Coloring the sniper news

TownHall.com ^ | 10/11/02 | Michelle Malkin

[El Gato]

Aren't all these profilers going to look stupid when it turns out to be a Non-european ancestory female? For there is no real evidence in the public domain to indicate anything at all about the sniper or snipers. They pulling all this out of there...well you know. All that is known for certain is that the bullets he/she/they are using are .224 caliber, most likely .223 Remington/5.56x45. Even the card and the catridge case are not "for certain" clues to either the weapon(s) being used nor the nature of the shooter(s).

[Righty1]

The Limburg was an accident and the guy in LA wasn't a terrorist and oh yes, Hatfill did the Anthrax! One wonders if they were shooting at Weaver's wife or doing a preemptive strike on the white baby? Strike that, it would have been a retroactive abortion like KC's friend Andrea performed times 5.

[Crowcreek]

I happened to see Michelle interviewed by a liberal PBS-type curmudgeon on the local 'Party Television Station'. That lady's got heart, and lots of smart.

She did a great job promoting her book; "Invasion" I think it's called.

[Redcloak]

The "weird White guy" scenario is looking more and more plausible. The sniper's actions don't make sense if he's a terrorist; especially one in, or allied with, Al Qaeda.

If he's a terrorist, then it's safe to assume that he's at least sympathetic to Al Qaeda's cause. And if that's the case, then he must see himself as "taking the fight to the enemy." But if that's his purpose, then why go to his enemy's capitol city, but not enter it? He could have gone on a shooting spree anywhere. Why travel all the way to DC and then stop short? One would expect that a politically motivated sniper would choose a course of action that would attract the most attention to his cause. Playing around in Maryland and Virginia does not accomplish that; shooting people within the "Great Satan's" capitol would.

And why shoot-n-scoot? I would expect a terrorist to hang around, at least for the first shooting or two, to pick off "first responders". There was an anti-abortion bomber once who tried to do just that. He set off a small bomb to attract the police and then left a larger device where they might conduct a search. (Fortunately, they didn't follow the bomber's idea of "standard operating procedures"!) Wouldn't a terrorist try the same thing? Especially one who would value "martyrdom" and thus be willing to take greater risks?

A garden variety nut, however, would behave like this. (And the blasphemous message on a tarot card doesn't fit the Islamic Terrorist profile either.) A "weird White guy" would play it safe. He'd avoid DC. He'd be nearby simply because that's where he lives. He's likely a local rather than someone who deliberately traveled into the area. He would be much less likely to hang around for a follow-up shot on police or paramedics. And above all, he'd hit soft targets like civilians who aren't on guard. A terrorist would be more inclined to go after Government personnel.

[WRhine]

Heard anything about the Antrax killer lately?

No. Not sure what to make of it, but point well taken.

[Villiany_Inc]

ADDENDUM:
(I think I spelled that right...)

The SKS is 7.62x39, not NATO 7.62 (which would be a .308 by our standards). I currently own several SKS, and previously owned a .308 (still regret getting rid of it) - there is a significant difference in size.

You are correct that most SKS are fixed magazine, with wood stocks, and that you can buy after market POLY stocks for them (currently have two POLY stocks)- they cost $60-80 on average.

I know most people dont care for the SKS, but they are affordable, easy to work on, fairly cheap to shoot, not too powerful with recoil, and all around decent little rifles. Although, I have read that they are not the most accurate things, especially at distance.
On the bright side, they are incredibly durable.

[Crowcreek]

"Serious mistake by the author, would have been caught already in this thread if the author's political agenda didn't match most of FRs :-)"

Sorry - The mistake is yours.

There are many conventions shooters use when referring to weapons, chamberings, and specific cartridge terminology.

All Ammunition for .22 rifles is .22 ammunition. If you refer to a particular weapon, or chambering, then the terminology must be exact, such as ".22/250" or .25/.308 Ackley Improved.

".22 ammunition " is not synonomous with ".22 long rifle", which is a a specific, standardized cartridge chambered in rifles, pistols, combination guns, and many machine guns.

[MHGinTN]

Kindly add me to the Malkin ping list. Thank you ...

[motexva]

He's targeting gas stations and chain stores (the woman on the bus bench was sitting in front of a chain restaurant). The kid who I hope is recovering was supposedly wearing a sweatshirt with a swoosh or other logo on it. The killer is an anarchistic eco-terrorist - there were anti capitalist, anti-corporate riots in DC only a few weeks ago.

