7 ms·

My congresscritter a while back put out a statement supporting the 50 BMG ban in California, because she wanted "these dangerous weapons off our streets." I ema

My congresscritter a while back put out a statement supporting the 50 BMG ban in California, because she wanted "these dangerous weapons off our streets." I emailed her, asking how many of these weapons, exactly, she'd happened to find on our streets! I figure, they're so rare and expensive, if I could walk outside and trip over one, I might as well go out and pick one up that'd been left in the nearby hedges! She didn't respond. :-( Tangent: It made me wonder what the longest distance criminal shot in American history is. Anybody got any ideas?

rdl 10y ago
Do you mean "criminal shot by police/civilians", or shooting-by-criminals? Pure negligent shootings which happen to damage property or injure/kill people happen at range all the time, and the shooter is by definition a criminal. Celebratory fire, particularly at a 30-45 degree angle, is going to have serious range, even if inaccurate, and is guaranteed to hit something. Most of the fear of .50 was anti-armor, not so much pure range. The "DC Beltway sniper" fucktards (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_sniper_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_sniper_attacks) were under 200m shots, but that's still solidly rifle distance. Famously, Charles Whitman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman) had many shots resulting in injury or murder at 400-500m. He was firing from a tower, and high angle shooting rewards flat trajectory even more than the distance itself would indicate. JFK was 81m, also well outside handgun range. I suspect there are a reasonably large number of 50-200m range shootings with rifles (there are very few shootings with rifles overall, but when they do happen); that's easily house-to-driveway-end in a lot of places.

7 ms·

My congresscritter a while back put out a statement supporting the 50 BMG ban in California, because she wanted "these dangerous weapons off our streets." I ema

by Scramblejams 10y ago

rdl 10y ago
Do you mean "criminal shot by police/civilians", or shooting-by-criminals? Pure negligent shootings which happen to damage property or injure/kill people happen at range all the time, and the shooter is by definition a criminal. Celebratory fire, particularly at a 30-45 degree angle, is going to have serious range, even if inaccurate, and is guaranteed to hit something. Most of the fear of .50 was anti-armor, not so much pure range. The "DC Beltway sniper" fucktards (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_sniper_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_sniper_attacks) were under 200m shots, but that's still solidly rifle distance. Famously, Charles Whitman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman) had many shots resulting in injury or murder at 400-500m. He was firing from a tower, and high angle shooting rewards flat trajectory even more than the distance itself would indicate. JFK was 81m, also well outside handgun range. I suspect there are a reasonably large number of 50-200m range shootings with rifles (there are very few shootings with rifles overall, but when they do happen); that's easily house-to-driveway-end in a lot of places.