• @moody
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    8928 days ago

    Sounds like bullshit to me. Not that it’s impossible or anything, but it seems pretty late for this information to come out if it is true, especially after all the admissions of failings from the USSS, etc. You’d think that’s the kind of information that should have been mentioned right away. A month later, it sounds like they’re just making excuses and trying to make themselves sound good.

    • Chozo
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      8328 days ago

      You wouldn’t ever intentionally aim for the gun, you’d aim for the body in every single version of this scenario. If somebody’s got a rifle pointed at an ex-president, you’re not going for a warning/disarming shot.

      If it’s true, then all it means is that the USSS sniper also missed his first shot.

      • @jonne@infosec.pub
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        28 days ago

        The article says it was a police sniper, ie. a local cop who probably doesn’t have the same amount of training. He also wasn’t actually positioned at a place where he could get a shot, so he ran to somewhere where he could actually hit the guy.

        A secret service sniper eventually killed him after the first shots were fired. Makes the secret service look even worse IMHO.

      • FuglyDuck
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        28 days ago

        You wouldn’t ever intentionally aim for the gun, you’d aim for the body in every single version of this scenario.

        In any scenario using firearms. They’re lethal weapons. there’s no way to make them not lethal. (well. Ignoring things like rubber bullets.).

        Missing is too easy, and in any case, the only snipers not trained to shoot center mass are pretty much cops; where the ranges are much shorter, and you’re far more likely to have bystanders being held hostage or at risk if a torso-shot doesn’t immediately drop the subject.

        Even then, cops are going to go for center mass if they can. For example, Trump would be dead if the shooter had shot for center mass- assuming he wasn’t shooting for center mass.

        • @Nurgus@lemmy.world
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          1228 days ago

          The tendency of modern mass shooters to aim for the head seems to be the result of video game culture. So it’s quite likely that video games saved Trump’s life!

        • @Nurgus@lemmy.world
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          28 days ago

          Even “rubber” bullets are surprisingly lethal. Cops are supposed to skip-fire them, ie shoot the floor so that they bounce into a group of rioters.

          • FuglyDuck
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            728 days ago

            yep. there’s a reason they very quickly switched to describing them as “less lethal” rather than “non-lethal” Along with basically everything else.

            Turns out if it has enough stopping power to actually be useful, it can probably kill you if it’s used improperly and possibly kill you even if it is… funny how that works. sad that they still use them.