SHTF scenario - terrorist snipers

[El Rojo]

I think that people forget that handguns also have quite an effective range as well. As I recall most if not all of the DC sniper shootings took place at a range of less than 100 yards, easily within the effective range of a 9mm and especially something like a 7.62X25, .357 (or 357 SIG), 10mm, .41 mag, ect.

I think a statement like this is why some people are concerned about shootouts with terrorists snipers. Why on earth would someone with a 9mm handgun try to engage a person with a .223 semi-automatic rifle at 100 yards? You better get the first shot and you better hit them in the head. If you miss, you are now at a severe disadvantage to a scoped .223.

So the concern is you are going to get all sorts of people out roving around looking for the snipers. Shooting at the snipers at 100 yards plus with handguns. Now do you see the concern some people have and why this scenario could turn into a monumentous charlie foxtrot? People actively roving around with weapons in search of a killer would most certainly compound the problem. Especially if our terrorists don't happen to be of middle eastern decent. Does John Walker Lindh ring a bell to anyone. A muslim red-neck sniper running around infiltrating sniper-hunter kill teams in white America. Better yet, what if he or she is black? Go no further than our last DC snipers to see how a black man and his teenage son were ignored for so long because it might have been "racial" profiling. Now a efficient female, black sniper about 60 years of age teamed up with a 35 year old red-neck counter part. That would get interesting.

Cool Hand Luke seemed to have a responsible idea. Wait and watch with communication being your first means of self-defense and offense. Then out of sight you have a rifle that can be employeed only in self-defense. That sounds responsible to me. The key to this is you can't have non-law enforcement running around with visible weapons. It creates too many new targets for law enforcement and the vigilante groups.

 

[birddog]

And you know what? Many gun owners would be right there with them chanting "you don't need an AK to hunt deer" and "they'll never come after my skeet gun".

You'd be surprised how many of us deer hunters, skeet shooters, trap shooters, bird hunters actually SUPPORT the RKBA, actively.

This is a stereotype I find all too often on this message board.

 

[The_Antibubba]

Sniping isn't scary enough

Yes, a terrorist sniper team could go on killing for years. But TERROR is the operative word here. And random-seeming shootings aren't all that scary anymore.

Bombings are.

Guns are part of the American culture and lingo. Suicide Bombs are not.

A sniper can be hunted and prosecuted. An obliterated jihadist cannot.

The issue is about control, and not having it. Guns can be used for defensive purposes; aside from certain Cold War ideologies, bombs cannot.


It is not about killing us. It is about shutting down our ability to function.

 

[gyp_c2]

...snipers...

They just haven't ...yet...Maybe there will come a day that agents do some sort of sabotage and don't die on the spot, but continue to harass and hide and go seek...sort of like what the old scenarios used to play like with cold-war tactics...not necessarily providing a "martyr" with each attack...
Only the shadow knows...
g2

 

[longrifleman]

They'll get around to this eventually, possibly as part of a broader campaign. I've thought about this as a "what would I do " type of thing and I came up with several scenarios that would cause a great disruption to the economy. Economic warfare is part of Al Quaida's stated goals so we can expect something from them at any time.

I'm not going to describe what I came up with. No sense in giving anybody any ideas. You'll just have to trust me that with a dozen people and not a lot of resources it would be possible to do serious damage.

 

[macman37]

Could be "on the menu"

The terrorists have shown the ability to think big. They do want the headlines, sure, but think about it... you'd only need 100 dedicated volunteers to totally mess America (or at least America's headlines for a very long time. That's not a huge allocation of manpower.

let's say 10 for coordination via cell phones (and eventual activity)
another 20 to strap bombs to their bodies and go into crowded areas (malls or the bottom floors of large buildings)
20 to drive trucks full of explosives around and detonate them on specifically chosen Interstate bridges
25 for sniping from good positions
Heck, 25 for stuff I can't even think of because it's way out there. Perhaps some of the installations (nuke plants etc) people have seen suspicious activity around.

It's a huge what if, but let me tell you, not long ago I read somewhere about some guy's nightmare about some terrorist types at a stoplight shooting the first person in line in traffic and then just walking down the line, shooting people in their vehicles. Kind of changed my viewpoint on where the next terror attack could be.

