Are Hotels and Resorts Safe from Violent Attacks?
Unfortunately, there are so many different examples of individuals and groups using hotels and resorts to commit violence and criminal activities. My experience in traveling to many hotels and resorts in the U.S and around the world is the shocking lack of security at these places. At any airport or train station, the passenger’s baggage and luggage are x-rayed and examined by security or local authorities. There is none of that when checking in at hotels and resorts. The luggage carts are full of bags being taken to guest rooms or suites without any x-rays or examinations. This is a recipe for disaster and happens quite often with criminals and mass shooters. One such example was Stephen Paddock who became the worst mass shooter in American history.
It is the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history at the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip committed by Stephen Paddock on October 01, 2017. He shot his victims from a suite on the 32nd-floor in the Mandalay Bay hotel where he fired over 1,000 rounds killing sixty people and injuring 411 others.
Allegedly, Paddock had stayed at different cities prior to the incident in Las Vegas like Boston and Chicago looking for a venue to commit the mass shooting. On September 25, 2017, Paddock checked in at the hotel and had a complementary room at the Mandalay Bay, room # 32-135. Four days later he also checked into the suite directly connecting his room # 32-134. Both suites overlooked the concert at the Las Vegas Village. According to authorities, Paddock had over twenty suitcases delivered to his room in a span of four days. In total, he had fourteen AR-15 style rifles with twelve of them equipped with a 100-round drum magazine, eight AR-10 type assault rifles, and other weapons.
Around 10 p.m., on the night of the shooting, Paddock used a hammer to break two of the windows in both of his suites and began shooting at the crowd. The shooter fired at the concert goers and at a large jet fuel tank at Reid International Airport about 2,000 feet away. Around 10:30 p.m., officers arrived at the 32nd floor and manually breached the door Paddock had screwed shut with a bracket. Around 11:20 p.m., police breached the shooter’s room with explosives. Officers discovered Paddock dead on the floor from a self-inflected gunshot wound to the head.
The killer had twenty-four firearms, a large quantity of ammunition, high- capacity magazines capable of holding 100 rounds and some of the AR-15 style rifles were equipped with bump stocks that made the semi-automatic rifles shoot faster in rapid succession almost shooting like a machinegun. The AR-10 rifles were accessorized with telescope sights and mounted on bipods. According to federal authorities, all the firearms recovered in Paddock’s suite were legally purchased by him. The crazed gunman shot himself with a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver model 342.
Paddock was a 64-year-old real estate businessman who lived eighty miles from Las Vegas in Mesquite, Nevada and was a high-stakes gambler and a regular in Las Vegas. Allegedly, Paddock had lost significant amount of his wealth in the last two years prior to the shooting and was known to be a heavy drinker.
In October 2019, MGM resorts international reached a settlement agreement of $800 million with the victims of the shooting. Also in 2019, bump stocks were banned in the United States where owners were required to destroy or surrender them to their local ATF office. In June 2024, the Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision overturned the federal ban imposed by ATF.
These locations are soft targets where someone who has a well thought out plan and motivation to execute the attack will unfortunately succeed. There are so many examples of drug traffickers arrested with a cache of weapons inside their hotel rooms that are shocking and appalling. Terrorists, mass shooters, criminals and other heinous groups are always looking for opportunities to inflict mass casualties on civilian populations. These hotels give them cover and opportunity to do the unthinkable. This is the unfortunate and tragic reality of living in the twenty-first century that even when on vacation these monsters never rest.
