SWAT-clad man uses assault rifle in chaotic Santa Monica shooting spree

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2013/0608/SWAT-clad-man-uses-assault-rifle-in-chaotic-Santa-Monica-shooting-spree?nav=89-csm_category-topStories ^ | June 8, 2013 | Patrik Jonsson

[Innovative]

A semi-automatic assault rifle is again being tied to a US mass shooting, this one a chaotic series of events led by a body-armor-clad man who killed four and wounded five people before being shot and killed by police in a college library in the iconic beachside city of Santa Monica, Calif.

The attack marked the first major mass shooting since a bipartisan gun control bill failed in the US Senate in April. The shooting may help efforts to revive the debate about gun control, as well as put focus on ongoing legislative action in some states around allowing students and faculty to carry weapons on campuses to help thwart active shooters who target what are usually so-called "gun free" zones.

AR-15s and other semi-automatic rifles are used in far fewer homicides than hand guns, but have become symbolic of America’s struggle to contain violent and public mass shootings. They’re immensely popular because of their ease-of-use, accuracy and customizability. Critics argue that the rifles are designed to be militaristic and offensive. Fans of the guns say they have no more lethality than a standard hunting rifle.

[jjotto]

He is Arab Christian.

[going hot]

Must be getting hit in their jump 15 feet and do two flips nerve.

[Private_Sector_Does_It_Better]

He may be, can you site a source?

[Finny]

Good for your son in law for doing good duty in Iraq, but your son in law is not so well informed as he might be. As for your never having met a cop who thought you were wrong ... I've met and talked with several cops and former special forces guys who DO think you're wrong. :^) And they don't talk about firearms, they make livings because of their knowledge of them; if the were ignorant, as you are, they would have to make their livings in a different field.

Is the FBI stupid? Hmmmmm ....

I'm not experienced enough with 30-06, have not shot one since I was a kid. What makes me think the .45 is "magic"?

What makes you use the word "magic"? What makes me think the .45 is capable of staggering or knocking down an average-sized guy in body armor is actual hands-on regular practice shooting them along with other caliber guns, and close friendships with guys who aren't amateur hobbyists who read FBI memos like yourself, but guys who actually pay their bills and mortgages and put their kids through school with money they earn because of their specialized, proven knowledge of firearms.

When is the last time you shot at a steel target, and how many rounds did you shoot?

[jjotto]

Seriously? Follow news much?

[Finny]

Gosh!!! Because if Mr Rogers is correct in stating confidently as fact that "The bullet doesn’t have more energy at impact than it had leaving the gun," then the poor bastard who fired the shot must also have had his butt creamed to Timbuctu!

Mr Rogers apparently shoots his mouth a lot more than he shoots guns.

[going hot]

The third one did two and one half complete flips, end over end, while fully extended.

[Mr Rogers]

I don’t shoot steel targets. Normally.

I have on occasion shot things like 50 gallon drums, and they didn’t rock back and forth. But then, they weighed more than 4 ounces...

I’ve shot rocks that weighed a few pounds, and they don’t go flying thru the air. I shot an injured dog in the head with a 38, and the bullet didn’t even come out the other side. The dog didn’t fly thru the air, either.

Cops do NOT make their living knowing guns. Most are lucky not to shoot themselves. And most former special forces guys...were never in the military.

Since you say you shoot a lot, go out sometime with a 20 lb weight and shoot it with a 45. See how far it moves...

[Sarah Barracuda]

When I went to SMC I was friends with a Lebanese girl, she was white, but that was not her ethnicity, she was Lebanese..we have a large Lebanese population here in LA when you look at them they are white but thats not what they actually are..I dont think he’s Muslim, from what I have been hearing the family attended an Orthodox Church, but thats still just a rumor
The moment this happened the media wanted the shooter to be white, to be some tea party guy(Since Obama was in Santa Monice yesterday) try to connect it to him..the look of disappoint on their faces when they had to give the family name

[Finny]

To readers in general: understand that being armed, the bigger the caliber the better when it comes to taking down bad guys wearing bullet proof vests. Those who post here that a bad guy protected by a bullet-proof vest is unassailable and therefore guns are useless against him, are absolutely wrong.

