Tucson shooter's incredible marksmanship

Originally posted by OatDelphi
reply to post by macman

 

"Trained assassin would not have exposed themselves to the public for a killing."

While I agree with you to some point, I beleive your thinking more on the lines of an assassination where escape was the end result. JLL went into this with a deathwish with no plans of return or life after the fact.

"Any highly trained shooter is going for a heart shot, as it is a bigger target area then the head/brain stem."

I don't know about this statement. We are currently in a time where medical technology can pump blood or breathe for a patient. Yet they(medical world) have no real clue as to how the brain and spinal cord work the way they do. So the chances of death from a brainstem injury are far more greater than a chest/lung/heart injury. Thus this is why assassins aim for the base of the skull and not the middle of the chest. Only foot soldiers and beat-cops are taught to shoot for the chest because it would cost too much to actually put them all through the needed training to be able to pull off a shoot like I have been describing.

Yes and no.
Yes to you are right in the statement of assassin would not do this without an exit, if that was the intent.

No, even snipers are trained for heart shots. A shot to the heart and/or lungs with an expansion round will enter small, create a concussion effect and have a large exit wound. hard to pump blood for a heart, when it is not in the chest cavity. CPR is kind of a moot point when 1 lung is completely blown out as well. Air exists where where the lung was and fills the chest cavity with air, creating larger issues if it can't escape.

One of the factors here is the type of ammo used? If it is steel core or full metal jack, then the in and out wound will be small. Those are not used for these applications.

reply to post by macman


I think we will have to just agree to disagree macman...But I suggest you look over this info on the Somali pirates who got clipped by Navy Seal snipers.

abcnews.go.com...

Originally posted by OatDelphi
reply to post by macman

 

I think we will have to just agree to disagree macman...But I suggest you look over this info on the Somali pirates who got clipped by Navy Seal snipers.

abcnews.go.com...

edit on 16-1-2011 by OatDelphi because: grammar

First I want to say that unlike most forums, our disagreement is very agreeable. Thanks for keeping it on the up and up.

Second, I have met with a lot of snipers, both Mil and LEO and have never heard anyone state that they go for head shots. I gotta say that most of the maroons in the news industry will call a semi-auto AR15 an M16. So the respect and truthfulness of those int he media is low in my book.
Now, when you read the article, it talks about a head shot. Yes, there are those in the community that are trained to do this, but it is few and far between, takes years and years of practice with 1 specific weapons platform and is used in rare incidents. Those falling within the Somali pirate issue.
There are recorded exploits of some famous snipers, Carlos Hathcock comes to mind, of head shots, or in his case shot an enemy sniper through his own scope, scoring a head shot via the eye.

But, read further as to why the head shot was requested. To completely disable the pirate from being able to use any motor functions.

I do see your point on the fact that this very well could be the training of an assassin. But you gotta realize that 99.99999% of those that sit behind the gun/scope, are trained for and go for the heart/lungs shot.

reply to post by SeekerofTruth101


I don't see how you can make an assumption on my ego. You are wrong. I didn't just make that up, I looked up the information. If you are looking it up make sure you are not looking up the velocity of a projectile fired up, but instead one that is fired horizontally. It of course begins to lose velocity as it travels. There is no reason it would gain velocity past the barrel. It is at maximum velocity after it leaves the barrel.

Look up the term muzzle velocity. What you are suggesting goes against the laws of physics. If a bullet does more damage from a distance it would be BECAUSE it has slowed down. So yeah.. you insulted me and still managed to be completely wrong and make yourself look foolish.

reply to post by SeekerofTruth101


I am just pointing out for the most part what you didn't seem to take into consideration. That it is likely the single bullets cause several injuries and damage. The bullet that hit Gifford went all the way through and it met much more resistance than say the flesh wounds and grazings that occurred.

Do you really think that is not a reasonable assumption.. and more likely than a hidden sniper or second shooter? it isn't an astronomical and inexplicable amount of damage against the amount of bullets he fired.

Originally posted by GogoVicMorrow
reply to post by SeekerofTruth101

 

I am just pointing out for the most part what you didn't seem to take into consideration. That it is likely the single bullets cause several injuries and damage. The bullet that hit Gifford went all the way through and it met much more resistance than say the flesh wounds and grazings that occurred.

Do you really think that is not a reasonable assumption.. and more likely than a hidden sniper or second shooter? it isn't an astronomical and inexplicable amount of damage against the amount of bullets he fired.

I don't see the likely second shooter being a sniper as a valid issue. A head shoot with a rifle caliber round, and it not being full metal jacket, would have blown a hole out the back of her head.

Okay lets assume he was not acting alone. Who else might have been involved and why. What would make the congresswoman a target?

