First, I just love to hear all the stupid conspiracy crap that floods
Facebook in a matter of hours after a tragedy like this. "The CIA did
it!", "That's impossible for one shooter!", "Its impossible for someone
to do with an AK at that distance. They're so inaccurate", "There was
more than one gun because I could definitely hear a second gun!".
The number of self-proclaimed weapons experts that magically appear is simply staggering!
Let's calm down and think about this for a minute...
The people that are claiming that an AK couldn't have done this have never shot an AK at medium ranges before.
#1. He was shooting (spraying) into a very heavy crowd. Over 22,000 people, not individual targets. There was literally a sea of bodies. It would have been much harder to miss than to hit shooting into that crowd. Some say that the body count would have been much higher if he would have used slow, deliberate, aimed fire. I disagree. Ordinarily I'm not an advocate of full-auto fire except in the case of suppressive fire. When you have a battalion of enemy approaching your position, full-auto is the cat's meow. When you have a sniper in a tree 500 yards away, not so much. If the firing had been slow and methodic in this case, the crowd would have dispersed long before he had time to shoot over 500 people. No, the full-auto was the perfect weapon in this case. How could he shoot that many? Again, he was using fully automatic fire, not semi. He shot hundreds, perhaps thousands of rounds in just a few minutes. How many of those bullets fully penetrated bodies and went on hit one or more afterwards? I'm also quite sure that many were also hit by ricochets off the concrete.
Another expert said he would have had to have used x number of magazines to fire that many shots and it would have taken too long..blah, blah, blah. It would be funny if it weren't so stupid. He was most likely using 75-round drums. Those of you that I texted about this heard me say that at 11pm last night .
#2. " It was over 3 football fields away! AK's are not capable of that kind of accuracy!" Long story short, yes they are. AK's and AR's are both capable of effective accuracy at that range.
Most any AK in decent mechanical condition will shoot 4" groups or so at 100 yards. That's 12" at 300 yards. That's plenty good enough to hit man-sized targets when you're spaying into a target-rich area. My personal AK will shoot into 18" at 500 yards.
#3. Yes, it was full-auto fire. Definitely NOT a bump fire device or trigger crank. PERIOD! Any fluctuation in sound was likely due to the source of the recording moving around plus the fact that the rate of fire of most full-auto weapons speeds up as the receiver and barrel heat up.
4. No, I do not believe that there were 2 weapons shooting at the same time. What sounds like a second gun is simply the echo of the one gun off the concrete walls. Anyone that has fired in a canyon with steep rock cliffs experienced the same thing.
In a nutshell, this was perfectly planned and executed with a good choice of weapons and was extremely feasible.
Now then, let's talk about something else.
I, and many others, have warned for the last couple of years to STAY AWAY FROM LARGE CROWDS!!! Need I say more?
If you think you have to go to a stupid concert or crowded mall, stay near the edges close to cover and/or exits! Stay alert! Scan the area every few minutes and try to locate barriers that might stop a bullet just in case you happen to get to get caught in a situation like that. Cars, brick, block or concrete walls or pillars, dumpsters, etc.
One girl in one of the videos said "Get down! Stay down!". Why? Probably because that's what she heard in a movie. In this particular instance, the correct response would have been, "RUN! DON'T LOOK BACK AND DON'T STOP!!" Since he was just spraying into the crowd, there's no guarantee that you wouldn't have been hit but it would have been less likely. In the video, people were in shock and disbelief. Hundreds of them just milled around having no inkling as to what they should do. And the body just kept rising...
Like it or not, sadly, this is the America we live in now. This will not be an isolated incident. We simply MUST learn that this is rapidly becoming our new normal. Like Israel and many other Middle Eastern countries. It has become a way of life and they learn to live with it. So must we.
Lastly, for the millionth time, be armed ALL the time. ALL THE TIME! Be vigilant. Get trained. Carrying a gun is not enough. In the case of the shooting in Las Vegas, a CCW holder probably couldn't have done much but 90% of the time, a good guy with a gun...
