First, let me offer my condolences to you and your customer. Four friends of mine were supposed to go to that concert (I was even invited to go), but fortunately for my friends and myself, none of them ended up being able to go.
In response to your OP, I can't say I have the perfect answer to solve the problem of what to do about mass shooters like Mr. Paddock. But I don't believe adding a few more restrictions to the books is going to work, and I'll try to tell you why.
The fact is, depending on who you ask, there are anywhere between 300 and 20,000 existing gun laws on the books right now, and not one of them would've have stopped the events in Vegas. Now you say that you think we should all give up our semi-automatic rifles and pistols in some national mandatory gun buy back program (confiscation, in other words) to make our country safer. Someone already did the math, I won't repeat that here. But we are talking about billions of dollars. Just where is the government supposed to get that money? More taxes for us? Good luck with that.
Not to mention the fact that the buy back wouldn't get all of those guns. No buy back program ever has. And with literally tens of millions of semi-automatic weapons out there, it's more than likely after such a buy back there would still be tens of millions of them 'in the wild.'
I could keep going on in this vein but hopefully my point is made. More laws aren't the solution. The truth is, the government doesn't come close to enforcing all the laws that are on the books now. If they can't enforce the laws we already have, then what on God's green earth makes anyone think that they'll adequately enforce a few new ones?
And we have some pretty tough laws on the books as it is, and the government isn't taking advantage of any of them. Here a short list of some of those laws that we already have, that the government isn't enforcing at all:
(from a NRA-ILA article, "Not Enforcing Existing Gun Laws—That's a Crime")
"So let me cite—from a federal public defender fact sheet—a few of the existing federal statutes dealing with armed criminals once they have their guns. I’ll give you the prison term first along with the citations in the United States Code (U.S.C.).
10 years—18 U.S.C. § 922(g)—for possession of a firearm or ammunition by a felon, fugitive, or drug user … And possession means touching a gun, any gun, handgun, rifle or shotgun. Any firearm that Sen. Dianne Feinstein would ban for us, is already an illegal gun for violent criminals.
10 years—18 U.S.C. § 922(j)—for possession of a stolen firearm.
10 years—18 U.S.C. § 922(i)—for shipment or transport of a stolen firearm across state lines.
10 years—18 U.S.C. § 924(b)—for shipping, transporting or receipt of a firearm across state lines with intent to commit a felony.
5 to 30 years consecutive mandatory minimum sentences—18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(1)(a)—for carrying, using, or possessing a firearm in connection with a federal crime of violence or drug trafficking.
The death penalty or up to life imprisonment—18 U.S.C. § 924(j)—for committing murder while possessing a firearm in connection with a crime of violence or drug trafficking.
15 years mandatory minimum—18 U.S.C. § 924(e)—for a “prohibited person” who has three prior convictions for drug offenses or violent felonies.
10 years—18 U.S.C. § 924(g)—for interstate travel to acquire or transfer a firearm to commit crimes."
According to the DOJ, these laws are enforced at a rate of less than 2%. In spite of the fact that every year they come across tens of thousands of potential prosecute-able cases. The next question is obviously why? Their answer has always been that they don't have the money or the resources to follow up on these cases. So instead they try to focus on big cases or sting operations like the infamous failure, "Fast and Furious."
The bottom line, I believe, is this: everyone wants to try to make sure things like Vegas or Sandy Hook or Aurora don't happen again. I don't think there was any realistic way to stop Paddock, but we may have been able to stop Sandy Hook and Aurora. Using the laws that are already on the books.
It's also interesting to note that both the left and the right as well as 95% of gun owners are in favor of better enforcing existing gun laws more stringently, according to several polls conducted by both the left and the right, as well as by the NRA itself.
Of course, in order to enforce our existing laws, we'd have to get Congress to at least increase funding to the BATF, NICS, and the DOJ. Agencies that most gun owners view with a wary eye, at best.
But there seem to be other issues as well, such as the vagueness of the existing laws. How to handle the mental illness question is another. I could try to go on, but I feel I'm drifting off-course as it is. Instead I'll leave this with some links to articles that discuss these issues, by those that are not only better writers than myself, but also better informed.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/09/politi...gap/index.html
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ct-study-finds
http://www.newsweek.com/american-gun...nforced-390456