elevated position, clear line of sight to a very large crowd and some 70 minutes to do the deed, the wonder is that he killed a small number of people relative to the size of the crowd. Don’t make this guy out to be some remarkable marksman. He was remarkable only in that by their mid 60s most people are well past the age when they would act out like that.

[TalonDJ]

stupid easy.

[RightInEastLansing]

I read that he was using bump stocks to achieve full auto. Bump stocks are cool but not very accurate.

[discostu]

The important part there is a killbox of 2 acres. Pretty much if what you’re trying to hit is measured in multiple acres the answer is yes you can hit it, over and over again.

[DCBryan1]

Earlier reply to sound signature and distance below:

It may be 600+ yards or more including drop. So there is all kind of sonic garbage going on there according to video. I'm still voting an AR/AK with a slide fire stock or ECHO trigger AR and 75 rd drum(s) or surefire mags. Ok 3-400RPM or more at muzzle (sounded weird and slow for belt fed MG)....time for the muzzle signature to reach the microphone...then sonic cracks as the bullets pass objects and hit objects (30 caliber bullet makes a hell of a crack when it hits the target at 600 yards)....and all of that echoing around.

The speed of sound at sea level is 340 m/s so if the shooter was 680 meters away it would take a full two seconds for the sound to arrive from the first shot.

Time of flight of the bullet is 1.6 seconds at 700 yards rounding up (If it was AK 7.62x39 variant faster if 7N6 round). So there could be a crack near target then the muzzle crack arrives a half second later.

Although it looks as if the bullet drops sub sonic at 550 yards...: Source: http://gundata.org/blog/post/7.62x39mm-ballistics-chart/

Conclusion: Extended range might have lessened the number of deaths and severity of injuries if my assumption is right. But its all speculation until we know the platform/caliber.
Hattip to Willbird

< 43 floors tall, he was on floor 32

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Mandalay+Bay/@36.0932095,-115.1731837,454m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x80c8c5cffb824261:0x97f68a25c5b4ddef!8m2!3d36.0918777!4d-115.175245L

I measured a random car as .100", I tape measure 11-1/2 inches as a good general distance from motel to the back of that fenced area. So that is 115 car lengths...1996 caprice is 214" long.

So 115x214=24610 feet 24601/3=638 yards !? That is giving me 683 yards ??

so 350-400 to an area right in front of the stage is probably about right :-).

good exercise :-).

Easy shooting into that kill box. He could have done it with .22LR but with much less lethal effect.