Poor choice of guns in Ohio and Beltway snipings

[TamThompson]

OK, maybe I'm being a bit tin-foil-hattish, but I got to thinking after reading part of "Enemies Foreign and Domestic"...

Has anyone else noticed that the guns used in the recent Ohio serial shootings and in the Beltway sniper shootings were very poor choices for sniper attacks? That they were, in fact, a Bushmaster AR-15 and a 9mm handgun, which just so happen to be the kinds of guns (evil black semi-autos) that the anti's would like to see banned in a New, Improved, Expanded Assault Weapons Ban renewal? (I am aware that the AR-15's semi-auto capability was only used in one of ten shootings.)

My understanding of sniping is that the best gun for the job would've been a long-barrelled bolt-action rifle (scoped.) However, the anti's know they can't get to those...yet.

Come to think of it, I've seen a whole lot more shootings in the news lately. Are there more shootings going on (set-up or no), or is there just more news media attention being paid to them? I'm sure we can expect it to accelerate until mid-September.

Thoughts?

 

[Graystar]

In the beltway case, the gun was determined by what could be stolen easily.

 

[TamThompson]

Well, I can believe that, but it would seem to me that there are a heckuva lot more bolt-action hunting rifles around than AR-15's or other mil-spec rifles...

 

[Harry Tuttle]

the beltway bushwackers actually lost the .308 bolt action they were planing on using
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001842255_sniper23m.html

 

[moa]

A story about the DC snipers that appears to go mostly untold is that they shot at an slightly wounded a liquor store guy. I think the grazed his chin.

Anyway, he whips out his 9mm and starts shooting at them, but they got away. I think this happened in 2002 in Alabama. It is suspected it was the DC snipers because of the calibre of the weapon and the description of the car.

This was in a front page article in the Washington Post some months ago. I did not read the whole article because I was in a check-out line.

 

[Standing Wolf]

The leftist extremists know they can't ban bolt action rifles yet, so they're establishing the principle that some guns are inherently evil and trusting they'll be able to expand the inherently evil class in due time.

They're digging the Second Amendment's grave one shovel full at a time.

 

[sumpnz]

The DC idiots used a Bushmaster becuase that's what they could get after loosing the Rem 700 .308 they intended to use.

The Ohio serial shooter (sniper is as much a mis-nomer in this case as possible) was taking pot-shots at cars with a 9mm because that's what he had. He is a mentally unstable person (a charitable description I know) and probably gave little, if any, thought to the choice of weapon. I don't believe his intent was to kill as many people as possible, just to gain noteriety and attention. Who knows how good of shot he really was, but the fact that he only hit 1 person out of at least 2 dozen shots means that it was probably more luck than skill (of course even a crack shot would be hard pressed to hit a person in a moving car through glass with a 9mm at 50 or so yards).

Bottom line is I really don't think that in either case a whole of thought or rationalization went into the decision to use those particular weapons.