Heres an exmple of how the gun industry perceives the "saturation of thge market" and how they can sell more
Quote:The three characteristics and capabilities that combine to signify a sniper rifle are detailed below.
Accuracy: The sniper's goal is to hit his human target with a precision summed up in the phrase, "One shot, one kill." Police snipers need the capability to hit the junction of the brain and brain stem at extended distances. Hitting and destroying this point at the back of the human head with a single bullet causes the person to instantly and completely collapse without reflex. Snipers call this spot "the apricot."
Range: Sniper rifles can be used with great accuracy against targets at much longer distances than ordinary hunting or sporting rifles. The longest confirmed sniper kill of the Gulf War was reported to have been made by a Barrett Model 82A1 sniper rifle at a range of 1,800 meters?nearly 2,000 yards, or almost 10 times a deer hunter's maximum effective range. Numerous engagements with large, 50 caliber guns during the war took place at 1,600 meters (about 1,750 yards). From the West Front of the U.S. Capitol, this range would allow accurate firing as far as the Smithsonian Metro station on the Mall.
Power: The most destructive rounds fired by sniper rifles are 50 caliber?the largest round of ammunition generally available to civilians. The extraordinary power and range of the 50 caliber "heavies" create a whole new order of threat that is a source of concern for domestic law enforcement authorities. These rounds can knock down aircraft?including helicopters?and punch through concrete block, armored vehicles, and other standard materials relied upon for executive protection.
The accuracy, range, and power of a sniper rifle present a grave danger if used by a determined criminal or a deranged gunman, and a serious threat to national security in the hands of a terrorist. Yet, these very real hazards appear to be of no concern to the American firearms industry.
Robert Barrkman, president of .50 sniper rifle manufacturer Robar, revealed in a published interview that the proliferation of sniper weapons is one of the few growth areas that exist for small-arms makers. As a result, the gun industry has stimulated a demand for sniper rifles?with no conceivable sporting purpose?as part of its campaign to resell a saturated market.
Come on Farmerman... You are going to quote from a study by the Violence Policy Center - one of the most anti-gun groups in the country - to offer evidence of what the gun industry thinks?
The quote you just posted came from the Executive Summary of the VPC's own study.
http://www.vpc.org/studies/sniper.htm
are you assuming that the information is incorrect?My point is that Barretts are being "marketed" as the interview with the president of the company that makes barretts seemed to indicate. Data is what the data is. Who prints it is often immaterial.
The Barret 82A1 is capable of bringing down aircraft for ***** sake. Now can someone tell me why a civilian "has a legitimate need" for such a weapon?
The arms market is saturated in the US. But there must be export opportunities to the newly liberated and democratic state of Iraq, where Barret can make a few dollars selling the 82A1 to insurgents, I'm sure Oralloy would approve.
From Randy Cassingham's Blog. Randy hates the Zero Tolerance (TZ) policies many schools have instituted.
Quote:Virginia Tech, Columbine and ZT
Such it is with the timing of world events: As you probably know, I write True on Sundays. I'm on the road this week and had already finished writing this week's stories -- with the lead story about a guy who shot himself in the head. Today I went to lunch with Leo Notenboom (who is also speaking at the conference where I am). It's one of those places that has TVs everywhere, and I finally looked up at the one over my head and see "22 Dead in Shooting" at Virginia Tech. Lovely. By this evening the count was up to 33, including the gunman.
Naturally, as the CNN anchors were desperately trying to fill airtime, showing the same photos and video snippets again and again and again, there were comparisons to the Columbine school shooting. When that happened, I lived about a half-hour away from Columbine. And when that happened, I got a crank from a reader saying hey, aren't I sorry NOW for my "cavalier attitude" against zero tolerance?
Yes, some people actually think that ZT is a solution to such things, completely missing that it's part of the problem that generates these situations. It's part of what creates rage against the arbitrary, unfair punishments for non-transgressions -- if pointing a finger is the same as pointing a real gun, then why not use that real gun? Why not "do something" to avenge those punishments? Columbine, after all, was really about powerless little boys raging against bullies at school.
