No. A scope at 200+yards isn’t going to be like that, unless he’s got a really high powered scope which I doubt. The military, after all, uses scopes and semi-automatic or selective fire in combat…when not only is your target moving but it’s shooting at you. This guy had a solid rest (I presume) and a huge target. Initially he would have been shooting (at 2 rounds per second AT LEAST) at targets that were totally standing still. He’d have had, what? A minute? Two? More? Before the crowd really started to panic. Even after that, it would have been huge clumps of people milling around or running into each other and knocking each other down, giving him more or less stationary targets to shoot at.
Sorry for getting you wrong. But I’m not talking about your subjective experience.
It was a couple of seconds in time we could see on video. During which people were being shot by an automated firearm. They lived it. It happened. They either lived or died based on their reflexes and response.
But do you think tech like silencers, and automation of firing are increasing the body count?
No. It wouldn’t. You are talking about clumps of people that are in the hundreds. He didn’t have to aim at individuals (though he could have), but at clumps of people. With aimed semi-automatic fire it’s hard to see how he could miss, even at those ranges and even firing quickly. 2 rounds per second isn’t particularly quickly. As I said, I’m no expert and I generally fire my dad’s rifle at targets of about 100 yards in 3 round bursts with a semi-auto…and that takes less than a second. In the video I linked to earlier, a hand gun guy was firing (and hitting targets at 50 yards at least) 6 rounds per second, and he wasn’t really having any issues.
Now, firing this bump gun is a whole other thing. Again, did you watch the video? The lady firing was shooting at a vehicle at what looked to me to be 30 yards or so and basically missing when she was firing it flat out. As opposed to the 3 round bursts where she was hitting a man sized target easily from the same range.
I estimate 120-150 rounds a minute with a semi-auto for myself. I’d say I’m competent. There are a lot of factors that will effect this. A stabilized heavy gun in a light caliber is going to skew those numbers higher. A light but heavy caliber gun that is being held freehand is going to be much harder to manage and skew those numbers lower.
At 300 plus yards? With a stage and fences and other cover? With people actively trying to hide themselves.
I think a 50% hit rate, which is what you are suggesting, is incredibly unrealistic to the point of being ridiculous.
The bump stocks I’ve seen videos on and read about seem pretty slick. The forward part of the gun moves back and forth just enough to engage the trigger. The manufacturer suggests in their ad (all advertising is of course true) that this action actually helps manage the recoil and stops the gun from pulling, making it even more accurate than some automatics.
Anyway the videos on you tube and several of the reviews suggest they are pretty slick.
The Constitution (Article 1, section 2) specifically recognizes indentured servants as ‘free Persons.’
"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. "
Ok…so you are talking over 1300 rounds. That’s not a 50% rate. From what I’ve read he was firing 5.56, but even 7.62 I don’t think would be unmanageable. We are talking about 22,000 people here, and initially he’d be shooting at people just standing around. Even when the crowd started to move there would be large clumps of people running into each other and knocking each other down.
There was a fence and stage where 22,000 people could hide behind in a panic? :dubious: As for 300 yards, well…that’s more than I heard, but maybe I’m going on old information. Still, we are talking about a very large group of people. I think it’s reasonable to think that with 1300 rounds from someone who is ‘competent’ into such a large group is not outside of the realm of reality. Recall, you don’t actually have to hit 500 individuals directly, many of those bullets are going to hit a person then travel through and hit someone else.
Except it’s not what I’m suggesting. I’m suggesting he would be firing aimed rounds into groups of people, getting a large number of hits initially before the crowd started to move and being able to hit multiple people with at least some of his rounds. Sorry if you think that’s ridiculous or unrealistic, but I don’t think it is. Personally, I think your 2/3rds estimate doesn’t even work with your own figures, and you didn’t even bother fleshing this out more.
This is turning into some kind of porno isn’t it?
Brevity is your friend in arguments. Jargon isn’t.
Because it’s what you guys want. You won’t leave this, no one is focusing on the meat of the OP. So, fuck it, we’ll talk about this.
OK. Could you do me a favor? Could you restate the meat of the OP in one sentence? Just for me?
For you? No. For just about anyone else in this thread I’d be happy too. For you, you can scroll up or pound sand for all I care.
My skin is thick. No worries. But my experience is pertinent. I can see on the videos the people doing the exact same thing I did.
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No. Not really. Mostly it was luck. That was a big crowd. Happening to be standing where the bullets weren’t was pure luck. Similarly, the first people shot had no chance. It was just bad luck that they happened to be where the first bullets came down.
