I wonder if the SHOOTINGS are TERRORIST related?!?!

[M4A3]

Do you think thay would attack us this way? So far thay have used bombs, planes, anthrax and I think computer hacking. We all know thay are not afraid to die for there cause. You have to admit it does have alot of people living in fear. And that is, one of there main objectives.

Who ever is doing this, thay must be smart. I mean thay havent been dumb enough to attack people like us that are ARMED to the teeth. Just the the weak and unarmed. Or am I wrong? Does any body know if the people killed were armed?

 

[d!abolic]

What exactly have they hacked? The only hacking-related incident that's even remotely related to All-Gayda i can think of is some guy taking control of their site's DNS registration, placing the site on his server, and using visitor tracking software to track down IPs of visitors.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

First of all, not all terrifying acts are acts of terrorism. Yes, there are people who are living in fear. There were people living in fear while Son of Sam was on the loose, Hillside strangler, etc. They were not terrorists, however. Terrorists do their thing with an agenda involved. Without any group taking credit, no indication that the people were related in any way such that there might be a common theme, plus the isolated nature of the events makes the shootings less likely to be a terroristic attack.

Yes, terrorists could have done it, but then again, so could some derranged psychopath who is not a terrorist.

As far as being smart, maybe, maybe not. How smart do you have to be to attack targets at distance who undoubtedly won't be able to fight back? A basic theme of many crimes is to simply pick the easiest marks because they represent the least risk. You don't have to be smart to pick easy targets. Our prisons are full of folks who have made lives out of picking easy targets and many of those folks aren't all that bright! Additionally, that is a basic theme in the animal world as well. A predator animal will gladly scavenge as it is lower risk than bringing down a healthy animal that may fight back. If going for live animals, they will pick based on opportunity and when given the chance will pick smaller, weaker, or slower animals as they offer the least ability to fight back. So no, the person who did the sniping doesn't need to be a rocket scientist.

 

[Apple a Day]

Last week in this area (Virginia) there was a case of 4 kids who drove around Williamsburg taking turns shooting at people and whatever else took their fancy. One killed, at least one other injured. The rifle, a .22, belonged to the brother of one of the killers. Killers have been caught and charged.
I hope this is some sort of foreign terrorist rather than a domestic nutcase. In either case I hope he/they are caught before anyone else is hurt.
My mind keeps tripping over the memory of several cases of special forces guys who came home, wigged, and killed their wives recently.
God bless and keep

 

[Mike Irwin]

Just wondering WHY you chose to CAPITALIZE, in your header, SHOOTING and TERRORIST?

Or are you just FEELING a bit RANDOM today?


As for whether the shootings are terrorist related or not?

My gut feeling is not. This is just a nutcase running around.

Who knows, maybe it's James Swan's brother.

What? Never heard of James Swan? Not surprising. He was running around DC in 1993 whacking people with a shotgun. I think he killed 3 or 4 and wounded a couple others.

Only he was doing it in the black section of town.

Plus he got caught on the same day that Clinton rolled the tanks into Wacoland...

 

[Tamara]

SR_15_M4,

I mean thay havent been dumb enough to attack people like us that are ARMED to the teeth.

Out of curiousity, how is that rifle back in someone's closet going to help them when they're out minding their own business and someone decides to take a shot at them from 100+yds away?

That reminds me of a friend who expressed scorn for, and a total absence of fear of criminal punks, since they used .380's and 9mm's while he packed a .45 ACP. It was impossible to explain to him that carrying a .45 did not render one proof against any slug .44" or smaller.

 

[Dangus]

Still Tamara, we by and large tend to be more capable of responding violently to such attacks. We may not have our rifles, but most of us have a concealed sidearm. In my case I have a Sig in .357 Sig, a CZ-52. and a Makarov. Usually I carry the Sig, and keep the CZ in my car, but on hot days with tighter clothes, the Makarov is my choice. All of them except that one shoot very flat and perform borderline-rifle trajectory. If this shooter missed me on the first shot, he could be in trouble. If his first shot was a non-critical shot, he could be in trouble. I think that's really the point he was trying to make. Not that we'll all whip out ARs and start unleashing hell upon them. Yes, at 100+ yards, we are at a big disadvantage thanks to the laws of our country, but despite this, we COULD respond. Hitting a vehicle-sized target at that range isn't all that hard, and simply even hitting their vehicle A) gives the police an identifying mark to prove it was them, and B) may scare them into driving off.

 

[mantispid]

Hmm... conspiracy?

I often wonder if the anti's specifically find some nutcase and hire him/her to go on a shooting rampage just so they can further their agenda.

 

[ajaxinacan]

If anyone ever shoots at me with a rifle from 100 yards away, I will ignore the pistol on my hip and run for cover. (Assuming I survive the first shot).

I wouldn't advise anyone to use a pistol to engage an enemy with a rifle and cover at the distance of 100 yards.

Your energy would be better spent in running, crawling, or rolling to cover.

