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MGM Resorts, seeking cash, sells stakes in MGM Grand and Mandalay Bay casinos for $4.6B January 14, 2020 / 3:09 PM / CBS/AP MGM Resorts International is selling the real estate assets of the MGM.
Casino mogul Steve Wynn says the gun massacre outside the Mandalay Bay casino isn't keeping tourists away from Las Vegas.
'If you're going to ask us what effect did the tragedy at Mandalay have on us? None that we can measure,' Wynn said late Thursday on a conference call to discuss his company's earnings.
- Background Location. The Las Vegas Strip is a stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard immediately south of the city of Las Vegas in Clark County, Nevada.The Strip is known for its concentration of casinos and resort hotels, including the 43-story Mandalay Bay southwest of its intersection with Mandalay Bay Road, in the unincorporated town of Paradise. Las Vegas Village, a 15-acre (6.1-hectare) lot.
- Mandalay Corp., doing business as Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, operates a resort and casino. The Company offers spas, gyms, casinos, beach clubs, wedding chapels, shark reef aquarium.
Profit at Wynn Resorts(WYNN) topped Wall Street forecasts, thanks to solid sales at casinos in Las Vegas and Macau, a Chinese territory where gambling is legal.
But the attack in Las Vegas earlier this month, which left 58 people dead and almost 500 injured, got much of the attention on the conference call.
Wynn said his company has invested more in security since the shootings. He expects the rest of the industry is doing the same.
'We're sort of operating as a group. Some of us are talking to one another, like the Sands and MGM,' he said.
Wynn said people 'in every executive suite up and down The Strip and in Reno and everywhere else and in hotels around the country' are searching for ways to prevent another massacre.
'We've had programs of training our employees for two years -- room service, housekeeping, audio visual people that go to fix a TV or touch screen,' Wynn said.
'They've all been trained for two years. They inspect the rooms. They look at the people. We profile everybody,' he added.
Wynn said that the Las Vegas gunman, Stephen Paddock, had been a gambler at Wynn-owned casinos since 2006 but that there was nothing remarkable about him. He was a typical slots and video poker player who 'didn't owe a dime in Las Vegas,' Wynn said.
'He didn't meet the profile of a problem gambler or anything like that. He was a very controlled person,' Wynn said.
Casino workers who knew Paddock 'were stunned, mystified, that the person they knew could have been a person that tried to assassinate hundreds and thousands of people,' Wynn said.
Other Las Vegas companies have also said business is getting back to normal.
Las Vegas Sands(LVS), which also operates in Macau, reported solid results and a healthy forecast. And Boyd Gaming(BYD), which owns several casinos in downtown Las Vegas, echoed Wynn's comments about strong tourism.
Boyd CEO Keith Smith said his company does not 'anticipate any material impact' on visitors to Vegas in the near future.
Caesars Entertainment(CZR) and Mandalay owner MGM(MGM) wlll release their latest earnings in early November.
How does bump fire work?
An employee of North Raleigh Guns in North Carolina demonstrates how a “bump stock” works in this 2013 photo. Picture: Allen Breed/APSource:AP
THEY sell for less than $100 and enable a shooter to fire off up to 800 rounds a minute.
Widely available, the bump stock device is what police suspect Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock used to kill 59 people and injure more than 500 others.
The device is also totally legal.
Paddock, who was found with 23 weapons inside his room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, had the devices with him at the time of the shooting.
The accessories allow semiautomatic rifles to fire rapidly and continuously, as if they were fully automatic weapons.
This gives a shooter the ability to inflict the maximum amount of carnage possible.
Police suspect Stephan Paddock attached a bump stock to his weapons, in effect converting semiautomatic firearms into fully automatic ones, for his shooting spree. Picture: Allen Breed/APSource:AP
Paddock reportedly used a bipod to set up a “sniper’s perch” which allowed him to spray the crowd with bullets from two different vantage points.
Las Vegas Sheriff Joseph Lombardo stopped short of saying whether a bump stock device was used in the attack.
Witnesses and law enforcement officials said the quick, 50-round bursts of gunfire raised the likelihood that Paddock used a fully automatic weapon or modified his semiautomatic rifles to function like one.
In a press conference today, Sheriff Lombardo would not say whether the shooter used an automatic weapon.
He did however confirm Paddock had modified at least one of his firearms to make it shoot faster.
“We are aware of a device called the bump stock and that enables an individual to speed up the discharge of ammunition,” he said.
The sheriff added that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had sent the weapons to the Federal Bureau of Investigation crime lab for further investigation.
All up, police have seized 47 firearms found in Paddock’s hotel room, and his two Nevada properties. They were bought in four different states.