 

[benEzra]

You'd be surprised how many of us deer hunters, skeet shooters, trap shooters, bird hunters actually SUPPORT the RKBA, actively.

This is true of all the hunters I know. But I think this perception comes from the fact that the media seeks out hunters who oppose the ownership of "non-hunting" weapons for the sound bites we all see on TV, "no one NEEDS an AK-47 to hunt deer," and so on, and tries to create the perception that most hunters feel that way.

Regarding terrorist scenarios, I think the terrorists tend to think like outsiders. They think striking at major landmarks in New York City or Washington, DC--landmarks that symbolize America to the REST of the world--is striking at the heart of America. That's why bombing a shopping mall in Nowhere, USA, or the scenarios discussed above, don't really occur to them, or so it seems, because the major tourist landmarks seem to stick in their head (which is a very good thing for us). In the city where I used to live, I regularly visited a soft target, post 9-11, in which you had 6,000 people in one room and practically no security; ten terrorists with satchel charges could have killed thousands. I won't be more specific, but it worried the heck out of me then and it worries me now.

Macman37, that scenario DID happen. The middle eastern gunman that assassinated the CIA worker(s) at the intersection in front of the CIA headquarters in the early 1990s did just that; he stopped his van in the leftmost straight-ahead lane, jumped out and shot the driver of the first car in the adjacent turn lane, so no one behind him could move; then went down the line shooting until he shot the person he was after; then ran back to his van and escaped, and got clean away (until we later nabbed him in Pakistan, IIRC).

 

[Travis McGee]

Double Naught Spy said: "Sniping is a small beans terroristic tactic, if used for terrorism. Why shoot a few when you can wear a bomb into a busy terminal and blow up 200 people?"

/1/ Maybe you feel too valuable to your cause to blow yourself up?
/2/ Maybe you don't currently have access to explosives?
/3/ Or maybe your real agenda is to see semi-auto "assault rifles" banned in the USA?

#3 is the premise of my novel. Firing 90 rounds into a packed football upper deck leads to a human stampede, and fans being pushed over the railings and down 100 feet onto the fans below. From 90 bullets, the fictional death toll is over a thousand, with a deliberately engineered panic being the real weapon. Bullets fired into a crowd that will stampede could easily equal the death toll from a bombing. (That's on the first 2 pages of my book, BTW.)

 

[Travis McGee]

Henry Bowman: Man, what a nightmare scenario! Do it on election day, you could invalidate or throw into question a presidential race, by targeting certain minority precints. They would claim they were kept from voting, and what a $#!+storm THAT would lead to! Imagine a large minority demanding a presidential race "do over!" MUCH worse than the 2000 election Florida recount situation. The shooters could leave disinformation leaflets alluding to a white racist or other group behind the sniper attacks.

The rest of your scenarios are also valid, over a much longer time frame. Using media generated hysteria to leverage the terror of the attacks to the stratosphere, 6-10 clever shooters using the tactics you described could bring this country to its knees. I'd add targeting long-haul truckers with windshield shots. After a week or two, trucking would be effected enough to damage the national economy.

 

[Travis McGee]

Henry Bowman: I think something like what I describe in my novel is also possible: given the right motivation, many Americans on their own could become selective snipers. This would not necessarily require a coordinated organized "team effort." Individuals with rifles could, in the right climate, begin to target certain types of politicians, muslims, etc, depending on the provocations.

For example, if buses began to blow up on a weekly basis, and the trails kept leading to mosques and "islamic cultural centers," and the fedgov was too constrained by PC to grab the nettle, individuals could begin their own personal counter-jihads. That's just one scenario among many which could lead to many folks making the personal choice to take up arms in a covert sniper war. And without any central organization, it would be virtually impossible to stop via conventional LE methods. Not in a country with at least 10 million scoped deer rifles, and 80 million shooters.

 

[Travis McGee]

Maceman37: The recently captured Al Queda letter listed several of their terrorist targets. One of them were the national forests of America. Imagine ten jihadists in ten western states all starting fires with road flares or molotov cocktails every mile or so as they drove along. If you started on a hot windy day, you could create a super firestorm which would quickly outstrip our total ability to fight it in any meaningful way. Entire towns would burn. Air would be unbreathable for entire regions. It would be a nightmare. And all it would take would be cars and matches.

