Virginia Beach mass shooting: did DeWayne Craddock’s use of gun ‘silencer’ make difference in carnage that killed 12 people?

The gunman who killed 12 people in a government office building in Virginia Beach used a firearm equipped with a suppressor that muffles the sound of gunfire. It’s the nightmare scenario that gun-control advocates in the United States have warned about amid efforts in recent years to ease restrictions on the devices, which they say can help shooters escape detection and inflict more carnage. But gun-rights advocates and most law enforcement experts say DeWayne Craddock’s use of a suppressor likely had no bearing on his ability to kill so many people in so little time Friday. Virginia is among 42 states that allow residents to purchase and possess suppressors, though some cities and towns - including Virginia Beach - prohibit them. Known colloquially as a “silencer”, a suppressor was attached to the .45-calibre handgun that police say the shooter used to kill a dozen people on three floors of the building where he worked before police closed in and, after a protracted gunbattle, fatally shot him. That could at least partially explain why survivors of the attack said they were caught off guard and initially puzzled by what was happening. Latest US mass shootings all have something in common: the AR-15 Bushmaster assault rifle One described hearing something that sounded like a nail gun. “This is the concern we were talking about when Republicans were trying to deregulate silencers as ‘ear protection’,” said David Chipman, a retired agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and now the senior policy adviser with Giffords, a gun-control lobbying group. “Especially on a handgun, a suppressor will distort the sound in such a way that it would not immediately be recognisable as gunfire to people who sort of know what that sound is.” Others say the gunman’s use of a silencer was less of a factor in enabling him to carry out the rampage than was his familiarity with the building and even possibly his military background, both of which may have given him a tactical advantage. It’s not immediately clear how long Friday’s attack lasted, or how much time passed before the first police officers arrived. The police department is in the same complex as the building where the shooting took place. Donald Trump’s administration is banning bump stock machine-gun modification used in Las Vegas massacre It also wasn’t yet known how Craddock got the suppressor he used on his handgun, though authorities have said he legally purchased multiple firearms recently. According to the Washington-based Gun Violence Archive monitoring group, Friday’s shooting was the 150th mass shooting - with four or more people shot or killed - in the United States this year. “We’re only 151 days into 2019 and there have already been 150 mass shootings. This reality is horrifying,” tweeted Gabrielle Giffords, a former congresswoman who was seriously injured in a mass shooting in 2011. As members of this beach town planned memorials and funerals, and wrestled with being identified as the latest site of a mass shooting, investigators continued to comb through Craddock’s life and interview city employees to try to explain why the 40-year-old so violently lashed out. He was a seasoned engineer, a military veteran with a shaved head and body builder’s physique. He had an all-business - but not off-putting - demeanour, one co-worker recounted. And a reserved but not peculiar presence, several neighbours said. The director of his department said there were no red flags. On the quiet cul-de-sac where Craddock lived, several neighbours talked of having sparing conversations with him. “He just seemed like the kind of person who was just to himself and didn’t mess with the outside world much,” said Amanda Archer, who lives with Cassetty Howerin below Craddock’s home. The two neighbours said they never spoke to Craddock for long and didn’t remember him having visitors, even on holidays. When they moved in a year ago, the women said they noticed three cameras in two windows from Craddock’s residence that appeared to be focused on the parking lot. They had the impression that the cameras were there to protect his two cars - a grey Camaro that he drove on weekends and the Subaru he took to work. “We would always jokingly say, ‘DeWayne’s got cameras at his house, so if anybody was ever to come around, we’d be fine,’ not knowing that the person who could have come around would be him,” Archer said. “We never felt fearful or anything like that.” Additional reporting by The Washington Post and Agence France-Presse

Virginia Beach mass shooting: did DeWayne Craddock’s use of gun ‘silencer’ make difference in carnage that killed 12 people?

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;}DeWayne Craddock opened fire at his place of work on Friday, firing indiscriminately at his colleagues His .45-calibre semi-automatic handgun was outfitted with a sound suppressor

DeWayne Craddock opened fire at his place of work on Friday, firing indiscriminately at his colleagues

His .45-calibre semi-automatic handgun was outfitted with a sound suppressor