Tucson shooter's incredible marksmanship

Originally posted by Aggie Man
it's kind of hard to miss when you are shooting pointblank/close range in the middle of a crowd.

...agreed... a trained monkey could have as done as well...
...but how very unconspiritorial of us...

reply to post by matrix12

This video states that Ben Berneke met with him 9 times! 3 times behind closed doors!
I sure would like a source for that one. If so, what did Ben have against the Judge? I think the Judge was the real target.
Are there any videos of the shootings?
I just wonder what style he was shooting. When I shoot one handed, I begin to twist my hand inward, throwing off my center to the left. Two handed, it's a different story.

The first thing I thought was that he must have remained quite calm the entire time to maintain his accuracy... He wasn't just spraying, he must have been aiming... the shots were likely different in each victim as after the first few shots, people would have panicked and started running, diving, trying to hide, etc. It's not like he lined them all up and shot them one-by-one.

I feel so sorry for those people, imagine the fear that day... Terrible.

I would have to agree that the defendant has indeed incredible markmanship.

It is not just about hitting the target, but the will and focus to pull the trigger, as well as in the bedlam, he could still continue with his singlemindedness. His only mistake throughout was his fumble with the changing of magazine.

Most good assasins start of as snipers before they are allowed to go close range. It is easier. Only highly skilled assasins are given close quarter assignments, for the chances of being caught and missing his target is extremely high. Only either the best are used or the insane.

Suppose I am the recruiter for an assasin, I would throughly check the network of assasins avaliable, based on the nature of the tasks - political statement or simple corporate hit job.

Killing judges, children and congresswoman are political statements, and often one way assignments. Not many assasin contractors will want such jobs. Those the field is narrowed down to nutjobs, but with 2 important criteria - the ability to shoot straight and focus on the mission.

Nutjobs aplenty on the net, and if I have access to national cybersecurity systems, I can easily find a few to narrow down and recruit, with full data sets on their profile. Thus, out of the many, the defendent probably had good shooting skills to boot, a bonus to complete an agenda, weeded out from many other loudmouths or non residents of AZ.

So was the defendant recruited, or did he truly acted on his own? Justice demands that all angles be looked into before punishment is served.

reply to post by SeekerofTruth101


sounds like you recruited him jus kidding

Originally posted by MikeboydUS
Joe Zamudio apprehended a man at the scene who had a gun drawn whose slide was locked to the rear, as if it had been emptied. He thought the man was the shooter and thought he could take him down before the man could reload. After grabbing the man it turned out he wasn't the shooter.

Who was the guy and why was his slide locked to the rear as if he has emptied his magazine?

Listen to this cnn interview
parkerspitzer.blogs.cnn.com...

Anyone have more info on who that was? Was he holding the suspects gun?

Common to a semi auto pistol, is the ability to manually lock the slide open at any time. Odd way to carry a pistol though. He could still have a full magazine and maintain a locked slide. Maybe he was just nervous to carry his gun hot. Carrying a semi auto hot is often a tough concept to grab for someone new to concealed carry. Locking the slide also indicates that you are not loaded and not a threat. AZ does not require permits for CCW. Maybe he just decided to lock it open to avoid any confusion with the shooter .

Odd way to carry but not definitive...

Accuracy is a factor to me, but I don't beleive it will determine whether or not he was the lone perp in this horrendous event. Some people are just natural shooters, even without training. However I have to admit that in my opinion usually this doesn't happen to people with any type of vision problem requiring correction, such as glasses or contacts.

The Parker/Spitzer interview is very intersting. Who is this 2nd man with a pulled firearm? Did he fire his sidearm, are any of those safeway bullets his?
Have to admit I was a little shocked that those two CNN anchors didn't immediately ask the guy, "what the hell are you talking about?"... I mean come on, you have the guy on TV because you think he is a hero for tackling JLL but come to find out you booked some guy who just happened to tackle another person in the same exact crowd, who was weilding a locked(jammed/empty???) gun. Mind you the "hero"(and yes the pun was intended by the use of quote marks) admits that all this was going on within the same time that JLL was getting tackled.

More questions are definately rising...

reply to post by macman


macan; your sentence about high head shot counts is interesting. Some years ago a you bloke (in his 20's ) in Australia who had the mental age of 11 years, supposedly walked into a cafa and started shooting and killed 37 (from memory) people. While I cant remember the number of head shots now the case was notable for 3 reasons.

1. the head shot count was high even though he shot frrom the hip.
2. the shooter stood in positions that made it difficult for anyone to rush the shooter and knock him over,
3. the bloke who commanded Australian troops in Vietnam, a brigadier, said that whoever the shooter was, was a better marksman than himself. (dunno if the brigidier was a marksman by profession or not)

This bloke had cops cowing in the drains for 6-8 hours. ????????????

Smell like another mind control assissan with a pre chosen patsy?

It would be probable that each bullet could have had multiple wounds. depending on the ammunition the penetration would have been good enough. A bullet could pass through one individuals arm then into another person easily.

I know that's not what you want to hear though.

Anyone who shoots a lot and is familiar with weapons & ballistics would know this is possible.

With 9mm ball ammo you would have a number of shots that could have penetrated and passed through to hit others.
This would have happened on any shot that was not center of mass or did not hit bone.

In a crowd if he he shot the congress woman first and then just started firing into the crowd at point blank range while walking through the crowd.
Shooting people at 3 to 4 feet does not take marksmanship just pointing the gun and firing.
I will guess most of the people shot have close range powder burns.
and that most could not get out of the way because of the crowd behind them.