 

[Gabe]

What you are describing is guerilla terrorism. The aim is to terrorize but using guerilla tactics. IMO terrorist groups such as AQ are not well suited to use guerilla tactics outside the Middle East. It's more risky to get into the country than it was 3 years ago and it is quite difficult for a total novice to slip in and out of American society without being noticed.

The typical AQ terrorist isn't exactly the highest quality recruit. Typically they have never been abroad and don't have any language skills. The terrorists that carried out the 911 attacks were their cream of the crop if you will. They don't have many of those, and the few they have are reserved for more spectacular attacks.

 

[Werewolf]

The scenarios described above are scary beyond belief. All I can say about them is that I'd hate to look middle eastern and live in the USA if they ever come to pass.

People have a capacity for hate and lashing out when they feel out of control that most folks just cannot or will not imagine. The fight or flight instinct of the American populace will begin to kick in and those whose natural instinct is to fight will lash out. If the scenarios described in the preceding posts actually occur over a period lasting more than a few months I predict that the lives of muslims and middle eastern looking folks in the USA won't be worth a plugged nickel. I can imagine whole neighborhoods being burned, lynchings taking place, work place firings, work place discrimination and random killings of muslims or those that fit the stereotype. The experience of Japanese-Americans in WWII on the west coast will seem like a stroll in the park in comparison.

Many of you will say "that didn't happen to the German and Italian Americans in WWII". True enough but both of those are European, look like the stereotypical American of the time and Americans weren't being killed in America. Read about the experience of Japanese-Americans on the west coast. Near hysteria reigned for a time. The only reason it wasn't bad for them in Hawaaii is that so much of the population there was oriental.

 

[DNA]

I wonder why anyone hasn't brought up the point of bioweapons? Imagine what would happen if there was a "mysterious white powdery substance" found at the local mall on a Friday or Saturday night? Now Imagine if that turns out to be weapons grade anthrax that's been correctly done so that is can be dispersed by aeresols? Or the same scenarios happening in a large movie theater complex or an amusement park? Frankly, terrorists with firearms and bombs don't really scare me. It's the ones going for gold with bioweapons that give me the chills.

Dan

 

[longrifleman]

Since you brought it up. One of the variations I am worried about is the forest fire or other type of attack that gets first responders /utility workers spread out in remote areas where they would be ambushed. What would happen to law enforcement if every repair truck and ambulance had to have an armed escort, especially in remote areas.

The economic disruption from no utilities for long periods of time would be enormous.

Travis McGee, just finished your book and liked it a lot. The only problem with it is it is all too likely to be a future documentary and not fiction.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Travis, in this country, everybody has access to explosive materials such as amonium nitrate mixed with any one of a variety of fuels (Thank you Timmy McVeigh). The components to make black powder can be had fairly easily. A full propane tank for your BBQ grill makes for a very nasty explosion as well. Never mind simple gas bombs. This is all perfectly legal stuff. Access to explosives is NOT the limiting factor.

 

[Ryder]

I have a theory about that

It doesn't make sense that they'd be afraid of armed citizens since they claim to desire self sacrifice. I'd say the reason they are not doing random sniping is because it doesn't meet their body count requirements.

They realize scare tactics won't gain them anything against us. They tried that for 10 years and we ignored them. Since accepting their challenge we've been decimating them. This means the motive turns from one of ideology to revenge considering the multitude of friends and relatives they've lost. That's their custom and human nature, we do the same thing.

Attacks which don't rival the scale of 9/11 will cause them to lose face among their supporters. Small attacks would imply they're losing.

 

[c_yeager]

There is one big problem with the idea of true islamic terrorist snipers.

The way that the leadership convinces people to be terristists in the first place is the prospect of dying in a right and proper holy war as a means of entering paradise.

In other words the terrorist HAS to die in the COMMISION of their terrorist act in order to receive their reward. Sniping is a practice for someone that wants to live to fight another day. That alone disqualifies it as a likely terrorist enterprise.

 

[labgrade]

"One of them were the national forests of America. Imagine ten jihadists in ten western states all starting fires with road flares or molotov cocktails every mile or so as they drove along."