Leftist terrorists, like the Unabomber, like to kill from a distance. The tarot card may be a reference to the societal change he hopes to provoke with his rampage. Tarot cards and hippies go together like Clinton and pudgy, trashy, postadolescent interns.

[Redcloak]

I would expect that even a domestic terrorist would go into DC rather than play around outside. Not to say, however, that the "weird White guy" might not have a skull full of lefty political ideas.

[El Gato]

The SKS is 7.62x39, not NATO 7.62

Never said it was. The 7.62X39 was developed from a very similar German cartridge, the 7.92 Kurtz (Kurtz meaning "short"))

BTW, I have had one for about 12 years now. Don't shoot it much anymore, having moved on to bigger things (7.62 NATO as a matter of fact) and smaller things also (.30 Carbine) :)

[Crowcreek]

" SKS is not an assault rifle"

It is in a historical and technical sense, but probably not a legal sense - depending on how many 'evil doodads' are attached to it.

Mid-powered cartridge (7.62x39 Russian), high sustained rate of fire, etc., all conform to the concept of the 'assault rifle', and the SKS compares well to the best of the breed.

It is considered obsolete because of it's stripper-clip, fixed magazine -- but many shooters would rather use one for say, hunting deer, than an AK style rifle.

[Crowcreek]

" Tarot cards and hippies go together like Clinton and pudgy, trashy, postadolescent interns."

I love your style, but I think the eco-terror types like to be more specific with their targets. They like to go after logging equiipment, fur farms, lab-animal facilities, etc.

I don't think it's likely they'd push their cause by terrorizing the general population of the DC Beltway.

[Sabertooth]

Actually, I think that you'll find that the younger the criminal who goes on such a killing spree, the more shots are fired in each encounter. Firing discipline (e.g. one shot = one kill) is not associated with the very young.

Moreover, this particular killer is strictly limiting her (oops, his) victims to one person per encounter, rather than taking in more than one target of opportunity.

That's two facts, not conjecture, that point towards strict training in this person's background.

I agree on the discipline and the training. As for the age of the perp, I think we're all in the dark.

These serial sniper attacks are completely unprecedented. There's no previous profile from which to speculate.

[Crowcreek]

All you have to do to foil the shooter is to keep moving, across the line of fire. He probably won't pull the trigger until you stop.

What do you mean, " no snipers on rainy days"?

[Villiany_Inc]

"Never said it was"

Sorry for not clarifying...
On your part, I was merely adding additional thoughts.
Somewhere else in this thread (the article maybe?), an SKS was mentioned firing a 7.62, which is not ENTIRELY accurate.

[Born on the Storm King]

Also, I just thought I'd add that the greatest sniper in history (# of kills) was the Soviet Army female Svetlana Akhmatova at the Battle of Stalingrad.

[motexva]

Ahh, but the suburbs are what they hate. All these attacks but one have occured in the 'burbs. I wasn't surprised he targeted Manassas - I lived there for a year and it's an almost archetypal suburb. Lefties like car unfriendly cities with their stacks of people on top of each other - besides, start shooting in DC and you might hit some of your fellow travellers. Go out to the burbs and you can blast away at the enemy.

And DC was a hard target before the shootings started. That city has been in lockdown since 9-11. Lots of extra security, you wouldn't want to be carting a long gun around that town.

Think about what the likely effects of this will be if they don't catch him soon. People afraid to buy gas. People afraid to "consume" (ie, shop). Left-o paradise!

[motexva]

I have a pretty good track record - the weirdness of this crime reminds me of another weird crime from this summer, the kook driving around the american southwest leaving bombs in peoples' mailboxes. I tagged him as a leftist the second I saw he was drawing a smiley face. (A symbol of the left from the '60s, the bomber was inspired by a popular t-shirt from the rock band Nirvana.) In fact, he was trying to alert people to the environment and the need for drug legalization (which, though not exclusively a leftist issue, tends to be embraced by people of that persuasion). There is another pattern here, not as simple as a smiley face drawn on a map, but I imagine it will emerge as these crimes continue.

The location of the murders are important, as are what the victims were doing when they were killed. They are randomly chosen, but chosen according to his twisted profile.

The cops should pay a visit to the leftists they arrested early on in the recent riots - my theory is someone didn't get to throw a rock through a window, or deface an ATM because he was cooling his heels in jail. This arrest was the "breaking point" event that initiated these crimes.

I will gaurantee you this - it ain't a mooslim and it ain't a right wing nut or klannie.