VPC - Snipers - Predictable Consequence of Gun Industry Marketing

Violence Policy Center ^ | 10/08/2002 | Violence Policy Center

[jdege]

Snipers-Predictable Consequence of Gun Industry Marketing

According to Tom Diaz, Senior Policy Analyst at the Violence Policy Center and author of several studies examining sniper culture and their weapons, including One Shot, One Kill: Civilian Sales of Military Sniper Rifles:

The recent outbreak of long-range sniper attacks in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia exposes two long-term trends in gun industry marketing:

• Mass marketing of military and military-style weapons, including assault rifles and sniper rifles and equipment, to the civilian market. The .223 Remington rifle round that has been positively identified as the round used in five of the shootings, for example, was originally developed as an experimental military cartridge for the Armalite AR-15 assault rifle, which was later adopted by the U.S. Army as the M-16. The round is widely used in such popular civilian semi-automatic assault rifles as the Colt AR-15, Armalite M15A2, and various models of Bushmaster carbines and rifles, among others.
  
  
• The most recent industry trend has been the marketing of 50 caliber sniper rifles, which fire the largest bullet legal for general civilian sale (more than twice the width of the .223 Remington) accurately over distances as great as 2,000 yards. The 50 caliber round is capable of penetrating light armor.
  
  

• Cultivation of a sniper subculture within the gun community. A collateral aspect of the marketing of military weapons has been the encouragement of a sniper subculture in the United States. This includes the marketing of books, paraphernalia, training, and assorted gear. Thus, although the rifle used in these shootings has not yet been identified, the attacks are consistent with a clearly growing subculture.

Although the perpetrator of these attacks and the weapon used is not yet known, we do know that the round being used is an example of the transfer of military weapons development to the civilian market, and the attacks themselves are consistent with a sniper subculture encouraged by the gun industry at large.

 

[jdege]

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[Texas_Jarhead]

DRIVEL!

[flashbunny]

Note to VPC: There are 80 million gun owners who have so far not killed anybody. Blaming them only ticks them off.

The bodies are barely cold, the shooter, weapon, and motive have yet to be identified, and the anti's are already trying to make hay. Sickening.

[Texas Eagle]

Snipers-Predictable Consequence of Gun Industry Marketing

Translation: D.C. Area's 10,000 Gun Control Laws a Dismal Failure

[jdege]

Not drivel, hate and bigotry.

[Brett66]

Ignorant,stupid,limp-wristed, and overly-effiminate. He reeks of pink-tutu's.

[bluefish]

Pure hogwash. They don't even know who is doing this, yet the gun grabbers are pinning it on the gun culture. That, or the lawyers are setting up the manufacturers for a massive lawsuit. Either way, it is disgusting. Most of the dead aren't even buried yet (perhaps) and the extremist freedom squelchers or money grubbing lawyers are already lighting the bonfire.

[RicocheT]

Total hogwash from "Tom Diaz, Senior Policy Analyst at the Violence Policy Center."

Use the act of one evil person to take away all other's firearms rights and guns, plus make a lot of money for trial lawyers who want to sue the so-called "gun industry."

Some industry as it's splintered into many small makers who rarely make a profit, a few large commercial ventures who have more bust years than boom years and foreign military producers (Russia and China) which are beyond the reach of US trial lawyers.

[Teacher317]

Is the "sniper subculture" they are alluding to (making up?) any different from the culture of millions of hunters in America? They practice and train for one shot-one kill, they practice stealth out of necessity, they take care of their weapons, they take pride in their skills, a steady hand and a skilled eye are critical...

just another hit piece on any American with a longarm.

[Dallas]

Don't blame Hollywood for glorifying serial killers.....it's the damn inanimate object.

[arly]

ohh here we go !.. get ready for the next round of the anti gunners whinning to disarm all of us because of some maniac.

[Dallas]

Not addressed to you, of course.

[Blood of Tyrants]

I am only surprised that it took them this long to use this as an opportunity to advance their anti-freedom agenda.

[NRA1776]

Better get your .50 cal. soon.

[LibWhacker]

Trash talk from trash people.

One thing is certain: Each year, almost every death of every unarmed innocent person in this country -- from convenience store robbery victim to rape victim to some poor schmoe gunned down in the crossfire of a drug deal gone bad -- can be laid squarely at the feet of these socialist trash.

What's that, about 20,000 dead people a year?

Twenty thousand people a year, stripped of their right to defend themselves, murdered by trash people (aka, democrats, p < 0.10).

Six versus their 20,000. And truth be told, ten to one this sniper IS a RAT, or someone who agrees with them most passionately.

So, gee . . . Lemme see . . . Who do we prefer to throw in with, the towering geniuses who penned our Constitution, or these fools?

[GalvestonBeachcomber]

The anti's are worse than vultures!

[Redcloak]

Is the "sniper subculture" they are alluding to (making up?) any different from the culture of millions of hunters in America?

Or competative target shooters?

If there is one thing that the VPC is good at, it's using spin to confuse people. This is just the latest chapter in that book. They turned the term "assault rifle", a military term of art, in to the politically charged term "assault weapon". In doing this, they made the garden variety semi-auto rifle look, to the soccermoms, like a machine gun. Never mind that real machine guns have been tightly regulated since 1932! By using spin this way, they got people whipped up over a gun design that's been around for over a century. No one would get their knickers in a bunch to ban Grampa's huntin' rifle; but a machine gun? That's another story. All it took was a little artful spin.

And now, we're still talking about Grampa's huntin' rifle. But this time, the VPC is trying to neck-up a .223 into a .50 BMG!

[El Gato]

You left off the "One read, one barf" alert!