The number of self-proclaimed weapons experts that magically appear is simply staggering!
Let's calm down and think about this for a minute...
The people that are claiming that an AK couldn't have done this have never shot an AK at medium ranges before.
#1. He was shooting (spraying) into a very heavy crowd. Over 22,000 people, not individual targets. There was literally a sea of bodies. It would have been much harder to miss than to hit shooting into that crowd. Some say that the body count would have been much higher if he would have used slow, deliberate, aimed fire. I disagree. Ordinarily I'm not an advocate of full-auto fire except in the case of suppressive fire. When you have a battalion of enemy approaching your position, full-auto is the cat's meow. When you have a sniper in a tree 500 yards away, not so much. If the firing had been slow and methodic in this case, the crowd would have dispersed long before he had time to shoot over 500 people. No, the full-auto was the perfect weapon in this case. How could he shoot that many? Again, he was using fully automatic fire, not semi. He shot hundreds, perhaps thousands of rounds in just a few minutes. How many of those bullets fully penetrated bodies and went on hit one or more afterwards? I'm also quite sure that many were also hit by ricochets off the concrete.
Another expert said he would have had to have used x number of magazines to fire that many shots and it would have taken too long..blah, blah, blah. It would be funny if it weren't so stupid. He was most likely using 75-round drums. Those of you that I texted about this heard me say that at 11pm last night .
#2. " It was over 3 football fields away! AK's are not capable of that kind of accuracy!" Long story short, yes they are. AK's and AR's are both capable of effective accuracy at that range.
Most any AK in decent mechanical condition will shoot 4" groups or so at 100 yards. That's 12" at 300 yards. That's plenty good enough to hit man-sized targets when you're spaying into a target-rich area. My personal AK will shoot into 18" at 500 yards.
#3. Yes, it was full-auto fire. Definitely NOT a bump fire device or trigger crank. PERIOD! Any fluctuation in sound was likely due to the source of the recording moving around plus the fact that the rate of fire of most full-auto weapons speeds up as the receiver and barrel heat up.
4. No, I do not believe that there were 2 weapons shooting at the same time. What sounds like a second gun is simply the echo of the one gun off the concrete walls. Anyone that has fired in a canyon with steep rock cliffs experienced the same thing.
In a nutshell, this was perfectly planned and executed with a good choice of weapons and was extremely feasible.
Now then, let's talk about something else.
I, and many others, have warned for the last couple of years to STAY AWAY FROM LARGE CROWDS!!! Need I say more?
If you think you have to go to a stupid concert or crowded mall, stay near the edges close to cover and/or exits! Stay alert! Scan the area every few minutes and try to locate barriers that might stop a bullet just in case you happen to get to get caught in a situation like that. Cars, brick, block or concrete walls or pillars, dumpsters, etc.
One girl in one of the videos said "Get down! Stay down!". Why? Probably because that's what she heard in a movie. In this particular instance, the correct response would have been, "RUN! DON'T LOOK BACK AND DON'T STOP!!" Since he was just spraying into the crowd, there's no guarantee that you wouldn't have been hit but it would have been less likely. In the video, people were in shock and disbelief. Hundreds of them just milled around having no inkling as to what they should do. And the body just kept rising...
Like it or not, sadly, this is the America we live in now. This will not be an isolated incident. We simply MUST learn that this is rapidly becoming our new normal. Like Israel and many other Middle Eastern countries. It has become a way of life and they learn to live with it. So must we.
Lastly, for the millionth time, be armed ALL the time. ALL THE TIME! Be vigilant. Get trained. Carrying a gun is not enough. In the case of the shooting in Las Vegas, a CCW holder probably couldn't have done much but 90% of the time, a good guy with a gun...
In Liberty, Cope Reynolds (Desertscout)
Southwest Shooting Authority of Arizona
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