The stories about the horrific shootings in Las Vegas, Nevada, the United States, just keep on coming. Each day there is something new. And among the reports there appears to be no attempt by officialdom to change any legislation, the most obvious being to change the gun laws. Imagine if the shooter had have been a Muslim, and thereby automatically a terrorist. All sorts of legislation would have been enacted, including expanding the Muslim immigration ban. Now the government is faced with the fact that the biggest mass shooting in American history was perpetrated by a home-grown white, male American. An ordinary bloke and a "nice" guy. No need to change any laws since this tragedy could happen anytime, anywhere. it had nothing to do with terrorism. Only 59 people were shot dead.
This opinion piece that appeared in the New York Times by Thomas L Friedman sums up the tragedy well.
If only Stephen Paddock had been a Muslim … If only he had shouted “Allahu akbar” before he opened fire on all those concertgoers in Las Vegas … If only he had been a member of ISIS … If only we had a picture of him posing with a Quran in one hand and his semiautomatic rifle in another …
If all of that had happened, no one would be telling us not to dishonor the victims and “politicize” Paddock’s mass murder by talking about preventive remedies.
No, no, no. Then we know what we’d be doing. We’d be scheduling immediate hearings in Congress about the worst domestic terrorism event since 9/11. Then Donald Trump would be tweeting every hour “I told you so,” as he does minutes after every terror attack in Europe, precisely to immediately politicize them. Then there would be immediate calls for a commission of inquiry to see what new laws we need to put in place to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Then we’d be “weighing all options” against the country of origin.