Posted on 10/05/2017 12:25:22 PM PDT by Bob Celeste
from the facebook page of Lloyd Acree.......Take it from 8 years' professional Marine Corps machine gunnery and marksmanship expertise:
Having trained to pro military "expert"-grade skill sets on rifle marksmanship and multiple machine guns in the Marine Corps infantry, I quickly started noticing a fowl odor in the news narrative on this Vegas massacre. The following are the weapons I am tired of shooting copious rounds through on both known and unknown distance ranges, running, hiking and training with, disassembling and reassembling, etc. Notice they all shoot automatic or can if switched over. - M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (full automatic) - M4/M16 (3-round auto) - M240G/B (full automatic) - IAR M27 (full automatic, top-dollar M16 variant)
I spent 8+ years training and shooting to military specs, not only with these machine guns but also pistols, shotguns and explosive weapons, not counting heavier machine guns and robotic mounting equipment used in private contracting overseas after my military service.
Now the distance shot from the Vegas hotel to the "Village" concert of about 400-500 yards would be too familiar with a single-shot AR15 to any Marine, but that is our **farthest** distance that we qualify with in the Marine Corps (people look like tiny letter i's in the distance at this point). We never shoot full automatic at this range unless we are using an imprecise burst to keep the enemy pinned, and that is only if your weapon is heavily secured to mitigate all the recoil. You just can't expect many kills at 500 yards even with a properly sighted slow fire rifle. But I will get back to this.
Now as a former point man, machine gunner, team leader, and assistant patrol leader, my ability to plan and implement these weapons is comparable with what we saw occur there in Las Vegas. Notice I did not say that the shooting was better than my abilities, but neither am I saying I could do a lot better - what I have observed as video/audio evidence is simply run-of-the-mill shooting. For Marines in the infantry, that is, IF they have professionally adjusted optics sighted to their preferred distance for engagement AND high quality vise-like stabilization. I knew something wasn't right when I kept hearing survivors say that their friends had received multiple bullets to the same body part. For example, one guy said his friend took three bullets to the chest--all while he was standing next to his friend! This means the man was shot three times all at once in the same burst, OR he was shot near-simultaneously by multiple shooters (that tends to happen if you are in the open wearing a red shirt or stand out for some similar reason). Then, another witness said he saw a man with four bullets in his head. I doubt it was actually four but obviously there were multiple holes there. These shot groupings at that distance from the hotel, considering this is a real-life killing, are already professional rate even with just a semi-automatic. But this is also full auto?
You might have already guessed, yes I knew right away the shooter was using a tripod or similar gear to stabilize the gun(s). But that alone is not enough to achieve both the high rate of fire and precision accuracy that occurred in Vegas. Only a precision-sighted rifle with a quality optic can drill those kinds of groupings at such a distance, but there's more--the longevity and redundancy of machine gun fire. This accuracy was no trick of a semi-auto trigger, as using a bump stock requires extra manipulation of the foregrip to slap the trigger against the finger (which would entail pulling against the tripod instead of leaning into it), instead of squeezing it smoothly as should be done for precise shot groups. In any case there was no accuracy to be had here in conventional light-weight full automatic gunfire, no matter how good the scope was, because a light-weight rifle such as the AR15 will rock and "climb" in direct proportion to the recoil of the rounds being fired. In other words, you can't stabilize your shots if your weapon isn't heavy, or at least locked down to something heavy, and if he was using a bump stock then we have to rule out that necessary stability.
Further, this man in his mid-60s who has sat for years in the seat of an accountant's desk, supposedly carried all these long-barreled weapons, ammo, and gear through the hotel by himself? He always kept his guns hidden from room service and his hefty logistics never tipped off the security guards?
This would all just be a conspiracy theory except that we also have footage proving that it was indeed multiple shooters from different locations around the building (see link below).
Who would conspire to sell this false story and cover up the real shooters?
