Vegas shooter tried to buy tracer ammo at gun show
Stephen Paddock recently tried to buy tracer ammo at a gun show near Phoenix, a law enforcement official told CNN.
He bought other ammunition at the show, but the vendor didn’t have any tracer rounds — bullets with a pyrotechnic charge that, when the round is fired, leaves an illuminated trace of its path.
Tracers are commonly used in the military and loaded as every fifth round in assault rifle magazines or machine gun belts – allowing their trajectories to be visible to the shooter, day or night.
The killer did not use tracer rounds when he fired into concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest Festival on Sunday night from his suite on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Vegas.
Tracer ammo would have provided Paddock with greater accuracy by illuminating their path to their targets in the darkness, the official told CNN.
But the bright rounds also could have given away his exact position more quickly by allowing police to see where they were coming from, CNN law enforcement analyst James Gagliano said.
Without the tracer rounds, the madman’s location was tough to determine from afar, said Gagliano, a retired FBI supervisory special agent.
“The barrel of the rifle — we could not see muzzle flashes, from the angles I’ve seen on videos, which meant that he was … pulled back inside,” Gagliano said.
In addition to the 23 weapons in his suite, Paddock had 50 pounds of the explosive Tannerite and 1,600 rounds of ammo in his car nearby, fueling suspicion that he had planned to survive.
“He was doing everything possible to see how he could escape,” Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said.