Sniper Attack on CA Power Substation

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barnbwt

barnbwt

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Sniper Attack on California Power Station Raises Terrorism Fears

Normally, I'm the first one to discount stuff like this as hyperbole, but this news item seems to keep bubbling up on the news sites for the last week or so, even though there is very little discussion about it otherwise. Knowing how our government can get when terrorism is the subject, it's worth addressing as a potential argument against legitimately high powered accurate rifles, if only because I haven't seen a thread on it so far here.

The attack caused fairly significant damage (one month of repairs, they say) and caused the substation to fail, requiring the remaining grid to compensate. It took place over a hour, and also involved very methodical behavior of severing phone lines (I assume for station monitoring of security) in a locked vault. Sounds scary enough to warrant some knee-jerk bad legislation against powerful rifles/calibers if we aren't prepared and looking out for it.

I haven't heard anything on that front yet, but this story seems to be sticking around longer than you'd think it should considering the lack of op-ed pieces on it, conferences by investigators, or related stories. If an official in CA or nationally decides to latch onto it as evidence of an imminent terror plot/threat, we need to be prepared to counter calls to regulate long range shooting or high power cartridges. I could easily see this used inside CA to justify their ban on 50cal rifles, for instance.

TCB
 
Ugh, I hope they find these people and STRING THEM UP. Either way this story is a bad omen, prepare yourselves for what is most likely to come. I think it was more someone wanting to shoot at a target that was a long ways off and had some risk to it. There are MUCH MUCH MUCH better ways to take out a power grid, ones that would be alot quicker and more reliable.


SO its either vandalism by some moron who needs to be strung up, or someone who is training for something that will also need to be strung up.
 
I think they knew what they were doing. Rather than point fingers at the weapon though, this screams at how vulnerable our power grid has become. The system was rerouted to compensate for the damaged station, but a concerted effort to simultaneously knock out a series of substations could really do some long term harm to a large area. Look at how falling tree branches knocked out power for 800,000+ homes for a week in SE Pennsy at a time when temps were in the single digits. People were starting to get really ornery, and understandably so. Why aren't we undertaking a 10 year national plan to bury all power lines? My water has never "gone down." We are extremely vulnerable and our elected idiots will point to the gun that was used as the real problem.
:banghead:
 
I saw on the news when it 1st happened. The news stationed said there were reports of shots fired or something like that but then never mentioned it again and none of the other stations said anything either so I wrote it off as "blame guns 1st and ask questions later" news reporting.

It seems they initially tried to hide that there were long range rifles involved. But I think the info leaked and the story is like a small festering wound and wont go away.

I also think they are confused as to whether they should beat on the anti gun drum and possibly give other people ideas to copy cat or not.
 
The power grid and substations are overly exposed with little to no security, it's just a matter of time until a coordinated attack on our internet and power happens.
 
"I think they knew what they were doing."
Yup. Phone disconnection implies it was a intentional crime by someone familiar with the facility. My money's on a fired employee, but I suppose it "could" be terrorism (granted, it could always be terrorism so I'm skeptical). I gotta say, this is the first substation attack I've heard of that didn't involve copper theft or a fried copper-thief ;). I sure hope they didn't use AKs, they have been more or less ignored by crazies of late, and I think the public has more or less gotten inoculated to the "evil" of the AR over the last few shooting incidents --I really do think most people get the message that the particular platform isn't the problem anymore (it's the magazine length, now :banghead:)

"Why aren't we undertaking a 10 year national plan to bury all power lines?"
Speaking of dangerous and reactionary legislation. Such a plan would be an enormous waste of energy, in digging, maintenance, extra insulation (you think there's rubber coating on those high-tension lines with 10,000,000V across them?), and electrical loss. Especially considering that every day thousands and thousands of miles of lines go unimpaired (sound familiar). As with guns, it makes more sense to have a distributed network of instant responses (a la CCWs) that can react to mitigate the threat posed to the whole. The Smart Grid concept of a self-sensing grid network seems like a better use of resources, so long as it actually works well it would require a much larger and knowing coordinated attack to defeat.

"Look at how falling tree branches knocked out power for 800,000+ homes for a week in SE Pennsy at a time when temps were in the single digits. People were starting to get really ornery, and understandably so."
I would be far, far more worried about an outage during a heat wave. People don't riot in a blizzard, they hunker down and shiver. People get angry when they're hot and uncomfortable, and start walking around.

If your water has never failed, you must either live in an urban area with an extremely well funded and maintained utility system, or in an area that never experiences deep freeze or drought (Texas has all three of those problems in many areas). Municipal water treatment facilities are notorious for being one step from disaster --even big cities. Most of Texas' water systems were built and paid for back in the '50's or earlier, and not much since. Pays to have a few extra gallons or some backpacking filters for emergencies.

"It seems they initially tried to hide that there were long range rifles involved. But I think the info leaked and the story is like a small festering wound and wont go away.

I also think they are confused as to whether they should beat on the anti gun drum and possibly give other people ideas to copy cat or not."

Exactly. Why isn't the yellow journalism industry out there touting this as a prelude to Tim McVeigh? You'd think they (or infowars :D) would try that tactic. :confused: All I can guess is they are trying to run an interesting story that's sure to highly rated, but toning down the drama so as to not draw attention to a potential attack in the midst of this, our nation's glorious victory over global terror :rolleyes: (sound familiar?)

TCB
 
According to Foreign Policy, which was less definitive about whether the attack was the work of more than one person, at least 100 rounds were fired from at least one high-powered rifle.
Click to expand...
How could that be? .50 BMG rifles are either registered or banned in CA.

Of course,
A shooter “could get 200 yards away with a .22 rifle and take the whole thing out,” Wellinghoff said last month at a conference sponsored by Bloomberg.
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link

I, too, saw something (I cannot find just now) suggesting either 'AK' type, or 7.62x39 casings.

Someday, some news reporter will badger officials into defining what 'high power' means when applied to a rifle.
 
Just another reason for the party in charge to continue with their legislative plans for our firearms.
 
Read the article in the LA Times today ( Feb 11). The attack took place thirteen hours after the Boston Marathon bombings, and was clearly a well planned operation.
 
I, too, saw something (I cannot find just now) suggesting either 'AK' type, or 7.62x39 casings.
Click to expand...

well that rules out any kind of "Sniper". Unless these transformers are the size of battleships. :evil:
 
Whoever was responsible knew exactly what they were doing. That is pretty much a given. The why is another story but reminds me of when people ask why anyone would write a computer virus, because they can.

It doesn't take much of a round to penetrate and disable a large substation transformer. How many have shot 1/4" plate steel with an SKS or AK variant using steel core Chinese or Russian ammunition? Transformers are thin skinned in comparison to a 1/4" steel plate. Those darn pesky little bullets will wreak havoc.

The real bummer here is sure we can beef up security and make power sub stations less vulnerable but it comes with a cost. Someone needs to cover that cost and who do you figure that will be?

Ron
 
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