50 cal incident-Kansas City / not good!

[veloce851]

Highly suspect!!

This was fairly close to me.
I listen to KMBZ 980am nearly all day and heard all the reports since it was reported as just a house fire.

First of all they don't know who shot the EMT.
She was NOT shot with a .50cal he had one in his collection.
(Geesh the media is worse than highschool rumor mills.)

There were reports of ammo cooking off to a sniper across the street.

All we do know is that everyone who knew him said he didn't give any indication of something coming up.
Yes he was battling with the city over some scrap material on a piece of property .
He was well known in the local gun collecting community, As well as an outspoken right wing thinker.

He had an extensive collection of firearms. And ample amounts of ammo.

He and possibly his girlfriend were fried in the explosion and fire.

Two days ago they bulldozed the site against the families wishes.
(I don't care how unsafe a building may be you don't destroy a crime scene this soon.
They leave huge buildings that are a threat to any occupants and surrounding buildings for months before demolition is scheduled.)

Everything about this situation is suspect.
And they destroy the crime scene before a proper investigation can take place.

 

[Mark Tyson]

Fire and police vehicles were riddled with .50 caliber rounds,

I've never heard of ammo cooking off with these kinds of results before.

 

[Mulliga]

Everything about this situation is suspect.
And they destroy the crime scene before a proper investigation can take place.

At the risk of sounding like a kook, I think it is suspicious.

 

[twoblink]

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/50.htm

Something is so not right..

If you got shot with a .50BMG... half of you is in the next county... And the other half is a fine mist sprayed over the ground like red fertilizer...

You wouldn't be in stable condition, you wouldn't be in ANY condition.. In fact, if they find more than just large chunks of you, I'd be surprised...

 

[Intune]

I'm with Mulliga on this one. Any time bulldozers are called into a crime scene while still smoldering is a friggin heads up to a cover-up.

 

[Phyphor]

Damn, Oleg.....

Maybe fire-fighters ought to start mounting M240s coaxial to the water cannon.

Brings new meaning to 'fire-fighters,' don't it?

 

[LiquidTension]

geek - I'll take your bet. My $1 says that even after they realize it wasn't a sniper they won't bother to clarify - that would hurt their "cause."

 

[Nightfall]

I can't wait to see if this comes up during the Senate debates tomorrow and Tuesday...

I also can't wait to see when this mess is clarified... before or after the next set of Senate votes on amendments and such.

 

[Tamara]

Nightcrawler,

I wasn't actually giving the mathematical formula for calculating energy, though I believe it's simply mass times velocity.

Not an engineering student, eh? (Energy=mass x velocity^2)

(I'm guessing not a pre-med or an avid hunter, either, based on your statements in this thread. )

 

[RatFink]

Where's my tinfoil hat when I need it

HMMm, there are a lot of people that still suspect that Mcveigh was working for the GOV and the explosion was a means to enact a lot of legislation that couldn't pass before hand, and that his trial and execution was a farce, he's living in South America now.

Now someone that was linked to him is involved in this?

 

[AZLibertarian]

I'm just speculating here, but here is my 2 cents....

I understand that when rounds "cook off" in a fire, that they develop no where near the velocity that the same round would be at the muzzle when fired from a gun. The expanding gases go every which way instead of being directed down the barrel, accelerating the round to a "normal" muzzle velocity.

Assuming this guy just had piles of .50 rounds just littered around his house, and they did cook off during a fire, and further, that the firefighter just happened to step in front of a verrrrry low velocity .50 "cooked off" round, I'm guessing one might be able to come out of it in stable condition. [Note to self: Gotta work on those run-on sentences. ] Lucky, too.

And, yes, the bulldozers are a huge clue that something is missing from the official account.

 

[Nightcrawler]

(I'm guessing not a pre-med or an avid hunter, either, based on your statements in this thread. )

Would you not agree that a .50 Browning round will do more than simply make a neat 0.50" hole in someone, as if they were stabbed with a sharpened, half-inch thick stick?

Does a 150 grain projectile moving at 2800 feet per second (.308 or so) not have more of an effect on things it hits than a 150 grain projectile moving at 1300 feet per second? (.357 or so)

Is there some factor I'm not taking into account, in my assumption that heavier projectiles at higher velocities will do more damage?

Does the fact that I forgot the "squared" at the end of the mass * velocity REALLY make me an idiot, or just forgetful? I haven't had a physics class since high school.

Oh, and don't you LOVE it when somebody takes a shot at you and puts a smiley on the end, like then you won't KNOW they're taking a shot at you?

 

[c_yeager]

Lets see first you said :

If you got shot with a .50BMG... half of you is in the next county... And the other half is a fine mist sprayed over the ground like red fertilizer...