There is a period of time where people are figuring out what is happening, and a further period of time while they evaluate it. Whether or not somebody got hit during this period was also a matter of luck.
Than if you hit the dirt and got behind cover your chances of not getting hit improved. If you ran to help other people maybe your chances got worse. Still though, if you are in that crowd you’d biggest ally is luck. You can’t dodge bullets. Your best hope is that they are not coming straight at you. At that range we can guess that the gunman was spraying the crowd rather than going for individual targets, so again, luck.
When you are shot at you hear and sense the bullets going by. They are a presence but you really don’t know you interpret them. Next you see and/or hear the impacts. These pull your attention in the wrong direction. Your instinctual self has no evolutionary experience with supersonic objects flying near you, so it doesn’t know what signals you send you? Weird bugs? Rain? Hail? What the fuck is that? The sound of the shots comes after a long pause, long enough that your instincts tell you that what you are seeing and experiencing is not connected to what you just heard. The sound is also coming from the opposite direction that your attention is focused on. This confirms to your instincts that the two are not connected. Your instincts, the part that reacts quickly is wrong, of course. From several moments it doesn’t make sense. You have to work it out and put the pieces together. You stand there stupidly trying to put it together. When you do you realize that you have been standing perfectly still for several seconds while you are being shot at. Now you get to react. Whether or not you get hit has nothing to do with you. It’s just luck.
Silencers make a really really really loud gun just really loud, or maybe just loud. I don’t think they do anything to make a shooter more stealthy. I think automatic and semi automatic rifles are extreme force multipliers. They definitely increase body count. They have limited to no use in any application except increasing body count. Responsible gun owners, of which I consider myself one, should happily give up this very limited utility for the greater good, imo. It’s not much of a trade off.
Semi automatic handguns are a fact of life, and not really reasonably bannable, imo. They are not as deadly as rifles because of limited useful range, and practical magazine size limits. Revolvers are essentially semi automatics in terms of functionality. I, personally, am much more accurate with a revolver than I am with a semi-auto handguns. Handguns have legitimate uses. They need to be stringently licensed.
XT:
To me the idea that he could do a lot better with an automatic then without it, is really obvious. To make sure it wasn’t one of those false obvious type things, I and a couple of other posters did a couple of quick back of the envelope calculations, we concluded that our initial impressions were correct.
You remain unconvinced. That’s fine. You are allowed. To me, it’s obvious enough that it’s not interesting to pursue it any further. No insult, no hardship, no bad feelings. We just disagree and it’s time to move on.
This is all Scylla:
No. Not really. Mostly it was luck. That was a big crowd. Happening to be standing where the bullets weren’t was pure luck. Similarly, the first people shot had no chance. It was just bad luck that they happened to be where the first bullets came down.
There is a period of time where people are figuring out what is happening, and a further period of time while they evaluate it. Whether or not somebody got hit during this period was also a matter of luck.
Than if you hit the dirt and got behind cover your chances of not getting hit improved. If you ran to help other people maybe your chances got worse. Still though, if you are in that crowd you’d biggest ally is luck. You can’t dodge bullets. Your best hope is that they are not coming straight at you. At that range we can guess that the gunman was spraying the crowd rather than going for individual targets, so again, luck.
When you are shot at you hear and sense the bullets going by. They are a presence but you really don’t know you interpret them. Next you see and/or hear the impacts. These pull your attention in the wrong direction. Your instinctual self has no evolutionary experience with supersonic objects flying near you, so it doesn’t know what signals you send you? Weird bugs? Rain? Hail? What the fuck is that? The sound of the shots comes after a long pause, long enough that your instincts tell you that what you are seeing and experiencing is not connected to what you just heard. The sound is also coming from the opposite direction that your attention is focused on. This confirms to your instincts that the two are not connected. Your instincts, the part that reacts quickly is wrong, of course. From several moments it doesn’t make sense. You have to work it out and put the pieces together. You stand there stupidly trying to put it together. When you do you realize that you have been standing perfectly still for several seconds while you are being shot at. Now you get to react. Whether or not you get hit has nothing to do with you. It’s just luck.
Silencers make a really really really loud gun just really loud, or maybe just loud. I don’t think they do anything to make a shooter more stealthy. I think automatic and semi automatic rifles are extreme force multipliers. They definitely increase body count. They have limited to no use in any application except increasing body count. Responsible gun owners, of which I consider myself one, should happily give up this very limited utility for the greater good, imo. It’s not much of a trade off.
