All told, the gunman, Stephen Paddock, owned 50 guns, from pistols to high-powered long arms, and almost 40 firearm components. A special administrator appointed by a state court judge to determine the value of Paddock’s estate said in a recent report that the guns and equipment were worth about $62,340.
Now, the main lawyer involved in passing on Paddock’s nearly $1.4 million estate to the families of the 58 people he slaughtered is facing a quandary. Should the firearms be sold to raise as much money as possible for the bereaved, or would it be more appropriate to destroy the guns in an emblematic rejection of the kind of violence that Paddock carried out?
“The money that would come from selling the guns is not a huge amount, but it would help to make a difference in people’s lives,” said Alice Denton, the lawyer for the special administrator in the estate case.
On the other hand, Denton added, “Destroying the guns would send more of a symbolic message to the world that weapons like these should not be sold at any price if death or harm to innocent people cannot be prevented.”
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She said the estate would solicit feedback from the families of those killed and review applicable laws before a decision would be made. In the meantime, the guns and accessories are in the possession of the FBI.
In an email message, a spokeswoman for the bureau’s Las Vegas field office, Sandra Breault, declined to comment on whether the FBI would return some or all of the weapons to the estate.
For Kyle Taylor, 32, whose father died in the massacre, deciding on the best use of Paddock’s weapons was “a moral dilemma.”
“The more money you could raise to help the families is great,” Taylor said. “But the idea of receiving money from equipment that was used by someone who took so many lives is creepy and unsettling.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.