Maybe we can start a "which pistol to defend against a sniper?" thread.

 

[Mike Irwin]

Oh come now, Ajax!

Everyone knows that the .45 ACP is capable of homing in on an assailant, and killing him, at upwards of 50 trillion meters!

And Tams, I'm VERY surprised that you, of all people, don't know that (bow head in reverence) John Moses Browning's ultimate creation, the 1911, comes with a BBS (Ballistic Blocking System) that renders anyone else's armament completely worthless at any range or engagement angle.

 

[Tamara]

Dangus,

All of them except that one shoot very flat and perform borderline-rifle trajectory. If this shooter missed me on the first shot, he could be in trouble. If his first shot was a non-critical shot, he could be in trouble.

It appears thus far that most people's warnings that they were being fired at by this yahoo have been the puddles of blood spreading under their inert forms. Tell me again: How, exactly, is your "borderline-rifle trajectory" going to help you out in that circumstance? If a patient marksman with a rifle wants you dead, that's it, game over. I'm comfortable with that because I avoid giving patient marksmen reasons for wanting me dead, and random loonies like this one present a threat to my safety somewhat less than meteor strikes, but a teensy bit greater than spontaneous and gratuitous existance failures.

 

[Mike Irwin]

"spontaneous and gratuitous existance failures."


Huh?

 

[Mike Irwin]

Dangus,

Here's the fly in your ointment...

In an urban environment, busy, noisy, cluttered with lots of visual "noise," you may NEVER find the person who's shooting at you.

One of the things I've seen mentioned by soldiers who have fought in urban environments in WW II, Korea, Vietnam, etc., is the difficulty of determining where the bullets are coming from or where the sound of the shot is originating.

 

[benewton]

Tamara:

Loved the "spontaneous and gratuitous existance failures"! Shared it with the boss, but got very little in response: 'course I had the M1A out in the backyard today, so there may be a female thing going on there....

Anyway, good stuff.

As for the rest, I think that this is clearly a terrorist action, there being very little in the way of logical thought, by anyone, as currently expressed, to think otherwise.

And, as I learned in long ago(in a far away place), Ft. Dix, the ambusher will always get his first shot off, and, as I always suspected, kill his target.

Your mates, of course, are expected to cover the most probable are with fire, hopefully killing him and all his buds.

In DC and MD, of course, this is modified to watching the target bleed, ducking into whatever shelter you might find, and calling 911.

But, as highlighted by their police chief and all of the local government, don't panic, they have it all under control....

On a gun show, the host made a comment that there was a limit to the ability contained in the human brain, but no limit to the amount of stupidity that it could contain.

This whole thing proves it to me!

 

[Peter Gun]

While its true that it would not help the victims to carry in this situation, its possible that another bystander may be able to neutralize the attacker with their sidearm. Not very likely in "no guns" MD. What really need to happen is people need to start being more observant and paranoid. I'm thinking that here in VT if a van fired a shot out the window in town, it may be met w/ a hail of gunfire from all the people that pack around here. I've noticed a lot of people carrying who don't normally because of recent events. i've even seen people w/ar-15 w/ loaded magazines in their gun racks, which is a big no-no (you might poach a deer!).

 

[WilderBill]

I kinda hope it is a terrorist.

That way we can say: "see, I told you we all needed to be armed."
If it's just a random nutcase, then the antis will be telling us it never would have happened if we were all disarmed.

 

[MeekAndMild]

I don't think the difference would be that the victim would get a chance to shoot back, rather some passerby would return fire from closer range.

The Israeli habit of citizens carrying SMGs would be a lot more practical in a situation of urban terrorist snipers than plain old CCW.

 

[org1]

To the point about a deer rifle in the closet not helping: if this turned out to be the first of many terrorist shootings all around the country, I doubt many of the deer rifles would stay in the closet.

 

[GunGeek]

and using visitor tracking software to track down IPs of visitors.

Just a side note, it does not take special software to track the IPs of visitors to a web site, almost all web servers (IIS, Apache, ect.) log the IPs of all visitors as a default, this is how an admin will see the number of unique visits to a site. An admin would need to specificly turn this off.

Just food for thought on you way around the World Wide Web.

 

[Dangus]

I'm really suprised at your position Tamara. Granted I personally probably would be either dead or in serious trouble, but you ignore the important part, the part that was learned in Israel so many years ago; When someone attacks you like that, other armed citizens can save you, or avenge you at the very least and stop further attacks. Terrorists used to do this very thing in Israel, and they don't do it very often anymore because all hell breaks loose on them when they try it and it rarely even manages to get one Israeli. Suicide bombers are more successful, but even then, some citizens have stopped some of them.

I'm a little offended that you took such a condescending tone with me over what I said. It's not like I was saying my pistol is going to stop their bullets. It just is a tool that can improve my chances. Nothing in life is certain. I could have class VII armor and die of heat stroke. Life is just complicated like that.