Semi automatic handguns are a fact of life, and not really reasonably bannable, imo. They are not as deadly as rifles because of limited useful range, and practical magazine size limits. Revolvers are essentially semi automatics in terms of functionality. I, personally, am much more accurate with a revolver than I am with a semi-auto handguns. Handguns have legitimate uses. They need to be stringently licensed.
[/QUOTE]
That was all Scylla
Here is my comment:
*Sorry, I thought you were saying that your subjective experience of being under fire has something to do with this. They most certainly had lots of thoughts and aims over those 10 minutes, or even those hours. I’m sure you don’t know their whole state of mind. You seem to be saying that anyone that has any thought go through their head during this event replicates your experience when you got shot. I’m a little more sanguine about this insight.
But you can take some intelligent inferences. They heard the gunshots like a wave. One person realizes it and then more do. That’s the way a confused crowd situation would work. The more ambiguity about the sound, the more mitigated, the more silent the more natural the sound is the greater the danger in the example we are here to discuss. Didn’t you see that in the footage you saw of people responding to it by “discovering” it was happening through little cues that got to them? Those seconds could mean the lives of people.
Also the more bullets you put into a crowd the more damage you will do. It’s not argument to discuss it. It’s porno.
I can’t tell at this point whether there is someone who actually denies this point. Really guys, brevity is your pal.
Does it not make a difference if your hunter has a silencer and automated gunfire? You want to volunteer to find out?*
Scylla: Let’s put it this way. I think the people in Vegas would probably feel they had the right to hear the gun that’s shooting at them at it’s natural volume. If they have a scylla moment and hallucinate or start whistling Johnny Cash songs, so be it. But no one here would trade that right away, to be able to hear your assailant, clearer and less ambiguously than otherwise, under that condition, in the place of a Vegas victim.
Why has this not been mentioned once: The guns firing sounds were much of the reason he was caught as soon as he was. In the hotel and on the ground, it made a difference. I don’t see any reason to believe this didn’t save lives, and is a public good worth defending.
When you criminalize an act it is real and symbolic, but also, in a practical sense it networks law enforcement into this activity in its nexus with other activities. In other words it bundles well with indictments for other things, on other people who we want to keep an eye on for the public good. It adds jail time, leverage, and anything another charge does.
Oh puh-leeze - by your own admission you conceded in your Opening Post your suggestion wouldn’t have done a thing to prevent the Las Vegas sniper attack and yet here you are, all you’re doing is talking ad nauseum about the Las Vegas sniper attack. It’s impossible to be anymore disingenuous than you’re being.
Everything can be improved with practice, including bump-firing. If he practiced with bump-firing, then I think it’s entirely likely that he was able to aim enough to cause real damage to the crowd, at least in the first few moments.
We’ll find out soon, but I think it’s very likely that we’re going to find out that the vast majority of the deaths and injuries caused by bullets (as opposed to caused by general chaos of the panicked crowd) were in the first minute or so. If so, that will be pretty solid evidence that the high rate of fire of the bump-stock was critical in causing so many deaths.
This video discusses FoxNews’ response to the Las Vegas shooting. At first the Foxists didn’t know whom to hate (how can you hate a man who’d not Muslim? All he did was kill 59 people.), so they told everyone not to “politicize” the tragedy. After a day, however, they figured out how to politicize it (3:43 mark) — the massacre demonstrates that the NFL kneelers dishonor the cops who took down the shooter.
I have no idea where you’re pulling those numbers from, they don’t seem to be in the article you linked to, nor could I find those numbers in any of the links in the articles. Is the 2300 number based on the SIDS death bit mentioned? If so - that number is from 1997.
Rather than looking at a snapshot, if you look at the trend line, smoking is going down. Second-hand smoke exposure is also down - according to one of your links, from ‘1 in 2 nonsmokers in 1999-2000 to 1 in 4 nonsmokers in 2011-2012’. There is no reason to think that this trend line will not continue lower. Public smoking bans, packaging requirements, public awareness campaigns, taxation - amazing concept, right? Steady efforts over time having an impact and changing things for the better.
Ditto drunk driving. Does alcohol still kill lots of people? Sure - but far less than it used to, and will continue to decline. And anyway, autonomous driving will eventually make drunk driving irrelevant.
Nobody thinks or expects that we can go from 30,000 dead from gun violence to zero overnight. It’d be nice, but nobody actually thinks that’s possible. But over time, it should be possible to cut that number in half, just like we’ve been able to do for drunk driving and smoking.