Middle Georgians, country music fans devastated by Vegas mass shooting

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Middle Georgians were devastated by what experts are calling the largest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

“A group or an individual that would do this? It’s a sad day for America,” said Al Brown.

Sunday was a night many country music fans will never forget.

“Just a great concert and a great time, and to see something so horrific break out at a concert like that in Vegas it was just hard to believe,” said WDEN radio spokesman Bobby Reid.

So far, 58 people are dead and hundreds in the hospital after Stephen Paddock opened fire from his hotel room at Mandalay Bay on a country music concert in Las Vegas.

“The thought occurs to me that now when you want a concert venue you have to think is it safe?” said Brown.

Resident Toryn Garett says it could’ve been her brother at that concert. “It really is upsetting especially because my brother is in a band and they go to concerts all the time in Nasheville and of course that could’ve happened anywhere,” she said.

Reid remembers going to a Jason Aldean concert with his son just a few months back in Macon.

“It definitely hits close to home since it was Jason Aldean and him being from here, and of course Jason was just here for a concert in August at the Centerplex for a fundraiser for the Children’s Hospital,” he said.

Al Brown says even though it was a country music concert, this is everyone’s concern no matter the genre.

“We need to pull together– it’s not a republican problem, a democratic problem, it’s one that affects us all,” he added.

Both Brown and Garett say that now is the time to come together.

“Spend time with everyone that’s in your family, you never know when the last time you’re going to see somebody is,” Garett said.

Reid says they put a halt on prize give-away’s at the WDEN  on Monday to instead, have a moment of silence on air for the victims and all others impacted. They want the victim’s families to know they’re standing with them.

More than 270 mass shootings have happened in the U.S. this year. That’s on average one per day.