After a 64-year-old man smashed open his hotel room window and opened fire on an outdoor music festival below, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said there was no way anyone could have stopped the nation’s deadliest mass shooting from taking place, McClatchy Newspapers reports. “This is an individual described as a ‘lone wolf,’” he said. “I don’t know how it could have been prevented if we didn’t have any prior knowledge of this individual.” Law enforcement officials, politicians and hotel and concert managers offered the same sad lament: There’s very little that can be done. Banning outdoor events won’t stop this type of mass violence. Many rejected suggestions of tighter security at sporting events and concerts, citing high costs and difficult logistics. “This country has so many public venues and it’s built on the premise of free assembly for whatever purpose — for political purposes, for religious purposes or even just for amusement, as was the case here,” said Jim Pasco of the Fraternal Order of Police. “It’s hard to say what more could be done that hasn’t been done short of curtailing the American way of life, which I don’t think is a particularly good idea.”
Major league sports already requires patrons to go through metal detectors. Security personnel are omnipresent at concerts. Big hotels have sophisticated security systems and well-trained staffs looking out for trouble. The Las Vegas music festival was fully staffed with security personnel. Law enforcement was well aware of the potential for such incidents after the mass shooting at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub last year. Matt Puckett of the Florida Police Benevolent Association said, “I don’t think shutting down outdoor venues would be something that would work. Florida is a tourist-based, outdoor-based economy.”