I have no idea if that's part of what went on in Virginia, but it wouldn't surprise me one bit if that turns out to be a factor.
20 April Update
Today, longtime reader David in Colorado sent me an item about a security consultant who appeared on the Today show. He wanted to make the point, the story said, that "cowering under a desk and waiting for help to come is no longer an option. American schools must teach their students to respond aggressively to attacks by people bent on mayhem." Yet obviously that's not what we teach kids. Allen Hill, the founder of the company Response Options, went on to say that society needs to "Get past this paralysis of fear over liability issues. Our country is so litigious and concerned about doing the wrong thing and about doing the politically correct thing that we don't do anything."
Sounds reasonable, except for two things: when you read my True Stella Awards book, you realize that indeed our country is litigious. Common sense very often doesn't cut it in lawsuit defense. And, secondly, what are schools teaching kids? Very simply that whatever they do is wrong. They cannot act. A bully threatens you, steals your lunch, trips you, pushes you, even fights with you -- and the school quickly suspends ...you. You shouldn't have fought back, they say. The message is clear: lie down and take it. Yeah, you'll probably still be suspended, but that's what they teach anyway. And we're shocked when 32 innocents are killed at a school? Sadly, I'm not shocked. Nor am I shocked that the comments on this story so far from readers are almost unanimous: not only is it OK that many of the students and teachers fought back, but that they should be allowed the tools to defend themselves.
http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-virginia_tech_columbine_and_zt.html
Tragedy of the student who befriended gunman
Tragedy of the student who befriended gunman
By David Usborne in Blacksburg, Virginia
Published: 21 April 2007
Independent UK
Cho Seung-Hui had given up on the world when he took his twisted revenge and murdered 32 people at Virginia Tech before killing himself. But not everyone on campus, we are beginning to learn, had given up on him. Ross Alameddine, for one, did try to draw him out of his silent shell.
It is unlikely that Mr Alameddine expected any reward for his troubles, except for the possible satisfaction of getting through to Cho when the two met once a week at a class analysing horror films and related literature. But where was the justice for this young man in Room 211 in Norris Hall on Monday?
We will never know what kind of headway Mr Alameddine, a Lebanese-American from Massachusetts, may or may not have made with Cho, because, as he attended a French class, he became one of those murdered by him. It is the first time any kind of direct link has been drawn to the killer.
"Ross would have been the kind of guy that would have tried to become this guy's friend," agreed one of his best friends, Luke Sponholz, 32, who should have been in French with him that day but happened to be elsewhere in the state.
"He didn't turn anyone away. He was willing to accept anybody. Ross has got to be the most accepting, non-judgemental person I've ever met. He was the nicest guy in the world."
Mr Alameddine and all the victims of the massacre, many from countries around the world, were honoured across Virginia yesterday where a minute's silence was observed at noon and where still-stunned residents of Blacksburg and the campus wore the maroon and burnt orange colours of the university.
The process of releasing the bodies of the victims has been a long one, slowed by the need for authorities first to match dental and fingerprint records. But by yesterday, the coroner's office in the nearby city of Roanoke said most families had been reunited with their deceased loved ones. At least one funeral in the area was scheduled for today, for 22-year-old Jarret Lee Lane in the town of Narrows, a few miles from Blacksburg. Mr Alameddine will be taken to his home town, Saugus in Massachusetts.
Whether Cho deliberately targeted Mr Alameddine we probably will never know. If so, it was a response to his evident kindness with unfathomable cruelty. Students who attended the same class - Mr Alameddine usually sat a few chairs away from Cho - said he made several attempts to communicate. Alternatively, it was simply a coincidence that Mr Alameddine, a young man who was proud to have the shiniest computer of all his friends, was in Room 211 when Cho barged in unleashing his bullets. Such was Cho's blind fury, it is possible that he didn't even see that Mr Alameddine was among those he was killing.
That the class was focused on fictional horror is just one more painful and poignant twist, an additional testament to the dark topics that Cho found so fascinating.
