As a personal preference, I'd rather use open sights. I do not like the idea of looking through a soda straw to acquire a target. My thinking is that you do not need a scope to be a sniper: just a steady hand and a cold heart. The semiautomatic helps if that first shot is a miss. So does a bipod.
Just my .02 kopeks.
The photo above, which features a camouflaged police officer sitting atop a mine-resistant armored truck in Ferguson, Missouri, with a decked-out rifle, has been widely circulated as evidence of how militarized the American police force has become. To the trained eye, it's also suggestive of how poorly prepared those police are to be militarized.
Reddit's gun aficionados are pointing out that the rifle is so loaded with conflicting gadgets—a flashlight, "red dot" sight, bipod—that it demonstrates that the officer probably isn't very familiar with using it. One user, who owns two similar weapons, called it a "novice" setup. Others called it "goofy," "HORRIBLE," and a "waste of taxpayer dollars." It's also part of a trend—many of the rifles being used in Ferguson have the same setup, which baffles the gun owners and enthusiasts over at r/Guns.
#1
The Governor of Missouri and St. Louis County got the memo [phone call from Washington]. Lose the 'show of force' optics or we're cutting off funding and moving in Federal Law Enforcement and Homeland Security, your choice.
Had it been a coal miner strike in West Virginia, or other event involving non-entitlement personnel, there would have likely been no phone call from Washington.
As far as the 'nerd with the gear' he wouldn't have lasted long in either Iraq or AFG in a small arms fire incident or complex attack. My personal prejudice involves the wearing of tactical gloves.
#2
Actually, the 'gun bling' thing was alive and well in CentCom. Not just sights, guys would get 100+ rd snail magazines and mount them, before they realized they were going to carry around the weight of 4 or 5 reg magazines on their rifle. The philosophy is "I'll try anything stupid thing once."
Posted by: ed in texas ||
08/16/2014 8:02 Comments ||
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#3
Apart from all the other s#!t, why the hell do police need camoflage? They hiding in the grass to shoot unarmed protesters who can't shoot back?
#5
...few if any available donut shops up in that part of the Great White North. Borrow a handful of mid-grade NCOs from the 82nd as test proctors and administer the standard PT test on these guys. Guess on the percentage that could pass?
#7
All the gun bling aside, he looks like he's been on a shopping trip to 5.11 Tactical. That's where the gloves are from and maybe the watch too. Snort.
#9
TactiCool Fool. Looks like some wannabe at the gun club.
ProTip - use a spotter, all that shit on your rifle screws the stability of the platform. Well zero'd rifle, one proper scope, and a bipod is all you need if you have a spotter.
#10
What beso said @ 4. Get your own team colors if you are going to play riot suppression. It is causing confusion and ridicule. And as far as the feds, remember the BLM's Special Agent Operator Poundcake's mess?
Looks like a bunch of soccer players putting on spiffy football gear and taking the field, hoping somebody else doesn't take the field, and I mean that as advice. Because:
He looks like a model for Tacticool Magazine. Luv the quintpod doood. If I were wanting to make a steady shot, the last thing I would want is a tag from my gloves tickling my wrist everytime the breeze changed. In fact, I wouldn't want gloves on anyways especially sitting up on top of a vehicle in the middle of the day. Where's your reflective belt soldier? Also missing are sunglasses, goggles, water, trimmed beard, paintball launcher, and around-corners barrel.
I'm sure Ferguson is a charming neighborhood with little picket fences and toy dogs dressed in bows. This looks over-amped, and over-amped makes people stupid.
Posted by: Barbara ||
08/16/2014 16:45 Comments ||
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#15
Poster child of the whole situation. Sure the big kid strong armed a store, without a weapon. Sure the Police came out armed as this is Afghanistan. A witness live Tweeting the actual shooting said the kid was running away from the cop when he was shot twice in the back and then was shot 5 times when he turned around.
Loose, loose situation. No good guys any where in this picture.