As for Mr. Rogers -- I tell you what. Why don't you put on the highest-quality, best bullet-proof vest you can find and have somebody shoot you in the chest with a .45 at a distance of, say, 10 feet, and see how you keep your balance. Then have him shoot you three times in rapid succession and see how well you keep your balance. Since you're wearing the bullet proof vest and the shooter is presumably a good shot and likes you (!!!), you're in little danger of being killed.

Then get back to us. Either that, or talk to somebody who's been shot while wearing a bullet-proof vest. You'll find that bruises, broken ribs, and severe pain are the norm. Bullet proof vests distribute the impact of the bullet around a larger area. Larger caliber (bigger than a .45) have been calculated to hit a bullet proof vest with the force of a sledge hammer hitting you at 45 mph. The reason the dog and the deer don't get blown off their feet is because the impact of the bullet went into one small hole. Had they been wearing vests, the impact would have been distributed over a much larger area and it would probably have knocked them down.

[Finny]

Correct “larger caliber” to “higher velocity.”

[lepton]

Finny, if you read what you wrote closely you will see that both what Mr. Rogers said and what you said above are supported by it. The two of you are thus, to some extent, both making true statements, and arguing past each other. It is absolutely the case that the bullet arriving at its' target will have less energy then it had when it left the barrel. No way around that. There are however differences in the energies' density and distribution in time... differentiating the total energy of a bullet at the target in a very small case from the total energy of the bullets and the firearm at the launching point. The main effects and the reason that the bullet drops people even in body armor, is that the body armor does not perfectly protect. The armor stops penetration, but allows the crushing of tissue and the breaking of bones and a variety of other trauma still occurs which causes severe pain, which in turn causes people to collapse, and muscles to spasm. People are not generally thrown backwards from the momentum of a bullet impacting them, armor or not – though the limbs may in fact be smacked backwards. When you get to the rather extreme example of what was originally an antitank weapon such as the .50 caliber round, you do get some dramatic examples of thrown back, or as in one film I saw an unsuspecting person was hit in the shoulder and thrown up on the roof... but that is a whole 'Nother level of power, and the person firing it is generally flat on the ground or heavily braced with a fairly heavy weapon dispersing the recoil. It absolutely can be effective to shoot a person in body armor, even a person in rigid body armor, even more so a person that is simply not accustomed or expecting the effects of being shot while in the body armor.

[lepton]

Finny, if you read what you wrote closely you will see that both what Mr. Rogers said and what you said above are supported by it. The two of you are thus, to some extent, both making true statements, and arguing past each other.

It is absolutely the case that the bullet arriving at its' target will have less energy then it had when it left the barrel. No way around that. There are however differences in the energies' density and distribution in time... differentiating the total energy of a bullet at the target in a very small case from the total energy of the bullets and the firearm at the launching point.

The main effects and the reason that the bullet drops people even in body armor, is that the body armor does not perfectly protect. The armor stops penetration, but allows the crushing of tissue and the breaking of bones and a variety of other trauma still occurs which causes severe pain, which in turn causes people to collapse, and muscles to spasm. People are not generally thrown backwards from the momentum of a bullet impacting them, armor or not – though the limbs may in fact be smacked backwards.

When you get to the rather extreme example of what was originally an antitank weapon such as the .50 caliber round, you do get some dramatic examples of thrown back, or as in one film I saw an unsuspecting person was hit in the shoulder and thrown up on the roof... but that is a whole 'Nother level of power, and the person firing it is generally flat on the ground or heavily braced with a fairly heavy weapon dispersing the recoil.

It absolutely can be effective to shoot a person in body armor, even a person in rigid body armor, even more so a person that is simply not accustomed or expecting the effects of being shot while in the body armor.

[Finny]

Thank you! Well stated. I have not argued that the bullet arriving at its target won't have less energy. That's obvious. Mr Rogers originally argued that if I fire a shot whose impact would knock a guy on his butt, that the recoil of the weapon would knock me on my butt with equal force, which is demonstrably false.