Couple years back The West was already burning on its own. I had visions of exactly what you mentioned, Travis = railroad flares every coupla miles.

There would have been no way to stop it + the resulting conflagration would likely have wiped out the electrical grid as well.

Mid-Colorado to Oregon on fire anyone?

Too, when The Moose was profiling "white guys in white vans," I couldn't help but wonder if this same thing would start up in another 10-20 random urban locations. Virtually impossible to stop, or catch 'em - especially if they didn't essentially turn themselves by all the clues they left.

I believe that 10 folks, not even acting in concert, could cause incredible economic havoc.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Well, and while body counts may be important to some terroristic groups, I think part of the problem with this thread is the understanding of what a terrorist is. Not all mass or multiple murderers are terrorists, but many terrorists are mass and/or multiple murderers. The DC beltway snipers were not terrorists, but what they did was terrorizing.

Huh? Terrorists act against non-combatants (people and institutions) with some sort of political, military, religious, or social goals in mind. The attack on the USS Cole was billed as a terroristic act. It wasn't, not in the sense that it was an attack against a military target. The Beltway snipers had no agenda they were trying to promote via their activities. Bombings and shootings at abortion clinics are terroristic acts as they are attacked by those who are against abortion.

Keep in mind that not all terrorist want self sacrifice. The Unibomber, Timmy McVeigh, and the first bombers of the WTC all did their deeds in such a manner so as to NOT sacrifice themselves.

labgrade's forest fire example would also qualify if the person(s) setting fires are doing so with one of the goals in mind as noted above, but a simple arsonist who just likes starting fires would not be a terrorist.

So why not sniping? Sniping has been used in at least one abortion doctor murder and he was killed because of the religico-social issues of the shooter/group.

Beyond that, sniping would not be horribly effective without some sort of focussed pattern. A pattern of activity would tend to give away the participants more quickly as they have to be present to commit the task at the moment the task is performed. Sniping can be used, but the benefits just don't stack up compared to other methods where the participants (who may wish to survive) can be absentee participants at the time the event occurs, such as with planting bombs.

 

[labgrade]

'It's more risky to get into the country than it was 3 years ago and it is quite difficult for a total novice to slip in and out of American society without being noticed."

As if the borders are secured enough to prevent 10Ks of "Weekly Visitors."

A terrorist, by our latest definition/s, is one who attempts through violations of our laws to change the political climate. Close enough of a def anyway for GP-workings. Pretty much was always that anyway.

I am quite frankly astounded that there hasn't been random, or semi-concerted shootings, targeting specific job descriptions already - & not by foreign nationals, but by own very own who are so disgusted with the continual stripping of our liberties. One could call 'em terrorists or freedom fighters as your job description, or mind works ....

The "railroad flare scenario" a couple years back seriously made me wonder "where the hell ARE the terrorists?" Couple hundred bucks worth of flares, 10 guys in as many beater cars could have laid waste to the western US - might have cost all of a couple $1,000 ....

Frankly, I couldn't judge either way till I see the results & perceived motivations, but for various scenarios, I think it's merely a matter of time - either a war against the USA, as an entity, or a fighting back of those who have just had it.

Perhaps, Travis, if you haven't fleshed out your second yet .....

BTW, I've only the first (& autographed) copy of Jeff Head's initial book, but he describes some fairly chilling experiences himself.

A "random sniper," who changes calibers & tactics often enough - no real big deal - could lay selective waste to an entire city while being virtually uncatchable - fairly rural areas would be even more difficult to pin 'im down.

[/musings]

 

[Gabe]

'It's more risky to get into the country than it was 3 years ago and it is quite difficult for a total novice to slip in and out of American society without being noticed."

As if the borders are secured enough to prevent 10Ks of "Weekly Visitors."

Like I said the risk is greater. Why should foreign terrorists send their best operatives over to snipe people when they could conduct higher profile attacks taking the same risks and expending the same assets.

A terrorist, by our latest definition/s, is one who attempts through violations of our laws to change the political climate. Close enough of a def anyway for GP-workings. Pretty much was always that anyway.

I am quite frankly astounded that there hasn't been random, or semi-concerted shootings, targeting specific job descriptions already - & not by foreign nationals, but by own very own who are so disgusted with the continual stripping of our liberties. One could call 'em terrorists or freedom fighters as your job description, or mind works ....

