[Poohbah]

You know what catches my atention? The term "skilled shooter". Where do they get that? I suppose if the shots are from several hundred yards away this term could be used accurately. But, and maybe I've just missed it, I haven't heard of anyone saying how long the shots were. If from 50 or 75 yards, it would hardly take a "skilled shooter" to inflict one shot kills with any moderate or better quality rifle.

On a live target, it takes one heck of a shooter to even open fire (85% of grunts never shoot in firefights), much less kill 5 people with 5 shots.

[templar]

On a live target, it takes one heck of a shooter to even open fire (85% of grunts never shoot in firefights), much less kill 5 people with 5 shots.

Well the shooter did open fire. And a still standing live target isn't much different than a paper target with a 12 x 18 inch hit zone, and anyone can do that with a decent rifle and just a little bit of training (I often teach people to shoot my .223 Daewoo and have never failed to have a non shooter consistantly hitting milk jugs at 125 yards in less than 20 shots with open sights). I'm assuming that the shooter would pick out the easiest to hit targets, not people jogging or running their dog.

[meyer]

On a live target, it takes one heck of a shooter to even open fire (85% of grunts never shoot in firefights), much less kill 5 people with 5 shots.

I'd agree, except that the victims seemed to be just about as still as paper targets on a relatively calm day. I'm not saying that the perp isn't skilled, they are above average IMHO and seem to have little or no aversion to taking an innocent life. That takes some rather strong, if perverted discipline.

[muawiyah]

Regarding grunt shooting percentages, they all changed in Viet Nam. This is attributed to the development of the human silouette pop-up live firing range.

This came up several months ago in FR. The numbers were very high in the Nam.