text: When the gunshots started, videos showed, those in front of the stage dropped to their stomachs — often an adequate first measure when under fire. But on Sunday night, the decision potentially put them at greater risk. 
   
   Mr. Paddock’s position overhead gave him a vantage point over objects and obstacles that would typically protect people from bullets flying from a gunman at ground level. It also meant that inaccurate shots — the sort common to rapid or hurried fire, which typically sail high or strike the ground short — could still plunge into areas where people were huddled. 
   
   Audio recordings of the shooting suggest that at least one of Mr. Paddock’s weapons fired automatically, discharging multiple bullets with a single depression of a trigger, in what are commonly called bursts. 
   
   Weapons capable of burst fire have long been federally regulated in the United States and are more difficult to obtain than weapons that fire semiautomatically, for which regulations vary by state. 
   
   It was not clear on Monday evening whether Mr. Paddock possessed such weapons, or used semiautomatic weapons that had been altered. In some videos of the shooting, the rate of fire sounds inconsistent, at times sputtering. 
   
   This suggests the possibility that a weapon could have been modified to fire more quickly, a change to semiautomatic firearms known as bump or slide fire. Such modifications harness the recoil to allow for rapid fire. 
   
   Sheriff Joseph Lombardo of Clark County, Nev., said that at least 16 rifles, ranging from .308 to .223 caliber, and a handgun were retrieved from Mr. Paddock’s hotel room. A federal law enforcement official said that AR-15-style rifles were among them. The authorities did not detail all of the guns, or which weapons Mr. Paddock fired. 
   
   Mr. Paddock had purchased some guns in Arizona, according to a gun seller there who spoke with the authorities. ||||| Share on Google Plus 
   
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   “Either run and get shot and die, or stay and get shot and die.” 
   
   SHAMI ESPINOZA, a concertgoer from California who was caught in the gunfire at a Las Vegas music festival. ||||| BTW 
   
   Warning: This article contains graphic imagery and language. 
   
   As details steadily come in about the Las Vegas shooting that has left 59 dead and 527 injured, so have videos and images showing the terror concertgoers faced as alleged shooter Stephen Paddock began spraying bullets at the crowd from a Mandalay Bay hotel room. 
   
   This YouTube video below, in particular, is jarring. Around the 1:10 mark, amid a screaming crowd—some running for their lives, others lying on the ground in fear—a man remains standing, his arms wide open, yelling, “Come on, pussy” at the shooter. 
   
   While many are pointing out the absurdity of the man’s hyper-macho response—an extreme version of “come at me, bro” as bullets are heard flying—most of us have never been victim to a mass shooting, so who are we to know what our instincts give way to when we are suddenly confronted with the 273rd mass shooting this year, a number that’s absurd in itself. 
   
   Related video Why did this 24 y/o become an Internet Exhibitionist? 
   
   Instead, I would argue it’s the juxtaposition of the crowd’s reactions—from fear to flight to panic to disillusion—that makes this video so harrowing, so painfully human, and so hard to watch. 
   
   Editor’s note: This post has been updated to reflect the latest death toll in the Las Vegas shooting.
target: – One of the many jarring videos to emerge from the Sunday night mass shooting in Las Vegas shows a defiant man standing and taunting the gunman while most of those around him were on the ground or trying to find cover. You can see the video here, but note that it's disturbing. (The man emerges around the 1:10 mark.) "Come on," he can be heard yelling, while gesturing with his arms in the direction of the source of the shots. As the Daily Dot notes, many commenters have criticized the "hyper-macho response," but is it possible the man inadvertently had the right idea in staying upright? A story at the New York Times that digs into the unusual nature of this attack observes that many people instinctively dropped to their stomachs when the bullets began flying. That's usually wise, "but on Sunday night, the decision potentially put them at greater risk," per the account by CJ Chivers, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, and Adam Goldman. The reason is that the gunman was firing from such a high vantage point, the 32nd floor of the hotel across the street. Any "inaccurate shots—the sort common to rapid or hurried fire, which typically sail high or strike the ground short—could still plunge into areas where people were huddled." Still, the choice was stark for concertgoers in the chaos. One puts it this way to the Times: “Either run and get shot and die, or stay and get shot and die.”