We know that the leftist institutions, mainstream media (operation mockingbird), and the military industrial Congressional complex, funded and manipulated by deep state non-elected officials with immense power (aka "the swamp"), are all in cahoots to paint Donald Trump in a bad light no matter what happens. We know they want him impeached for the desperate, unsubstantiated accusation that he used Russian support to be elected (yet the Saudis are hand-in-glove with these accusers just as they funded our DNC candidates' campaigns). Do you really think that they would be so far from slaughtering a hundred country music fans if it meant they regained the helm of the entire US government? And now you see they are ramping up their push to take away America's guns. Why? Once we are under the boot, no one can stop a kangaroo court of corrupt officials from indicting Trump on baseless lies. At that point, there will be no bill of rights left, either. As if we still even have one after all the damage inflicted by the far-reaching patriot act.
These conspirators know they have to use a dramatic shooting like this one if they are to gain further ground: the public must receive a traumatic sensory immersion that scars our memory and thus eclipses the factual myriad stories we have of mom-and-pop locals stopping crime with their concealed carry pistols or home owners' shotguns. Law-abiding gun owners across the nation save lives in vastly variegated situations which is easy to read about if you simply keep in the know, but if you are informed only by the opinionated Hollywood celebs then, by all means, "big brother" is the only one who should have all the firepower. Because, you know, absolute power tends to soothe the bureaucratic soul into absolute moderation, or something like that.
This is not a legality problem: it's mass hysteria deliberately triggered by national terrorism to achieve population controls. This is precisely the definition of terrorism: to achieve political agendas by the use of violence and the fear of it! The bravest thing we can do is assert our rights and our human dignity, keep our minds sharp, and maintain our weapons to always war against true fascism--the very darkness this country was founded to fight.
Fear-driven abandonment is not the answer, just as big brother is never your friend.
- Lloyd Acree
One thing that I have always adored about Free republic is the vast quantity of thoughtful and informed analysis and information about a multiplicity of subjects. I am EXTREMELY disappointed about much of the bumpfire stock controversy. Much of it sounds has though it was promulgated by the ignorant gun grabbing left.
I am a 2 tour Vietnam infantry combat veteran, and a member of the Illinois National guard for 26 years, to include service in iraq and the first Gulf War. I was a certified Illinois State Police Firearms and Defensive tactics instructor, and a member of Special Reaction and SWAT teams. I have fired hundreds of thousands of rounds through automatic weapons of all types, belt fed and shoulder mounted, ranging from .45 caliber M-3 sub machine guns up to M2A1 40 mm twin anti-aircraft guns mounted on an M-42 self propelled anti-aircraft gun.
I am retired and spend one day a month on the rifle range shooting my AR-15 rifles. When this slide fire device was first introduced, the low cost and novelty intrigued me and I purchased one. It was a bit awkward to use at first, but in one afternoon, after a bit of practice I was able to get 90% of any length burst on a man sized target at 75 yards, which is close to the normal engagement ranges for truly effective full auto fire from shoulder mounted weapons. It is not as useful has a true selective fire assault rifle since it requires two hands to employ, but it DOES have some measure of limited tactical utility for anyone who practices with it. I never really considered this item to be a true tactical instrument, but I did appreciate the ingenuity and thought that went into turning “bump fire’ into almost as accurate a technique has I could use with a true select fire assault rifle.
The battle has been joined. The anti-gun hysterics are in full cry. They will never satisfied until they achieve near total firearm confiscation. The genie is out of the bottle. You cannot stop psychopaths employing bump fire methods unless you can repeal the laws of Newtonian physics. I realize that some sort of regulation will ensue in the wake of this horrific atrocity. But i don’t like it one damn bit.
If they do this, then they should compromise by repealing the 1986 Hughes Act which caused the prices of full auto weapons to skyrocket. There is NO REASON for a legally transferable M-16 to cost over 50,000 dollars. You can be assured that any such owner will be thoroughly vetted by the background check that would be required to purchase one.
It’s reported that 1,500 rounds were fired. So far we have 59 dead and over 500 hit.
That’s 1 person hit every 3 round at a distance of about 400 yards at night.
With all due respect to the author, he has no idea how easy it was for the 60+ year old Paddock to put his cased rifles on a bellman’s cart and haul them to his room. As long as they were cased, no one in Nevada would have said or ‘noticed’ anything wrong about it. In most places in Nevada, you could have rifles slung over your shoulder and no one would have said anything. In Clark County, less so. I have colleges who live in Nevada and get around on motorcycles with AR’s slung over their shoulders.