The films they analysed included Friday the 13th and they read the books of Stephen King, H P Lovecraft and Patricia Cornwell. "We had a whole discussion on serial killers," one of the other students in the class told The New York Times.
Curiously, the teacher of the class also asked Cho, Mr Alameddine and the other students keep a special diary for group discussions called "fear journals", in which they were to record the things in their lives that they were afraid of. Mr Alameddine surely never thought to list Cho, his curiously silent classmate, among them.
Over recent days, scores of students have come forward to attest to the strange demeanour and the silence of Cho that Mr Alameddine was trying to crack.
Some said that in attending classes with him for three years they never heard him open his mouth. "Nobody took too much notice of him except for 'that's the weird, quiet kid who never talks'," said Steven Davis, 23, who attended drama classes with him
Mr Alameddine's friend Luke Sponholz, who was working for a medical degree but was taking French for additional credits, said: "Ross was my absolute best friend here at school. I know Ross would have been very brave. The worst thing about this to me is that the class was just filled with a bunch of warm-hearted souls; bright, positive people that you knew were going to contribute great things to this world."
farmerman wrote:Quote:Mostly they are used for hunting and target shooting.
A 50 calibre , bull barreled, flash surpressed long barreled rifle with ammo the size of a tube of toothpaste is used for hunting. Get real, all the dinosaurs were killed off 65 million years ago.
Not all sniper rifles are chambered in .50 BMG.
However, rifles chambered in .50 BMG have in fact been used by some elk and moose hunters for long range shots.
Most civilian use of the .50 BMG is related to target-shooting competitions though.
It is also a good way to cut through the body armor of a home invader, but its lack of portability is a bit of a problem.
Steve 41oo wrote:The Barret 82A1 is capable of bringing down aircraft for ***** sake.
Maybe if it hit the right spot.
But the same could be said for other weapons too.
Obviously with its greater energy and penetrating power it has a greater probability of doing damage than a lesser round. But there is really nothing magically "anti-aircraft" about that particular weapon.
Steve 41oo wrote:Now can someone tell me why a civilian "has a legitimate need" for such a weapon?
You still don't understand. American citizens don't have to have a legitimate need. They just have to decide they want to go buy one.
Re: Tragedy of the student who befriended gunman
BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:Tragedy of the student who befriended gunman
By David Usborne in Blacksburg, Virginia
Published: 21 April 2007
Independent UK
Cho Seung-Hui had given up on the world when he took his twisted revenge and murdered 32 people at Virginia Tech before killing himself. But not everyone on campus, we are beginning to learn, had given up on him. Ross Alameddine, for one, did try to draw him out of his silent shell.
It is unlikely that Mr Alameddine expected any reward for his troubles, except for the possible satisfaction of getting through to Cho when the two met once a week at a class analysing horror films and related literature. But where was the justice for this young man in Room 211 in Norris Hall on Monday?
We will never know what kind of headway Mr Alameddine, a Lebanese-American from Massachusetts, may or may not have made with Cho, because, as he attended a French class, he became one of those murdered by him.
Unfortunately it seems that once someone's suffering reached the point where they snap and start killing people, they no longer seem to have the coherence and presence of mind to focus their rage on just the people who caused them pain, and they kill many people who have done them no injury.
oralloy wrote:
Steve 41oo wrote:Now can someone tell me why a civilian "has a legitimate need" for such a weapon?
You still don't understand. American citizens don't have to have a legitimate need. They just have to decide they want to go buy one.
a while back you said whilst it is legitimate to kill in self defense, ciitzens have a ligitimate need for lethal weapons. Now you say they dont need such a weapon, just want one. You give support to the idea that most American gun lovers are juvenile tossers.
Steve 41oo wrote:oralloy wrote:
Steve 41oo wrote:Now can someone tell me why a civilian "has a legitimate need" for such a weapon?
You still don't understand. American citizens don't have to have a legitimate need. They just have to decide they want to go buy one.
a while back you said whilst it is legitimate to kill in self defense, ciitzens have a ligitimate need for lethal weapons. Now you say they dont need such a weapon, just want one. You give support to the idea that most American gun lovers are juvenile tossers.
