More than 50 dead so far. 200 injured. Deadliest mass shooting in US History. Las Vegas Country Music Festival this time. Is your city next?

One would think, but there are a lot of people who are totally clueless when it comes to others and he may have been a very good actor around her. 

 First reports are usually wrong. Last I heard  59 died and 527 were injured. My question was asked very early after the massacre. Thank you for your reply Spunky and Happy Tuesday.

I believe those are the latest figures.

It was his father that was a felon - a convicted bank robber.

Right SpunkySr.  Fake news on here

So sad but so true.

I live in Southern California too.  My town isn't so small but I'm very sad to say, you and I Do get news like this almost every day.  :(  Nice name by the way! :)

And so it goes. Thank you for your reply Autumn and Happy Tuesday.

Why should they not be sold?

First off, fully-automatic weapons are the most difficult to legally purchase in the US. Buying one requires a $200 tax be paid each time the weapon transfers ownership. (In the retail market a weapon usually changes hands three or four times between the current owner and the new buyer.) Purchasing one also requires approval of the ownership transfer by the Treasury Department that involves a VERY detailed background check of the prospective buyer by either Treasury Department agents or by FBI agents. And yes, they really do interview the prospective buyer's friends, neighbors, relatives, co-workers, etc.) It takes months to complete that background check and issue that possible approval. (And if a full auto weapon is used illegally and ballistics show even a remote possibility that the recovered bullets match a particular weapon, guess who's going to come a'knocking with a SWAT team in tow?) In addition, no new fully-automatic weapons produced since 1986 are available for civilian sale Stateside. All that can put the current cost of a legitimately purchased fully-automatic weapon in the $20,000 to $50,000 range. 

Second, there has only been one verified instance of a legally-owned fully automatic weapon being used to commit a murder since the Firearms Act of 1934 went into effect (although I can't attest to how many had their lives cut short by legally-owned "Chicago Typewriters" prior to then, during the Prohibition era). And that was a contract killing (murder-for-hire) carried out by a then serving police officer.

Tell me....why does anyone no matter how rich need such a weapon ....why need any type of weapon......I don't have one ,need one or want one......

Need?

Humans indulge in a number of activities that certainly aren't "needs" and that are potentially far more harmful to their welfare and the welfare of those around them than is firearms ownership. So why are you singling out just one of them that happens to also be a Right in the USA?

For example, why does anyone, no matter how wealthy, need to eat red meat when medical science tells us that doing so is detrimental to one's health ? Why does anyone, no matter how wealthy, need to use tobacco products, or alcohol, or illicit drugs when it's been proven beyond all doubt that doing so is hazardous to one's health and the health of those around the users? Why does anyone need to engage in physically intimate contact with whomever they chose and at any time they chose when the prevalence of incurable, terminal diseases that are spread through that type of contact is on the rise? Why does anyone, no matter how wealthy, need to travel around the world on jet aircraft that potentially contribute heavily to "climate change" that's supposedly destroying the planet and the future of humankind? A LOT more innocent people have died from each of those activities and diseases than from civilian-owned firearms, by the way.

But to answer your question more directly it's called "freedom". You even have some of that on your side of the Atlantic from what I've heard (you can still buy and smoke Dunhills?). And in the USA (fire)arms ownership is a Right, as well as possibly a "want" or a "need"; that Bill of Rights thing in our Constitution. Sorry if that offends your delicate sensibilities but that does NOT give you the Right to take away anyone else's Rights. 

I find it even sadder to think that at least twenty soldiers were awarded the (Congressional) Medal of Honor for the event.
   Finally, in 2001, the National Congress of American Indians passed two resolutions condemning the military awards and called on the U.S. government to rescind them.

You know Alf, that's really a tough one to respond to. (Sorry, but I don't know the intimate details of the incident, guess I need to do more reading). If those solders were out-of-line with what they did, took those actions on their own without justification, then I agree that they should be posthumously stripped of their medals even though it's mostly an insignificant gesture. The worst thing is that they're dead now and can't be tried, convicted and punished for their illegal actions. 

But . . . if they were faithfully following orders that they were given by superiors and they did show the valor that warrants those medals then they certainly were deserving of them. They did nothing wrong. But for the superiors that gave those orders . . . a different story; the bowels of hell are probably too good for them. Don't forget too that due to "alternate facts" from the media of that day native Americans enjoyed even less love and respect from "the white man" than the current US President sees from "the left" today. 

I couldn't find it again, but I remember reading that seven of the soldiers got to keep their medals, but none of them were officers. All the officer's medals were taken away.

Your right there......killing the indigenous people of any country so as you can steal their land  is not frowned upon anywhere in any rich and powerful country......the English have been doing it for century's ...ask the Hawaiian people...:(  

Ask the Hawaiians? While you're at it ask the Chinese, the Burmese, the Indians, the South Africans to name just a very few more. About 100 to 150 years ago the sun never set on British oppression and enslavement of non-British peoples for the profit of the British aristocracy.

That is so very true.....look now what's happening in Isreal......the kind hearted English just gave Palestine away under the Balflour agreement....just another nation that being annihilated just because because the Palestinian s can't defend themselves...,,and the world just looks on and ignores it going on...