Typical clueless reporting. It is amazing how often, especially where it pertains to anything to do with firearms, deadlines trump research.
This disturbed young man was not a sniper. He did not have sniper skills. He had Marine marksmanship training and some equipment. Unless one attends a Marine Corps Division sniper school, or THE scout sniper school on Quantico, one is not a sniper. Sniper skills are many and precision marksmanship, though fundamental to the activity, is just one (land nav, stalking, tracking, land nav, physical fitness, land nav, CQC, E&E, and land nav are a few). Marine marksmanship training, even at the basic, bootcamp level, is still the best in the armed services. Good solid fundamentals are still taught over known-distance ranges. Sight alignment, sight picture, and trigger control work with ANY equipment one choses to acquire.
Granted this unhinged guy knocked down a chopper with a rifle shot (sounds like he was going for the pilot and didn't calculate his drop correctly.....hit in the leg?), and that sort of makes the tone of the article understandable. The lack of solid facts about what a Marine knows and what makes a sniper is not understandable.
Hope the kid gets some help and/or punishment.
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I appreciate your perspective on this story and correcting the misinterpretation of who this person is. Indeed a Marine marksman does not a sniper make.