Did the Virginia Beach gunman’s ‘silencer’ make a difference in the carnage?

PATRICK SEMANSKY/Associated Press

Members of the FBI load equipment into a vehicle as they work in a parking lot outside the municipal building that was the scene of a shooting Saturday in Virginia Beach, Va. DeWayne Craddock, a longtime city employee, opened fire at the building Friday before police shot and killed him, authorities said.

LISA MARIE PANE, Associated Press
June 1, 2019

The shooter who killed 12 people in a government office building in Virginia Beach, Virginia, used a firearm equipped with a suppressor that muffles the sound of gunfire.

It’s the nightmare scenario that gun-control advocates have warned about amid efforts to ease restrictions on buying the devices.

They say the “silencers” make it too easy for shooters to escape detection and inflict mass carnage.

But gun-rights advocates and most law enforcement experts say DeWayne Craddock’s use of a suppressor on his .45-caliber handgun likely had no bearing on his ability to kill so many people in so little time Friday.

Instead, they say, his familiarity with the building as an employee, and even possibly his military background, gave him a tactical advantage when carrying out the attack.

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