The "railroad flare scenario" a couple years back seriously made me wonder "where the hell ARE the terrorists?" Couple hundred bucks worth of flares, 10 guys in as many beater cars could have laid waste to the western US - might have cost all of a couple $1,000 ....

Frankly, I couldn't judge either way till I see the results & perceived motivations, but for various scenarios, I think it's merely a matter of time - either a war against the USA, as an entity, or a fighting back of those who have just had it.

Perhaps, Travis, if you haven't fleshed out your second yet .....

BTW, I've only the first (& autographed) copy of Jeff Head's initial book, but he describes some fairly chilling experiences himself.

A "random sniper," who changes calibers & tactics often enough - no real big deal - could lay selective waste to an entire city while being virtually uncatchable - fairly rural areas would be even more difficult to pin 'im down.

This shows exactly why sniping has remained the domain of domestic criminals and terrorists. This style of terrorism appeals to an American native. It is not part of Arab popular culture. Furthermore the daily skills you take for granted, renting a car and checking-in to a motel, are daunting tasks for the average terrorist recruit.

 

[itgoesboom]

c-yeager,

You are correct about that, but I wouldn't count on it staying that way, because that in itself, is a perversion of Islam.

Islam preaches that suicide is not the way to paradise and the 72 virgins. It's quite opposite honestly.

The Quran teaches that suicide is a crime, and that if a person commits suicide, even in the process of killing infidels, than they will go to hell, and be forced to repeat their method of death over and over for all eternity.

In fact, the word "assassin" comes from a group known as the "Ismaili sect" of Islam. This sect was created by Hasan ibn al-Sabbah around the year 1090. The sect was divided up into different groups or classes, with one class known as the "devotees". These were the members that wanted to become martyrs, and would "assassinate" other political leaders.

While these assassins would end up dying during their deeds, they would never even think about commiting suicide, as that would essentially undo what they had just done. Their deaths would be at the hands of the guards or the crowd at the scene of the crime, after they killed their target.

So while many of the Muslim leaders are seeking young people to act as martyrs, they are actually going against their own religion. They are re-educating these young people into believing their version of Islam.

This is just one of the many mistunderstandings of Islam. One of the others is that people think that the Quran teaches peace amongst all "people of the book", (Jews and Christians), but infact the Quran mentions killing {paraphrased, since I don't have the text in front of me} "people of the book if they haven't found the true religion (islam)."

Honestly, I do believe that some Muslim leader will at some point convince somebody to pull off this exact type of an attack. Remember the D.C. shootings, people were afraid to get out of their cars to pump gas, to walk across the street? Imagine that on a national scale. 5 sniper teams, 10 people, changing cities, randomly killing men, women and children, all over the country. Nobody would feel safe, which is exactly what they want.

I.G.B.

 

[DakotaSig]

Assuming the sniper used a scope...

There's actually a very effective method to detect the scope. Just site a low-power laser in a likely target area and scan it across the area where the sniper would hide. If you use a beam-spreader lens, the laser would only need to be scanned in one dimension, so the scanning apparatus could be mechanically very simple. A simple laser light detector would be mounted in the scanner and would set off an alarm if it detected the retro-reflection from a scope. The system could also automatically switch on a bright light or eye-safe laser to prevent the sniper from acquiring a target.

Here's some related links:

The military has the Stingray

A page about disabling cameras

 

[Travis McGee]

Labgrade:
The multi state mass forest fire super storm is bound to happen, it's just a matter of time. Like you said, it would take out entire electrical grids, along with wiping out towns, and causing mass suffocation of people with breathing problems.

Folks who comment that arabs who might yet make it into the USA today are too unsophisticated to figure out motels etc without being compromised are misjudging what's involved. One planner in Tucson who gets the ten beater cars and ten cases of road flares. One coyote who delivers ten jihadists to that house. Ten USA road maps, marked out. The ten terrorists sleep in the cars. Gas cans in the trunks, so they don't need to stop at motels at all. One or two days to get into each attack position. At ten AM on the 4th of July, the ten terrorists in ten states start their arson drives. tossing flares into heavy underbrush every mile.

These guys don't need to be James Bond, or even Mohammed Atta.