Twelve bump-fire stocks were found on the firearms in the hotel room.
KILLER WEAPON
The bump stock device works by manipulating the trigger mechanism extremely rapidly, far faster than a person could do so without the device.
Bump fire uses the recoil of the gun to help the shooter pull the trigger faster, effectively getting one round per one depression of the trigger.
By holding the pistol grip with one hand and pushing forward on the barrel with the other, the shooter’s finger comes in contact with the trigger.
The recoil causes the gun to buck back and forth, “bumping” the trigger.
The devices have been around for less than a decade and were originally created with the idea of making it easier for people with disabilities to shoot a gun.
However critics argue they flout federal restrictions on automatic guns.
A broken window on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino where Paddock opened fire on concertgoers below. Picture: Drew Angerer/Getty Images/AFPSource:AFP
CONCERNS GROW
Bump stocks are legally and widely available but have attracted scrutiny from authorities and politicians in recent years.
Democrat senator Dianne Feinstein has been among US politicians who have voiced concerns over the availability of such accessories and called for a ban on their sale.
“Individuals are able to purchase bump fire stocks for less than $200 and easily convert a semiautomatic weapon into a firearm that can shoot between 400 and 800 rounds per minute and inflict absolute carnage,” she said.
There are also concerns the tragedy has sparked a run in sales of the product.
A former police officer, who owns a gun shop in Stockbridge, Georgia, told the Associated Press said he is seeing a run on bump stocks since Sunday.
Ed Turner said while he would be surprised if he had sold two of them in the past decade, he is now unable to find any available, even from wholesalers.
‘BUY THEM ANYWHERE’
Speaking to news.com.au from the US, weapons expert and former homicide investigator Dan Meadows said the bump stock device can be purchased anywhere.
“You can buy them on eBay, anyone can get one,” he said.
“They used to sell for $400-500 but you can get them for as little as $100 online now.”
However the device alone can’t be used on its own unless it is attached to an AR-15 for example.
Mr Meadows, an expert for New York based The Expert Institute, said the device, which was legal, could allow a shooter to fire off hundreds of rounds at an extremely rapid rate.
It also had the potential to inflict huge damage and casualties especially if fired from a high vantage point.
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“It’s like shooting fish in a barrel,” Mr Meadow said.
“You don’t have to be extremely accurate using a bump stock but you’re definitely going to hit somebody.”
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Mr Meadows didn’t believe a ban on selling or making the device would be effective as there are “so many out there already.”
He also pointed out the huge amount of firearms found at Paddock’s homes and hotels was not that unusual in the US, especially among gun collectors.
Mr Meadows said judging by the photos and sound of fire, it appeared a bump stock device could have been used.
“He either used a bump stock or a drop down sear which allows you to modify a gun to fully automatic,” he said.
“It’s very easy to do.”
Machinegun Fun without breaking the law.Source:Supplied
‘MACHINEGUN FUN’
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The purchasing of fully automatic weapons has been significantly restricted in the US since the 1930s.
In 1986, the federal National Firearms Act was amended further to prohibit the transfer or possession of machine guns by civilians, with an exception for those previously manufactured and registered.
Numerous attempts to design retrofits failed until recent years when bump stocks came on the market.
A semiautomatic weapon requires one trigger pull for each round fired.
With a fully automatic firearm, one trigger pull can unleash continuous rounds until the magazine is empty.
Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo briefs the media as investigations continue. Picture: Drew Angerer/Getty Images/AFPSource:AFP
Technically, that means the finger is pulling the trigger for each round fired, keeping the weapon a legal semiautomatic.
The US government gave its seal of approval to selling the bump stock devices in 2010 after concluding that they did not violate federal law, but it is unclear how many have been sold.
Manufacturers tout the stocks, which typically sell for less than $200 (USD), as offering a simple and affordable alternative to automatic weapons without the hassle of a rigorous background check and other restrictions.
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The devices feature prominently in YouTube clips where users show what they can do with the device and how it works.
One company, Bump Fire Systems, which sells the devices advertises them for sale at just $99.99 and says “Did you know that you can do simulated full-auto firing and it is absolutely legal?”
A makeshift memorial on the Las Vegas Strip pays tribute to those killed after Paddock killed 59 people and wounded more than 500 others. Picture: Mark Ralston/AFPSource:AFP
Another Cheaper Than Dirt, which sells the device, online says “a bumpfire stock is just the ticket to get machine gun fun out of your AR-15 without breaking the law.”
An article on Pro-gun websiteBearing Armspointed out the devices have been around for years “with no other incidents of being used by maniacs.”
It also said the devices are legal at the federal level and also in the state of Nevada where the shooting occurred.