Originally posted by Socratic Method
Ive been hunting my whole life and have handled serious weapons.
With recoil and body position in mind, there is not a possible way he could have hit all these people "just shooting at whatever."

We need to look much deeper behind this assassination, this is being highly downplayed by an upcoming election and a hoax we call freedom in the confederate states,

If they do not release critical information during this investigation we will all know what were finally looking at.

This is one of if not the most ludacris post I have seen on this site.

Same goes for all saying he couldnt have just been shooting. Look at the caliber of the gun, the recoil is NOT that serious

reply to post by starviego


what " incredible marksmanship " all i is see ` spray and pray ` idiocy

in all fairness i will add the take of my opinion

to me, its not the shooting, accuracy or targets that bring suspicions, it is the interviews.

take note, of the calm demeanor of every person

those who have lost their loved ones (especially the parents of the child)

and the "hero" they keep interviewing, he seems to be lookin worse and worse with each interview, like he is high out of his gizzard

Firing from that close is literally like shooting fish in a barrel. Only a very incompetent shooter is going to miss a human sized target if firing within 25yds. from what I understand he was about 10 - 15ft. He could have closed his eyes and still would have hit with the majority of his rounds.

In a case like this, you have to take everything into consideration. The shooter was using a 9mm Glock-19 and a 31-round magazine which was originally manufactured for the Glock-18 but was compatible with the Glock-19.

We know that all 31 rounds were fired from one magazine and that he was tackled after trying to reload. We also know that almost every victim was sitting in a row of chairs when the shooting started, located roughly 10 feet away from Gabrielle Giffords and the shooter.

The injuries sustained by the wounded were reported as follows:
- Gabrielle Giffords - (1) shot to head, point blank
- Bill Badger - (1) shot grazed back of head
- Ronald Barber - (2) shots, 1 to leg, 1 to cheek
- Kenneth Dorushka - (1) shot to arm
- James Eric Fuller - (1) shot to left knee. Bullet fragments from another victim to back.
- Randy Gardner - (1) shot to foot
- Susan Hileman - (3) shots to body
- George Morris - (2) shots, 1 leg, 1 shoulder
- Mary Reed - (3) shots, 1 body, 2 to arms
- Mavanelle Stoddard - (3) shots to legs
- Pamela Simon - (2) shots, 1 chest, 1 wrist
- James Tucker - (2) shots, 1 collarbone, 1 leg
- Kenneth Veeder - (1) shot grazed lower leg

For the 6 victims, details have not been released aside from 2 victims.
- Christina-Taylor Green - (1) shot to chest
- Dorwan Stoddard - (1) shot to head
- Dorothy Morris - ?
- John Roll - ?
- Phyllis Schneck - ?
- Gabriel Zimmerman - ?

Assuming that every victim was shot at least once, the grand total of shots fired would come to 29 hits out of 31 rounds. Now considering that he was firing at his victims with a 9mm pistol from 10 feet away with the element of surprise against unarmed and seated targets, it should have been pretty hard to miss.

Perhaps it is me who misunderstood the Joe Zamudio interview, but I believe the other man holding the shooter's weapon. He explained that when he arrived, the suspect had already been tackled to the ground and was being contained.
My understanding is that the suspect's weapon had been taken away from him and was being held by the person who mr. Zamudio mistook for the shooter.
As for the OP's information, very interesting discussion point. I am by no means knowledgeable when it comes to firearms, but my martial arts teachers all made a point as to how much training it took to actually hit an intended target, in real life situations, and even at very close range.

the Billmeister

If you begin shooting into a crowd of people you will likely harm more than your intended target(s). Period. In fact, if you are "shooting wildly" you are far more likely to harm MORE PEOPLE than if you are taking aim at individual targets.

Originally posted by macman
Second, more then likely touched up to lessen the visual aspect that he got his butt handed to him and there are a lot of bruises/cuts/swelling on his head.

The photoshop evidence does not itself point to a conspiracy.

edit on 15-1-2011 by macman because: (no reason given)

Since when is beating a detained suspect legal in America. That, technically, is torture. Then covering it up through photoshop is, technically, a conspiracy. Or why else would they cover it up? Why not just show him beaten up?

BECAUSE THAT IS ILLEGAL IN AMERICA. He is innocent until proven guilty in our system, and for cops to beat him silly while shackled is pathetic and disgusting, I dont care who he killed. Wait until his trial, then mete out his punishment.

Originally posted by Socratic Method
Ive been hunting my whole life and have handled serious weapons.
With recoil and body position in mind, there is not a possible way he could have hit all these people "just shooting at whatever."

We need to look much deeper behind this assassination, this is being highly downplayed by an upcoming election and a hoax we call freedom in the confederate states,

If they do not release critical information during this investigation we will all know what were finally looking at.

THere was an article in a gun magazine last year about a shoot out between police and a suspect. Over 50 rounds fired at point blank range, on a city street, and no injuries!

Most people that just point and shoot or shoot wildly, do not hit anything. It is very, very unlikely that a crazed shooter would land more than a couple of lucky shots, most would go into the ground or into the air harmlessly.

reply to post by aching_knuckles


You are assuming that this is the case, buying into one conspiracy that introduces another.
Eventually the conspiracy train has to run out.

What actual evidence is there that the mug is shopped? I have yet to see anything other than conjecture to back up this point.