#1
Hat tip to Rantburg University Geospatial Intelligence Department.
We may be nearing an era where privately funded aerial platforms will be able to downlink unclassified imagery 'in real-time' to media sleuths and amateur investigators. Of course that will give us knowledge such as the gods, which will surely make us die.
[DAWN] For long, years even, a military operation in North Wazoo Agency against forces of Evil was considered essential if the country were to ever seriously start down the long road to defeating the bad boy threat.
Now, with the military's Operation Zarb-e-Azb ..the Pak offensive against Qaeda in Pakistain and the Pak Taliban in North Wazoo. The name refers to the sword of the Prophet (PTUI!)... under way for over a month and a half, the battle that was billed as a major turning point in the country's security outlook has nearly vanished from the national conversation.
Neither is there much news from the battle zone — at least in terms of independently and credibly verifiable news — nor, tragically, does there seem to be much interest in political and media circles at the moment to give more than a passing mention to events in North Waziristan and the repercussions beyond.
In part, this is surely because of the spectacle unfolding on TV screens across the country — a so-called long march to Islamabad by the PTI in a bid to perhaps topple the government.
Yet, current events do not fully explain why Operation Zarb-e-Azb has quickly become the forgotten war. Part of the problem is surely the mixed — often outright — confused stances that many mainstream political parties have on the issue of militancy.
The PTI having long argued that dialogue was the only option has perhaps chosen not to keep advocating its long-stated position quite so vehemently now that the military has come out openly and fiercely in support of the operation the PTI was politically opposed to.
The PML-N government having long argued that dialogue was the preferred option appears unhappy that its pursuit of the latter was cut short and is unwilling to take any real ownership of a war that it did not want.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Council of Boskone, Helmuth had turned a paler shade of blue. Star-A-Star had struck again... parties such as the PPP and ANP, which supported a military operation, have been undone by also simultaneously supporting the dialogue option when pursued by the PML-N.
What all of that adds up to is a deafening political silence on North Waziristan. The media, distracted by potentially seismic events in the epicentre of politics, has been unable to sustain any critical interest in North Waziristan, allowing military PR to dominate the narrative on the operation.
Unhappily, even the initial media focus on the humanitarian crisis that is an estimated one million IDPs has now dissipated and there is little light shed on the continuing struggles of a displaced population that is key to the question of whether or not militancy will return and flourish in the tribal areas.
Worryingly, even the military has chosen to shed less and less light on events in the tribal agency thereby leaving the media and the public in the dark about the actual situation. Bland pronouncements of progress being made, events unfolding according to plan and the military remaining on track to victory do not make for meaningful analyses.
The record is one of mixed results with no real exit strategy. Is North Waziristan shaping up to be the same?
Posted by: Fred ||
08/16/2014 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
Arab countries are foundering, as a jihadi Islamic caliphate is strengthening its hold in the heart of the Middle East.
The West seems intent on venting its frustrations on Israel, which is defending itself against Hamas, another radical Islamist group; Egypt is also feeling the brunt of it. Yet only a few years ago, Cairo was leading the charge of pragmatic Arab states backed by the US, fighting extremist Shi'ites under Iranian leadership.
However, this was before Washington jettisoned Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak and started direct talks with Tehran on Iran's nuclear program, a move seen as a betrayal by Saudi Arabia.
Today, Egypt is trying to BROKER a peace between Israel and Hamas; President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called on his allies for advice and international support. First he went to see Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah in Jeddah, then RUSSIAN President Vladmir Putin in Sochi. He did not go to Washington, which has yet to accept the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood and the new regime.
That the Arab states are foundering is just a symptom of a broader problem: the world is foundering. Europe is ailing. The United States is losing its way. The Asian tigers are struggling. Japan is declining. Russia is on a course to a demographic disaster.
There is not one major world leader with any sense of solution. Heck, I see precious few who have the faintest clue of the problem.
So the Arab states are foundering? Welcome to the club...
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
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Wazoo
