Despite there is a long way to go and much to learn for being a dancer, I will try hard to strengthen my fundamental skills of dancing as well as participate in different competitions to gain more experience.

That’s not an excuse or a throwaway comment, it’s simply a statement of fact.

So far this year there have been more than 270 mass shootings in the country — that averages out to almost one a day.

On Sunday night in Las Vegas, the 273rd shooting eclipsed them all.

When the death toll hit 50, the Las Vegas boulevard attack — which saw a local man aim automatic weapons from his 32nd floor hotel window towards concertgoers at a country music festival — became the worst mass shooting the US has ever seen.

The death toll currently sits at 59 and at least 527 people have been injured. Both of those figures are expected to rise.

Though the White House has said it’s “not the time” to talk about America’s gun problem, it’s tricky at a time like this to ignore the laws and rights that allowed the gunman to stockpile his arsenal of weapons and cause such an extraordinary scale of fatal destruction.

The Las Vegas shooter, Nevada local Stephen Paddock, 64, was a regular customer at Guns & Guitars, a weapons store in Mesquite, Nevada.

The store was a few minutes from Paddock’s home and about an hour’s drive from the Las Vegas Strip where he carried out the crime.

While it’s unconfirmed where the weapons used in last night’s shooting were acquired, the store’s general manager Christopher Sullivan said his store had sold guns to the mass murderer.

“Mr Paddock was a customer and purchased firearms from our store; however, all necessary background checks and procedures were followed, as required by local, state, and federal law,” Mr Sullivan said in a statement.

“He never gave any indication or reason to believe he was unstable or unfit at any time.”
When a SWAT team used explosives to bust open the door of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino hotel room where Paddock was staying, they found plenty of reason to believe he had intended to cause harm.

Paddock had holed himself up in the 32nd-floor room for four days and had managed to surround himself by high-powered weapons.

Inside the suite were 17 firearms — a range of rifles and shotguns. Two semiautomatic rifles were set up on tripods and fixed with sites, as well as devices attached to the stocks that allowed them to release fully-automatic gunfire. Semi-automatic weapons are legal in Nevada but fully automatic weapons are not.

The rifles were positioned by the room’s smashed-in windows and aimed toward the location of the Route 91 music festival and its 22,000 attendees down below.

It’s unclear how Paddock got the weapons into inside the hotel, but former Homeland Security Adviser Fran Townsend told CBS News it’s likely he simply brought them in his luggage.

At Paddock’s Mesquite home, officers found 18 more guns, explosives and several thousands rounds of ammunition.

Though the deadly stash was shocking, it’s understood Paddock acquired all of the weapons legally.

It’s stunningly easy to get hold of a gun in Nevada.

The right to bear arms is enshrined in the first article of the Silver State’s constitution, and you don’t need a permit to do it.

“Every citizen has the right to keep and bear arms for security and defence, for lawful hunting and recreational use and for other lawful purposes,” the state’s constitution instructs.

In Nevada, people aren’t required to get a licence or register their weapons, and there’s no limit to the number of guns a person can buy at one time.Gun-owners have the choice of whether to conceal their weapons or carry them openly, and they’re even allowed to bring them into casinos, bars, and polling places.

Background checks aren’t enforced for private sellers, and the state doesn’t regulate unsafe firearms.

There are some restrictions, like not being allowed to bring a gun to a school or university campuses. Private event organisers and venues are of course allowed to prohibit weapons, as the Route 91 Harvest Festival which Paddock shot at did.GUN LAWS AND MASS SHOOTINGS

The right to bear arms is a well-defended tenet of the American constitution, but gun laws differ across the US.

Nevada’s gun laws — along with Utah, where a store owner has confirmed Paddock also bought a weapon — are among the most lenient in the country.

States with more relaxed gun laws have more guns, and as logic have it, states with more guns also have more gun deaths.And although deaths from mass shootings make up only a small portion of America’s firearm deaths, it’s worth noting that these states also have more mass shootings like the one we saw unfold overnight.

The Las Vegas shooting became the nation’s worst mass shooting in history when the death toll ticked over to 50 early Sunday morning. Since then, it’s risen to 59 and at least 527 were injured.

The shocking toll outstrips that of last year’s Orlando spooring where a gunman fatally shot 49 people at a gay nightclub before he was shot dead by police.

In 2007, a gunman slaughtered 32 people before killing himself at Virginia Tech university.

In 2012, a man shot dead his mother before killing 20 children, six adults and then himself at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

At the time the deadliest gun massacre the US had seen, the Sandy Hook shooting was billed as a wake-up call to America and saw multiple gun laws proposed at federal and state levels.Few states ended up strengthening their gun laws and a big push to pass tougher restrictions on gun sales at a federal level failed.

  To Ka Kiu