Again, no disrespect for the Marine authors knowledge or service, but Paddock was fully capable of pulling this off on his own.
It’s being reported 72 minutes of shooting.
Here from the L.A. Times 72 minutes of terror.
http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-na-las-vegas-response/
Where did you get the 10 minute number?
Where is there any proof that 500+ people were hit by gunfire? 500+ people were injured. That includes people getting trampled, falling down, etc.
We have no idea at this point how many people were actually shot and how many had other injuries. You can’t make this kind of analysis until you have that fact.
It was 72 minutes from shots fired to all clear. Here from the L.A. Times.
http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-na-las-vegas-response/
Its mentioned in several places, including the article you cited. From that article, “Investigators believe he had been firing off and on for nine to 11 minutes.”
It has been established in multiple other reports that he was only firing out of the windows for about 10 minutes.
You seem and the author seem to maintain it is not plausible to get three rounds in a row in a shot grouping on a single target at 500 yards. I completely agree with this.
Let us say we put a blind fold on and shoot randomly at a piece of paper 20 feet away while shaking the gun, and we shoot many dozens of bullets this way.
If we see a group of holes in the paper closer together than some others, we should not assume they were from a targeted group of consecutive rounds--because obviously we were shooting too poorly for that. But neither should we be surprised it happened. The common sense guess is that some of the rounds out of all ones we shot happened to end up closer than other rounds. Of course the more rounds we fired in the same general direction, the closer these groups are likely to be by luck. The shooter fired a lot of rounds. He may have concentrated on some areas with more bursts than others.
Now the number of hits per target could be reasonably modeled by a Poisson distribution. It is not at all unusual or suspicious with such distributions to have 3 occurrences of one event and 0 of another when the events had equal chances.
colleges = colleagues
actual shooting out the window was 10-12 minutes. The remainder was spent preparing for the police assault from inside, and committing suicide
The Sarge is correct from a military perspective. The Sarge is wrong from a Terrorist perspective.
He is right that the terrorist appeared to have supported his firearm (bipoid in some pictures) and that allowed multiple rounds to hit the same relative place down range.
It is my opinion that the terrorist (and that is what I will call him he may have been a domestic lone world terrorist or affiliated with some group-—time will tell), was doing what use to be called “spray and pray.” Actually, I would wager that the area at the near max accuracy range of the AR was quite target rich and that putting a long burst down range would result in several casualties.
I have to doubt the 4 bullet to the head comment, but the two bullets within a downed body could indeed have happened.
I will wait until more information is known before I credit the terrorist with being a master marksman.
For me the most interesting issue is the attempt to explode the aviation fuel tanks with a rifle.
Shooting any large caliber weapon in a city will bring all sorts of false noise as various materials amplify, reflect and absorb sound waves. I’m no audio expert—damned near deaf in one ear—but I do know that audio testimony is far less accurate than eye-witness reports which vary widely from recorded events.
You appear to believe that all of the injuries were bullet wounds. Probably more than half were rolled ankles or collisions while running, impact with the ground when knocked down in the panic or tripping, trampling, cuts and bruises form scaling the fences and dropping to the ground...lots of ways to get hurt in that environment.
Here are several articles talking about a short time frame
for the firing, 9-12 minutes depending upon which you read.
I think the same thing is going on here. I would be much more interested in the opinion of a statistician with crowd estimation and control experience than an expert marksman in this situation. As somebody with a BS in mathematics, I would offer this much: the common belief that random events scatter uniformly is not correct; there is a large tendency to cluster, for reasons that are well understood statistically, and it is only when you step back and sample over the entire distribution that the average location is uniform.
Guy being hit three times -- especially when the bullets might have been fired seconds -- or minutes apart strikes me as conclusive of nothing.
A fowl odor... Lol lol lol
No. Most of the people injured were injured tripping, falling, getting trampled, or being pushed by other panicky folks into obstacles.
As for hauling the guns up
Suitcases with wheels, elevators.
Correct, and clustering within the Poisson distribution is well known. It's why, for example, in a locker room three random dripping wet guys all wind up within a few feet of each other with no one else in the room.
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