What I hate most about all of this is that when guys like Mr Rogers come on this forum, which has a degree of credibility, and implies (doesn't say directly, but makes statements that lead people to conclude) that there is no gun that can defend against a bad guy wearing body armor, it is essentially doing the job of anti-gun folks who promote the idea that guns are a poor defense, when in truth, they are very good and effective defense even against body armor if the ammo being fired has enough velocity, and since bad guys wearing body armor in situations such as this one in Santa Monica and at that theater in Aurora, CO, are most likely to be opposed ONLY by concealed-carry citizens, the weapon will be a handgun, and the handgun that will have enough velocity to stagger a guy wearing a vet, will either be a magnum or a .45.

Mr Rogers seems to think that the gun store owners, gun smiths, professional full-time fire arms trainers (former SWAT team and special forces folks among them) are ignorant ninja types who "live in TV land." As it happens, these guys are good-natured enough to laugh and tell me (when the Aurora shooting happened and I asked them if CC folks could effectively disable body armored wackos) not to waste my time with know-it-alls like Mr Rogers as there would be no convincing them. These friends and fellow shooters are very far from "ninja" types; I see enough of those around here to know Mr Rogers' insult for what it is. I don't even care about that --

-- what I care about is that folks reading this understand that indeed, a person's 2nd amendment right can be powerful defense even against folks in bullet-proof vests in spite of the Mr Rogers' know-it-alls who claim otherwise.

[Mr Rogers]

You might want to look up “North Hollywood Shootout”.

I have not commented on shooting people in body armor, but responded to this:

“If you’re a decent shot armed with a .45, the guy wearing body armor will be on his ass, head shot or not.”

I’ll go further: If the guy is NOT wearing body armor, shooting him with a 45 doesn’t guarantee anything. If you don’t hit the CNS, no handgun can promise much. As the FBI pointed out, a rifle is a somewhat different matter. At velocities above 2000 fps, the wounding mechanism changes.

But no - shooting someone with a 45 does NOT mean they will land on their ass, even if they have no body armor. There is also a lot of good discussion on this thread:

http://www.defensivecarry.com/forum/defensive-ammunition-ballistics/111181-there-any-real-evidence-one-caliber-better-fight-stopper-than-another.html

You might also consider this article:

“If a 150 pound deer can be shot through the heart with a .30-06 180-gr. expanding bullet at 2700 ft/sec and keep moving, should we expect that a 200 pound human hit with a 180-gr. expanding forty-caliber bullet at 975 ft/sec to be instantly incapacitated?”

http://www.snubnose.info/docs/No_faith.htm

http://www.hipowersandhandguns.com/OtherHandguns.htm

[SaraJohnson]

Never let a crisis go to waste. They do political rallies over dead bodies and at funerals.

[Secret Agent Man]

DO IT FOR PAUL!!!!

[lepton]

Even with rifle rounds against an un-armored person, two dozen rounds may well not make a person fall if they don’t hit something “important”.

[lepton]

Finny, I believe what Mr. Rogers is saying, is that it’s not purely the energy that knocks the guy on his butt. It’s what the energy *does* in regards damage that may make the guy fall. ... Like the aforementioned broken bones and tissue damage, or the pain. The bigger the thump, the more likely sufficient energy will be transferred through the armor to accomplish that goal...especiallywith flexible/soft or shattered armor.

A person in body armor certainly *can* be disrupted by being shot by rounds which do not penetrate the armor, and that person can still suffer substantial injury when shot, especially with flexible armor; and that injury may drop him on his butt. He may also shrug it off.

It’s all a matter of playing the odds on both ends.

[Right Wing Assault]

Did you read my post, look at the picture, and look at the price?

It’s not armor. Armor is not wide open in the center of the chest. Armor does not cost $108.

It’s an ammo vest. And I am just guessing that is what he wore. The typical college student likely doesn’t have real armor.

A .45 can’t knock a person over just by the impact. But you are right that an armored person will be stunned and may be put out of commission by a few good hits from a .45.