I didn't say "they don't need". I said "they don't have to have a need".
They may well have a legitimate need for a given type of weapon. But it's also OK for people to go buy a weapon that they don't have a need for -- simply because they want to do so.
I suppose it's the same as some here want to drive 140 miles per hour on the autobahn: no need to do so, but they simply want it.
Exactly. Far worse things are happening in Iraq. And are reported on page 9 of our newspapers. Old news, apparently.
I'm so tired of the barrage of stories & photographs this sick young man. Every single detail of his life, no stone unturned. Something quite unhealthy about it, I think. Thank god saturation coverage is tapering off now.
I don't mind the attempts to understand. I do mind the saturation video coverage. I remain not for censorship, but the sheer fulgence of the barrage is amazing, or.. almost amazing. You folks are right who bring up Baghdad, what is shown about the VT massacre and what is shown about the continuing horror there is disparate. Different filters for different reasons?
I'm not supporting censorship, either .... just less sensationalist coverage of the issue. I really don't think we needed to see & hear that deranged "justification" video quite so many times.
A hierarchy of death
Why do 32 deaths in Virginia receive blanket coverage while nearly 200 fatalities in Iraq are barely reported?
By Roy Greenslade
04/20/07 "The Guardian' -- 04/19/07 - Thirty-two die in American university shooting. Result? Huge media coverage in the US and Britain. In Iraq, almost 200 die, arguably the worst day of carnage in that beleaguered country since the coalition invasion. Result? Coverage so restrained as to be, in many cases, totally negligible. Could you even find it in the Times this morning? Why?
General reasons first. The media operate what amounts to a hierarchy of death. Here are the criteria: foreign deaths always rank below domestic deaths. Similarly, on the basis that all news is local, deaths at home provide human interest stories that people want to know about, while the deaths of foreigners are merely statistics.
Sure, the victims and their families are human beings, too, but if they are thousands of miles away they cannot - in the eyes of the media's editorial controllers - generate the same sympathy and interest as deaths near at hand.
Deaths in ongoing conflicts always receive less coverage than unexpected deaths elsewhere (because the latter are, by their nature, unpredictable and news values always rate new-ness above old-ness).
Now let's get down to some other controversial home truths. The deaths of non-white people in foreign parts - and, I would contend, often at home - are never accorded equal status by the white, western media. The deaths of Arabs and Muslims (and, in many media eyes, there is no difference) are overlooked because they are, variously, anti-western, anti-Christian or anti-capitalist, or all three, and are therefore undeserving of sympathy. By virtue of their religion and their ethnicity they cannot expect the same treatment as the people in the west (who, of course, are also more civilised, better educated and altogether more wholesome). In other words, it's racist.
Finally, specific reasons. Iraq is considered to be a basket case.
There's no hope. We cannot understand it. Sunni v Shia (like Catholic v Protestant) is surely too difficult to resolve. There's no point in going into depth about deaths among fanatics and fundamentalists. They are, as I said earlier, just statistics now. So home-grown massacres are infinitely more newsworthy and (dare I say so) sexier.
© Guardian News and Media Limited
Ywah...same bitter irony struck me when I saw the Virginia thing still on pages 1, 2, & 3 of our paper...and, on page 14, an article about ONE BOMB in Iraq that day that killed 182.
But...I think we have discussed before the relative news values of people that we identify closely with, plus relative novelty.
I wonder the effect if the USA and Oz papers treated each fresh and daily tragedy in Iraq the same way, though?
Well, there are political patriotic reasons not to show carnage, here in the US, anyway. Makes me almost see the VT thing as carnage release.
We haven't shown much in the way of caskets, on our side, and have not
elaborated on the destruction of a long term civiliation, much, anyway.
A friend of mine saw batches of caskets at Tans Son Nhut, very early.
Walter Hinteler wrote:I suppose it's the same as some here want to drive 140 miles per hour on the autobahn: no need to do so, but they simply want it.
We have the strange idea that the individual citizens should be empowered instead of the government, notwithstanding the fact that some people will always abuse rights.