Not only did the shooter display amazing accuracy, he did it an amazingly short amount of time:

www.kvoa.com...
We also learned that the surveillance tapes from the Safeway show the shooting didn't just happened fast, it happened in a matter of seconds.
Capt. Chris Nanos with the Pima County Sheriff's Department said, "from the time when Loughner shows up on video and the time he disappears from out of sight, it's about 12-15 seconds time frame is my guess."
And in that short amount of time Nanos said Loughner wasn't just spraying bullets. Nanos said, "He was very deliberate in his actions and he moved very swiftly.

"Very swiftly" is putting it mildly. The shooter accurately caused a bullet wound every half second. And I wonder what the real time of the shooting would be, if someone tried to actually measure it, instead of just 'guessing.'

An inexperienced and untrained gun user causes at least 30 wounds in 19 different victims for 32 rounds fired, and he does it all in just 12-15 seconds?

No way. No way in hell.

John Roll: Perforation of Aorta

Dorothy Morris: perforation of heart

Christine Green: perforation of aorta, kidney, stomach, small intestine, all from one bullet

Phyllis Schneck: head shot perforation of skull and brain, initially entered the shoulder and re-entry into head

Gabriel Zimmerman: head shot perforation of skull and brain

Dorwan Stoddard: head shot with perforation of skull and brain

Only Christine Green was taken to the hospital, the rest were left on the scene apparently, although officially this has not been stated anywhere, they had instantaneous deaths.

Every victim had major damage to vital organs or head shots. This was precision shooting in an unbelievable fashion.

reply to post by starviego

Sorry, this guy is an amateur compared to our own Martyn Bryant..
If the Port Artur massacre took place in the US then ATS would be all over it to this day..
Seems the majority of members are not interested in things that happen outside the US..

Martyn Bryant was no expert gunman as many noted yet he walked into the Broad Arrow cafe in Port Arthur with a rifle..
Witnesses say he fired from the hip..
He killed 20 people with single head shots and wounded 12 others..
All that with only firing 29 rounds !!!

Now that's what you call suspicious..
In fact the whole Port Arthur affair is suspicious but sadly raises little response in the threads I see on ATS..

Yes, the Port Arthur case takes the cake as far as unrealistic displays of marksmanship go. Yet that happened a long time ago, in the pre-internet age. My question is, how much interest does this case still arouse in Australia?

You must also wonder how the gunman managed to make so many shots count after people started scurrying -away-. 30 rounds in, that's atleast more than a minute or two of gun fire. People would be haulin ass.

Originally posted by starviego
Yes, the Port Arthur case takes the cake as far as unrealistic displays of marksmanship go. Yet that happened a long time ago, in the pre-internet age. My question is, how much interest does this case still arouse in Australia?

Not enough interest here either but his mother recently did a few interviews stating she wished they hadn't talked her into getting her son to plead guilty..
After the guilty plea the "prosecution" called an insanity plea and thus there was NO trial..
What prosecution does that????

Oh and our Prime minister, Johny Howard sealed ALL records for 30 years...

GUys the reason that most of you think this is amazing accuracy is that you have some common misconceptions about shooting. Even several of you whom appear to be "gun guys" are still seeing this and comparing it to "trained shooter". Trained how? Trained to shoot in what is termed Modern Theory. If the MT of handgun usage was used then yes this would appear amazing. I am not aware of too many organizations that train outside of the modern theory. So what explains this superman like accuracy? Simple.....Point Shooting. If you are not aware of this term thats not surprising its no longer a well known concept. If you want to learn what it is then study Sykes and Fairburn or Rex Applegate. They refined and codified the concepts better than I can explain them. Currently a fellow by the name of Roger Philips is teaching this format rather succesfully.
The concept is really simple. You dont need to look down the sights of your handgun for targets under about 5 to 7 yards. You can shoot from the hip and at many odd angles by following the natural point of aim we all have with our index finger. Its not very intuitive for someone who has been using a gun for a long time but for someone who has had very little training the concept is simple He didnt have very much to "unlearn". His range was very short and his targets were massed up. As to the head shots. Most LE are not taught to shoot for the head. They are told that the target is to small and the risk to big to make the shot an option. That is true for agencies that are subject to liability issues and lawsuits. For someone who is just bent on killing people he does not care about that. He will do what LE is told is impossible because he has not been told he cannot hope to hit that small mellon sized target. This is not superman this is where reality destroys the concepts that many of you have been taught.

Originally posted by Neveos
You must also wonder how the gunman managed to make so many shots count after people started scurrying -away-. 30 rounds in, that's atleast more than a minute or two of gun fire. People would be haulin ass.

No its not a minute or two. Its a matter of seconds.