You wouldn't be in stable condition, you wouldn't be in ANY condition.. In fact, if they find more than just large chunks of you, I'd be surprised...

Then in your rebuttal you say:

Would you not agree that a .50 Browning round will do more than simply make a neat 0.50" hole in someone, as if they were stabbed with a sharpened, half-inch thick stick?

It appears that even you are aware of your gross exageration. I was going to say something too but, Tamara put it more delicatly than i would have. The fact is that saying "If you got shot with a .50BMG... half of you is in the next county... And the other half is a fine mist sprayed over the ground like red fertilizer... " makes you sound like a kid on a counter strike server.

 

[Nightcrawler]

C Yeager

What, this?

If you got shot with a .50BMG... half of you is in the next county... And the other half is a fine mist sprayed over the ground like red fertilizer...

You wouldn't be in stable condition, you wouldn't be in ANY condition.. In fact, if they find more than just large chunks of you, I'd be surprised...

I think if you re-read the thread you'll find that I didn't say that.

And I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Twoblink was deliberately exagerating to get a point across.

 

[natedog]

I'm with yeager on this one, at least as far as .50 BMG effectiveness is. I'm tired of people touting it as an instant death ray, some seem to think that if hit with a fifty, you'll be completly obliterad, your eyes will shoot out of your skull, and bone fragments will be leaving you so fast you'll be like a human frag grenade.

 

[Nightcrawler]

I don't know if anyone is saying that .50BMG is an "instant death ray". However, the article apparently said the EMT in question was shot twice with the .50, which does arise suspicion. The odds of you surviving two .50 rounds through the torso, muchless being in stable condition afterwards, are quite slim. Now, if they were grazing wounds, and didn't go through the primary chest cavity, it's a different story. There's still likely to be a grotesque wound, but if it's mostly muscle and bone that's torn up you're more likely to survive than if it were, you know, your heart and lungs.

Stranger things have happened, but I'd look at that with a healthy does of skepticism until they prove conclusively that it was a .50 rifle that she was shot with.

 

[50 Shooter]

C'mon Nate, you don't believe that the .50 can't shoot down satellites, 747's and blow up limo's? How about the fact that if it passes within 6" of your head the shockwave will tear your head off?

Heck it's better then a death ray, well at least to gun hating anti's it is.

 

[Nightcrawler]

if it passes within 6" of your head the shockwave will tear your head off?

Oh PUH-LEEZE. It won't tear your head off.

It'll suck your brain out of your ears. A guy I went to basic training with said so, and he heard it from a Drill Sergeant!

Geez, I thought everybody knew that.

 

[Kamicosmos]

Surprised there isn't more KC people here.

Anyways, I watched this from work, on the second floor. Felt the explosion through my chair. Watched the flames and smoke for awhile, watched the helos keep a WIDE orbit.

Cussed about the traffic on the way home since they closed the highways. It happened near what we call the Triangle, it has like 4 interstates merging together, so when it gets closed, traffic blows.

Made jokes for a week about how the KCPD couldn't catch a supposedly 60+ y.o. fat male after an extensive shootout. Have my own tin foil hat idea that there wasn't a shooter at all and the ATF did it since they found the body of a dog that had been shot. They always kill the dogs first...

Just heard today about this guy being a suspect in the BIG explosion in '88 that killed....errr vaporized some firefighters. If he did do that, he deserved what he got.

This town is odd, I'll tell ya that!

 

[timbo]

I liked the "six inch slug" part. I mean, wow, that's a big chunk of lead. I had one of them fly by my head once, taking my head clean off. It was very tragic.

 

[JShirley]

Automatic weapons fire was coming through the smoke from across the street

 

[Travis McGee]

Please post any follow up stories. This one is interesting on many levels.

 

[Pendragon]

I saw a gas can hit by a .50BMG and it was impressive to say the least.

The internal pressure generated by a .5" diameter projectile passing through you at some 2900+/- fps would be pretty incredible and I would expect to see catastrophic damage.

If I recall, a .50BMG has 15,000 foot-lbs of muzzle energy - thats ten times the energy of a 7.62x39 round if I am not mistaken.

I think the only way to survive a .50 hit would be if it was a graze.

Someone show me someone who took a torso hit with a .50 and lived or a hit to a limb (not a graze) and they still have the limb (slightly more likely).

 

[BluesBear]

It almost reads like a scene from one of those wonderful Matthew Bracken novels.

 

[0007]

Darn it , blueBear, ya beat me to it...

A question for the family. Can anyone recall any of these type of "incidents" where the crime scene wasn't "plowed under" within a day or so of the incident?