Who he was / What about Chicago? / Heartbroken

WHO HE WAS. What we know about the gunman in the Las Vegas massacre.

His dad was a three-time bank robber wanted by the FBI.
He liked guns, video poker and real estate deals.
He owned an “arsenal.”
A dealer who sold him a gun: “My gut fell out.”
What made this attack different: Nine rounds a second.
How he could have used a “hellfire trigger” to turn assault rifles into automatic weapons. (2006 Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino photo: Ken Lund.)
A Marine veteran stole a truck to drive the wounded to a hospital.
One woman stayed with a dying stranger for hours.
Chicagoans who were in Vegas share their stories.
Profiles of the dead.

KIMMEL IN TEARS. Among many heartfelt reactions to the Las Vegas attack, Jimmy Kimmel issued a sad plea at the start of his Monday night show: “I would like to think we could put politics aside and agree that no American citizen needs an M-16 or 10 of them.”
President Trump promises, “We’ll be talking about gun laws as time goes by.”
Stephen Colbert encourages Trump to buck the party on gun control: “You do not owe the Republicans anything. You know the Republicans tried to stop you from being president. Well, screw ’em!”
Trump’s ex-strategist Steve Bannon: If Trump supports new gun controls, it “will be the end of everything.”
CBS has fired a vice president and senior counsel who posted this to Facebook: “I’m actually not even sympathetic bc country music fans are often republican gun toters.”
 Following its standard playbook, the NRA went silent Monday.
The Onion:Americans Hopeful This Will Be Last Mass Shooting Before They Stop On Their Own For No Reason.”
Police say a suburban high school hall monitor owned 40 guns.

WHAT ABOUT CHICAGO? With big-crowd events planned for this weekend—the Chicago Marathon and the Cubs’ playoff series—Mayor Emanuel says the city’s “prepared” for “active shooter” attacks.
Rock critic Greg Kot talks to concert promoters: Recent violence has “shaken confidence in their ability to keep concertgoers safe.”
The Tribune’s Heidi Stevens relates parents’ challenges in the face of a familiar dread.

JOURNALISM’S MISTAKES. News outlets, Facebook and Google early Monday amplified trolls’ naming of the wrong man as the Vegas shooter.
…And there was that ISIS claim of responsibility.
How reporting on Tom Petty’s health—including some posts to the Chicago Public Square Facebook and Twitter accounts—went astray.
WGN-TV interactive producer Mike Ewing reviews the day in a newsroom: “Everyone is sorting through misinformation and official information to try and determine what’s real.”
A new poll finds confidence in the news media and Trump moving in opposite directions.
A $30 million windfall ahead for newspapers and TV stations: Big Tobacco ads criticizing Big Tobacco.

HEARTBROKEN. Rocker Petty died after a massive cardiac arrest.
Bob Dylan to The Daily Beast: “It’s shocking, crushing news.” (Image: musicisentropy.)

EQUIF**KED. Equifax says the number of people whose identities were hacked from its database may be 2.5 million larger than previously reported.
Updating coverage: Equifax’s former chief has a date on Capitol Hill today.

HEAVY HONOR. The Nobel Prize for physics goes to three Americans for their confirmation of the existence of gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of the universe anticipated by Albert Einstein. (Image: NobelPrize.org.)
The creator of the Papyrus font answers a Saturday Night Live skit ridiculing its use in the movie Avatar.

BACK ON THE FIELD. A week after suspension of its season for a hazing investigation, the Niles North High School team will return to action Friday night.


CORRECTION, CLARIFICATION.
Yesterday’s emailed edition of Square got wrong the number of Russia-linked ads Facebook was to turn over to Congress. Thanks to Ron Schwartz for catching the error.
And the ever-insightful Mike Braden noted the unfortunate ambiguity of the phrase “the shooting and killing of at least 50 people and the wounding of more than 400 others at a Las Vegas concert by Jason Aldean”—now corrected on the Square website to read: “… the wounding of more than 400 others at a Jason Aldean concert.”

Subscribe to Square.