58 killed, 515 injured in mass shooting at Las Vegas concert

Bloomberg

At least 58 people were killed and 515 were injured at a concert by
a lone gunman, firing from a hotel room overlooking the venue,
who later died and whose motive was unclear.
President Donald Trump said he’ll travel to Las Vegas on Wednesday to meet victims and emergency workers after a killing spree late Sunday that is likely the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history, presenting a test of his leadership.
“It was an act of pure evil,” Trump said in a statement at the White House on Monday.
The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are assisting in the investigation, he said.
“Hundreds of our fellow citizens are now mourning the sudden loss of a loved one,” Trump said. “We cannot fathom their pain; we cannot imagine their grief.”
IS claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the terrorist-monitoring group SITE, which cited the Amaq news outlet. Police identified the attacker as a 64-year-old Nevada resident, Stephen Paddock, and said he had killed himself.
Amaq claimed Paddock had recently converted to Islam, SITE said, but provided no evidence, and Trump did not mention Paddock’s name, ascribe any motive for his attack, or declare the episode to be an act of terrorism.
FBI Special Agent Aaron Rouse said at a news conference in Las Vegas that the bureau had “determined to this point no connection to an international terrorist group.”
An official on the White House National Security Council also said there were no known terrorist connections, but that the government was continuing its investigation.
Trump spoke with Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman, Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval and Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo, the White House said.
The Department of Homeland Security had “no information to indicate a specific credible threat involving other public venues in the country” after the shooting, it said.
The shooting could initiate a new round of debate over US gun laws.
Republican Senator Dean Heller, who represents Nevada in Washington, said on Twitter that he was praying for the victims of the “senseless, horrifying act of violence” and that he’d spoken to Republican Governor Brian Sandoval and would continue to monitor the situation.
Heller is one of the most vulnerable Republicans in next year’s midterm elections, and the shooting could increase pressure on him
to back any Democratic effort to revive legislation that would impose stricter background checks on
gun purchasers.
He voted against a version of background-check legislation that came close to Senate passage in 2013 after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
Democratic officials began hinting at tougher gun laws. “The nation’s conscience must be galvanised,” Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, where the Sandy Hook shooting happened, said.
Weeks after taking office, Trump signed legislation rolling back an Obama-era regulation that made it harder for people with mental illnesses to purchase guns.