Hunt for motive on

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Police yesterday sought clues to explain why a retiree who enjoyed gambling but had no criminal record set up a vantage point in a high-rise Las Vegas hotel and poured gunfire onto a concert below, slaying dozens of people before killing himself.

The Sunday night shooting spree from a 32nd-floor window of the Mandalay Bay hotel, on the Las Vegas Strip, killed at least 59 people before the gunman turned a weapon on himself. More than 500 people were injured, some trampled, in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.

The gunman, identified as Stephen Paddock, 64, left no immediate hint of his motive for the arsenal of high-powered weaponry he amassed, including 42 guns, or the carnage he inflicted on a crowd of 22,000 attending an outdoor country music festival.

"He was a sick man, a demented man," US President Donald Trump told reporters. "Lot of problems, I guess, and we're looking into him very, very seriously, but we're dealing with a very, very sick individual"

He declined to answer a question about whether he considered the attack an act of domestic terrorism. US officials also discounted a claim of responsibility by the Islamic State militant group.

Police said they believed Paddock acted alone.

As with previous mass shootings that have rocked the United States, the massacre in Las Vegas stirred the ongoing debate about gun ownership, which is protected by the Second Amendment to the Constitution, and about how much that right should be subject to controls.

 The Strip was packed with visitors when the shooting started shortly after 10 pm local time on Sunday during the Route 91 Harvest music festival.

Video of the attack showed throngs of people screaming in horror and cowering on the open ground as extended bursts of gunfire strafed the crowd from above, from a distance police estimated at more than 500 yards (460 meters).

The bloodshed ended after police swarming the hotel closed in on the gunman, who shot and wounded a hotel security officer through the door of his two-room suite and then killed himself before police entered, authorities said.

Police said 23 guns were found in Paddock's suite.

Lombardo said a search of the suspect's car turned up a supply of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer compound that can be formed into explosives. Police found another 19 firearms, some explosives and thousands of rounds of ammunition at Paddock's home in Mesquite, about 90 miles (145 km) northeast of Las Vegas.