On October 1, 2017, a mass shooting occurred when 64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire on the crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada from his 32nd-floor suites in the Mandalay Bay hotel. He fired more than 1,000 rounds, killing 60 people and wounding at least 413. The ensuing panic brought the total number of injured to approximately 867. About an hour later, he was found dead in his room from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The motive for the shooting is officially undetermined.
The incident is the deadliest mass shooting by one gunman in American history. It focused attention on firearms laws in the U.S., particularly with regard to bump stocks, which Paddock used to fire shots in rapid succession, at a rate similar to that of automatic firearms. Bump stocks were banned by the U.S. Justice Department in December 2018, but the ban was overturned by the Supreme Court for lacking a legislative basis in 2024.
Background
Location
The Las Vegas Strip is a stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard...