Former FBI HRT member on sniper slayings

[mons-meg]

Katie Couric is currently interviewing a Chris Whitcomb, described as a former FBI HRT member and sniper. I was impressed to hear him say several things regarding the Maryland shootings, basically debunking many popular media theories. Among other things, he said in response to Katie's questions:

-- the .223 cartridge has limited application, and is not a high-powered round, rather it is usually employed against small game such as groundhogs

--No special amount of skill is required to shoot a .223 based weapon to 150 yards

--The perp is most likely not military, rather a wannabe acting out a sniper fantasy

All this on national TV...on the Today show. Anyone else see this?

 

[PaladinVC]

Man, I wish I had! A few people here at college are talking about how this guy must be some sort of ex-marine. I'm half inclined to take them to the range and show them that they, too, can hit a man-sized target at 150 yards, and they can probably do it within the first ten rounds they fire in their whole lives! I remember kids nailing pop cans at 100 yards in middle school.

Maybe this guy is terrific, but he doesn't have to be. His(their?) willingness to kill people went a lot further toward facilitating these attacks than any equipment or training did. It's not a question of being a crazy sniper. It's just a question of being crazy.

 

[Hkmp5sd]

Didn't see it, but it's nice to see a LEO that actually knows firearms and their capabilites.

Makes one wonder if Katie Couric had prep'd him before the interview and knew what he was going to say or if she thought he was going to spout off the typical "high-powered, sniper/hunting/assault, can hit a gnat in the butt at 1000 yards, can shoot through trees/engine blocks/bullet proof vests type black plastic semi-automatic machinegun that has no other function in life than taking over the mind of an unsuspecting victim, forcing him to commit these horrible atrocities" and he just blindsided her with the truth.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Concur with statements except the "high power" one. Hi-power as compared to what? He must be thinking 30-06 or 7.62 mm Nato. Given that it is put into a full sized rifle, its recoil is moderate (my 12 year old nephew qualified for his Boy Scout Shooting badge using a scoped Remington VSS in .223) and can easily reach out to 150 yards.

 

[Johnny Guest]

I'm glad to read this.

No, I didn't see the interview, but accept what you write at face value.

Happy that there's at least one voice of near-sanity crying out in the wilderness of craziness and panic. Whatever one's personal opinion of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, whatever their public problems in the recent past, they ARE a widely respected organization, and have enormous credibility with the public.

I understand from this:

Chris Whitcomb, described as a former FBI HRT member and sniper.

- - -That he is no longer an FBI agent. I still hope he is part of the In Crowd there and is being used as an unofficial spokesperson in this instance. OTOH, if not, Mr. Whitcomb may be an independently rational person, counteracting some of the wild-eyed ravers out there.

Best,
Johnny

 

[mons-meg]

Gary:

I was under the impression he meant not high powered in the sense you suggest; that there are much more powerful hunting rounds out there, and he implied the .223 was more of a varmint round.

 

[mons-meg]

Johnny:

Unfortunately, I didn't catch whether he was still at the Bureau and no longer a member of the HRT, or no longer on the job. Regardless, it was a good interview no matter how NBC found him. Katie was on location in Maryland, though, so maybe this guy was indeed on the scene since it wasn't a satellite interview; they were sitting together.

 

[Johnny Guest]

Either way, m-m, I'm gratified to see that Ms. Katie and her producers went ahead and aired such a calm and reasonable interview. It's a shame I'm surprised, but I am.

Thanks for posting it.

Best,
Johnny

 

[Doug444]

I didn't see this person, but I did see her interview with the ATF agent, and I was surprised by the candor of HIS answers - and accuracy. He, too, did a credible assessment of the .223 round and it's uses, and specifically didn't fall for Katie's "isn't this use in assault rifles?" trap question, stating that there are 15-20 rifles this is common in. Katie's unfamiliarity with firearms was, of course, obvious.

4V50 - Since when do the Boy Scouts use centerfire rifles for qualifying for the Rifle MB? I'm a Scoutmaster, and Rifle MB counselor, and IIRC they're supposed to use the .22LR, and in fact the BSA Safety (firearms) Guidelines specifically state "no centerfire" (which I think is a crock, since most of these young men use centerfires to hunt if their state allows it). But...the MB requirements aren't trivial, and if he met them with the .223, I say "good shooting, young man!"

Doug444

 

[webley455]

Whitcomb wrote a book titled "Cold Zero" about his experience in HRT. A good read.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Doug - you're right. Just checked out the Boy Scout merit badge book on rifle shooting and it mandates .22 rimfire. I'll remember that next time. BTW, he's out of the Boy Scouts now and is active in the Sea Scouts. They love it a lot more and now call the old troop "dirt scouts."

Members- Second what Webley 455 says about Whitcomb's book. It's an interesting read.

 

[Don Gwinn]

Look, I have to be honest with you--Katie Couric showed a lot of ignorance about the way guns work, but she displayed no attempt to bias or shade Mr. Whitcomb's assessments. In fact, when he noted that the .223 is used for small animals, she suggested "Like groundhogs, right? It's a varmint rifle?"

Now, I don't think she could have known that, given that she had to ask whether the gold part was the casing and whether the pointy part "separates" from the rest of the cartridge. Clearly she knew exactly what he was going to say, and in my opinion, she did her best to do a fair, honest interview.

I'm as shocked as you are, but that's how I read it. This proves a point I've tried to make here before. There is no conspiracy in the media. There are no UN/CNN Commissars forcing reporters to go along with someone's plot for world domination. Reporters say the things they say based on what they know and what they believe. Couric hates guns because she doesn't know any better. She doesn't know how they work, how to use one, or why it's safe to do so, and she doesn't understand why anyone would need one for legitimate reasons.

Give her an interview with an expert who can show her some of those things, and that's exactly what she reports.

 

[Justin]

Don-
Well said.
It's been my experience that journalists are just that: journalists. Being a reporter doesn't make one an expert on any topic except for reporting. What these people lack is an education.
Of course, a lack of education is much more likely to give rise to negative opinions about a topic, which is more likely to (deliberately or not) come through in the reporter's work.

 

[joeislove]

Maybe someone should offer to take Katie Couric to a rifle range to fire a variety of rifles chambered for .223 at ranges similar to those suspected in the MD shootings.

Then she would see that they're not really hard shots, given a little practice and instruction. A good instructor could probably have her making shots on a man-sized target at 100 yards inside a half hour.

And who knows? She might discover that shooting is actually kinda fun, and get one of those "evil black rifles" for herself. Heh.

 

[DMK]

Whitcomb wrote a book titled "Cold Zero" about his experience in HRT. A good read.

I'm listening to that right now as a book on tape with Mr. Whitcomb himself reading it. It is a pretty good book. It's not all pumped up and exciting as I suspected it would be. In the book Mr. Whitcomb kinda sounds like a regular guy who happens to be a FBI agent and sniper.

 

[croyance]

The lack on knowledge may have helped (us). In prepping for the interview, there would have been more interaction with the guest, whether directly or through some flunky. The guest has a chance to shade the responses their way. So when they ask about the .223, he says it is mostly for varmint hunting. "Varmint hunting?" - "Yeah, like gophers, ground hogs, beavers, that sort of thing." Then it makes its way to the cue cards and interview notes, so the interviewer doesn't look ignorant (to the uninformed viewer).
I was under the impression that many states don't even allow the .223 to be used to hunt deer, which are roughly the mass of a human, because of the lack of power. I'd like an interviewee to point that out.

 

[ahenry]

It's been my experience that journalists are just that: journalists. Being a reporter doesn't make one an expert on any topic except for reporting.

I agree, unfortunately it has been my experience that they would like to think reporting on a subject does make them an expert. I come to this opinion knowing more than a couple of reporters, BTW.

 

[Number 6]

Couric's credibility

may be considerably less than has been claimed here:

"Clearly she knew exactly what he was going to say, and in
my opinion, she did her best to do a fair, honest interview.
I'm as shocked as you are, but that's how I read it."

Perhaps. Maybe someone even gave her a dime to buy a clue.

I remember an interview she did a few years back with a cop who was shot by a gangbanger, but saved by her vest. Cutie Couric, doing her golly-gee, "America's Kid Sister" shtick, asked the cop if her being shot could have been prevented if we had better gun control.

The cop, who lives and works in the real world, tried to state the facts. She replied that criminals would always have guns and that more gun control would not work.

Well, we did not get to hear her full explanation, because Cutie Katie immediately ended the interview.

No bias? Well, do YOUR TV stations always show a logo of a handgun when announcing murders - even when the victim was stabbed or beaten to death?

Wonder why?

 

[M1911]

I'm half inclined to take them to the range and show them that they, too, can hit a man-sized target at 150 yards, and they can probably do it within the first ten rounds they fire in their whole lives!

Get yourself fully inclined! It is ALWAYS worth taking a newbie out to shoot and showing them that it takes no special skill or training to make such a shot may help them understand that they should not believe everything they see on the TV news. Badger and cajole them to come out and see for themselves. When they say that this guy must have some special training, challenge them on it. Tell them they are wrong, you'll prove it, and you'll put money down on it.

M1911

 

[Double Naught Spy]

I saw the interview and could not believe that finally somebody making statements to the press was making statements that were not sensationalized! I thought it was particular important that he noted that the shooter probably is not military or police trained and certainly not a sniper, that the shooting skill displayed is not remarkable, and that the target selection, mannerisms, etc. were not those of a professional sniper at all, but more along the lines of what somebody who has seen a lot of movies and has learned from movies about what fictional snipers do. As noted, the whole Tarot Death Card seemed akin to the Ace of Spades use in Apocalyse Now.

My wife did a 6 year stint in the Army Reserves and got to shoot her M-16 usually once a year, 20-40 rounds of warm-up and checking that the gun is properly sighted, and then qualify and as she noted, she wasn't a great shooter by any stretch, but targets at 200 and 250 yards were well within her abilities with just iron sights. She managed to be able to repeat this year after year shooting less than 100 rounds per year. Unlike some other Reserve units that train for battle, her unit consisted of engineers. She spent most of her time driving dozers and graders, building roads, helipads, and airstrips - not shooting.

So while the news has been one and when distances are mentioned, my wife has been quick to point out that even some of the most poorly disciplined people in her unit could pull of shooting 150-200 and hitting targets quite easily. No, the shooter is not some really highly trained professional of some sort, or if he is, then he is doing a good job of not looking like he is.