Beltway Sniper Shootings-FR Commentary-Thursday, Oct. 17

FNC, CNN, MooseChief, Presstitutes | 17 October '02

[tomkat]

"To avoid multiple vanity threads regarding any news from press conferences, let's keep a live commentary thread going again today."
Peach

[aristeides]

I wonder what the plane will make of all the gangbanger shootings in D.C.

[Freedom2specul8]

You deserve to sleep in my friend... I've had insomnia plenty of times the past year. Sleep is precious..

[GirlNextDoor]

Is anyone else getting fed up with being yanked around by the media, yet??

They'll have a composite....no...they won't.
They have partial licence plate numbers...no...they don't.
A pretty good eyewitness ...oops, no.

sigh

Why don't they just report what is confirmable and stop playing out this freaks fantasies on-air?

[Miss Marple]

Well, an interesting graphic could be made of the number of hot spots in DC, where guns are banned. LOL!

[Freedom2specul8]

Check out the titles w/aterisks on links above. The ATF has increased arrests for illegal rifles.. Hmmmmm (I wonder why the html blink option no longer works)

[Chemist_Geek]

Hey, has anyone discussed the idea that maybe the reason the governor banned shooting was cuz the econ plane can detect the heat from a discharged firearm? I just heard on the news that it can detect the heat from a discharged firearm. Banned useage would reduce false alarms.

The firearm and the bullet don't get that hot, especially not with a single shot.

This "firearms discharge ban" is nothing more than a knee-jerk, feel-good executive action.

I hope that Glendenning mourns for the people who will die and be seriously injured in car-deer collisions this winter, deer who would have been taken by hunters this autumn...

[fone]

>>>They are essentially saying "better more innocents should die than we release useful descriptions that might insult the PC GOD"<<<

I keep hearing over and over they are "unable" to come up with a "composite" sketch. Bull. I've seen on several occasions when there are conflicting "descriptions" they'll put up two different pictures, similar of course, but with different features.

I believe you are more right than you know.

[Miss Marple]

Not to mention that the idiot John Walsh just said on Fox that IF this were terrorism, the guy would shoot up a restaurant going for killing a lot of people at once.

Thanks, John. I believe if I lived in the area I would avoid dining out for a few weeks, based on the sniper's demonstrated penchant for TAKING CUES FROM THE MEDIA!!

What a jerk!

[Freedom2specul8]

Really? So the news report was full of it? (like that's something new eh? sigh)

[Quilla]

I heard this morning on Fox and Friends that applications for concealed carry permits were up 500% in the area. I doubt if someone who has just started carrying could be very effective in such a frantic situation. But I think of all the retired police and military types who could indeed help if they were at the scene of one of these horrific kills.

[ET(end tyranny)]

I heard that too about CCW being up 500%. But, I wasn't think of 'new' people carrying, but of those that had been carrying for some times.

[aristeides]

Didn't I read some place after the sniper shootings started that there had been a mysterious shooting of somebody in a Montgomery County restaurant before the spree started? I saw nothing more about that. Anybody know anything about the case?

[mombonn]

Fox News reporting that the boy wounded last week is doing better - condition upgraded from critical to serious.

[harpseal]

Since Glendenning also banned archery I wonder how much heat a bow and arrow generate?

[OReilly]

Media Trivia Quiz

Who has been using the following pronunciation interchangeably, and lately in the same piece?

composi`te

comp`osite

[Peach]

Thank you, livius. Hopefully I'll get back to my normal sleeping pattern of 7 or 8, and am so glad tomkat started the thread this morning.

[Freedom2specul8]

(tin foil) to make it look like they're not searching for illegal firearms.(/tinfoil)

[Chemist_Geek]

The firearm and the bullet don't get that hot, especially not with a single shot.

Really? So the news report was full of it? (like that's something new eh? sigh)

What did one expect? :-) Bullets may attain a surface temperature of over 100 °C, (a 9mm NATO round was meaured at 152 °C) and the firearm itself is so large a thermal mass, that the change in temperature from a single shot is negigible. Veterans will tell stories of barrels getting red-hot and so forth, but those are fully-automatic firearms (machine guns) being fired continuously.

(Temperature measurements from Marty, W., Sigrist, T., and Wyler, D. Amer. J. Forensic Med. Path., 1994, 15, 1-4.)

[Miss Marple]

I said this yesterday, but I wish to say it again.

There are several reasons besides PC for why they may not be releasing a sketch:

1. Genuine conflicting testimony of witnesses, complicated by those who are manufacturing a description so that they can be "in on the action" plus the possibility of ringers deliberately manufacturing false descriptioins in order to confuse the police. (I would ask all witnesses if they would submit to a polygraph.)

2. There is also the possibility that they do have a description but they don't want to alert the sniper(s) until they have located them. It would do no good to have them bolt to another city.

3. Releasing a sketch of a Middle Eastern man would provoke vigilante behavior, which would require more LE involvement, antagonizing moderate countries like Jordan right when we are getting ready to ramp up pressure on Iraq.

I myself think that the police desperately want to catch this criminal/terrorist/psycho, and to assume that the combined forces of 2 states, DC, and the feds are ALL keeping this from us simply to avoid hurting feelings is just not credible. Plus, as kayak pointed out yesterday, the LE people and their families are also targets, because they live in this area.

I do not think this is because of PC, regardless of Chief Moose's rather incoherent statement.

[Freedom2specul8]

"concealed carry permits were up 500% in the area"

Rosie, eat your heart out.