US President Donald Trump condemned the massacre of at least 59 Las Vegas concert goers as an "act of pure evil" Monday, but refrained from addressing calls for gun control or the motives for the worst mass shooting in recent US history.
Delivering televised remarks, Trump tried to offer consolation and called for unity – an act that has become a grim rite of passage for modern US presidents.
Barack Obama wept as he tried to soothe the nation after the 2012 Sandy Hook primary school shooting, George W Bush told Americans that the "nation grieves" after a similar outrage at Virginia Tech university.
Trump's vanquished election rival Hillary Clinton hit out at the gun manufacturers lobby – the National Rifle Association (NRA) – which has backed a congressional push to make it easier to obtain a gun silencer.
"The crowd fled at the sound of gunshots. Imagine the deaths if the shooter had a silencer," tweeted Clinton, whose Democratic Party has tried in vain to introduce lasting gun control measures.
Police have identified the gunman behind the Sunday night massacre – which injured more than 500 people – as a 64-year-old former accountant named Stephen Craig Paddock, who killed himself before a SWAT team breached his 32nd floor hotel room.
Investigators recovered at least 16 guns, including assault rifles, from Paddock's room at the Mandalay Bay, and another 18 firearms along with bomb-making materials at one of his two homes.
Officials have reacted cautiously to an Islamic State group claim that Paddock was a "soldier of the caliphate" but while his motive remained unclear, the shooting instantly rekindled the divisive national debate on gun control.
'Right to bear arms'
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that now was not the time for politics, a tactic frequently used by gun advocates to diffuse public outrage.
"There's a time and place for a political debate, but now is the time to unite as a country," said Sanders.
Trump insisted, "our unity cannot be shattered by evil. Our bonds cannot be broken by violence."
But in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, that unity was difficult to find.
There have already been over 270 mass shootings in the United States this year alone, according to www.massshootingtracker.org, although the exact definition is contested.
Gun violence accounts for more than 33,000 deaths each year in the United States, and according to the latest Gallup poll, 55% of American voters would like to see stricter rules for buying guns.
But the issue is highly sensitive and Trump's own views have changed markedly over his years in public life.
The NRA donated an estimated $30m to Trump's campaign in 2016, according to the Centre for Responsive Politics.
US Senator Chris Murphy, who was the congressman for Sandy Hook, renewed a call for action in the wake of the Las Vegas attack.
"This must stop. It is positively infuriating that my colleagues in Congress are so afraid of the gun industry that they pretend there aren't public policy responses to this epidemic," he said.
