Posted on 10/10/2002 9:18:38 PM PDT by kattracks
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. -- Some profiling experts are convinced that the roving sniper who has terrorized my neighborhood and surrounding communities is a white male.
-- Dr. Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist at New York University Medical Center, described the shooter as "white, male, single, 20s-30s . . . (with a) longtime fascination with hunting and shooting."
-- Chris Whitcomb, former FBI hostage rescue team member, told NBC's Katie Couric that "statistically, it's going to be a white male, and it's going to be a young person, young 20s emotionally, but also because that's the age most likely statistically somebody's going to commit a crime like this."
-- Brian Levin, the director of something called the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism in San Bernardino, Calif., stated confidently that the killer "is kind of a wallpaper white male, a disenfranchised, disrespected man who's getting back at society. That's one of the reasons he's kept his distance from inner D.C., where he might lose his cover."
The media immediately embraced the Angry White Male theory by sensationalizing the cops' questioning over the weekend of one Robert Gene Baker. Newspaper reports described him as "heavily tattooed" and "linked" to "militia and white supremacist" groups. The headlines screamed: "Supremacist Sought in Sniping Spree" and "Neo Nazi Named as Sniper Murders Suspect." But in fact, Baker was never a suspect and had no weapons on him at the time he was taken into custody for an outstanding auto-theft warrant.
The AWM theory remains a plausible one, of course. But it isn't the only one. You won't hear Katie Couric or Peter Jennings talking about it with their conventional-thinking experts, but there is a significant possibility that the sniper and the sniper's support system could be non-white Muslim extremists with ties to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
Consider: Al Qaeda training videos analyzed by the Army show Middle Eastern terrorists, armed with assault rifles, rehearsing combat scenarios involving ambushes, raids and sniper attacks.
Consider: James Ujaama, a black American Muslim convert, was indicted in August on charges of conspiring to help al Qaeda establish a terrorist training camp on a ranch in southern Oregon. According to one camp attendee, 10 to 15 members of Ujaama's Seattle mosque brought a large arsenal of weapons to the ranch for target practice. "I thought they would only use rifles, but they were pulling out AK-47s, pistols and other assault rifles, enough for everybody and then some," the camp attendee told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Drills included both close-range and long-range shooting.
And consider: Just before the killings in the Washington, D.C., area began, federal authorities arrested members of a suspected terrorist cell in Portland. Their cache of weapons included semi-automatic pistols, a Chinese SKS 7.62 assault rifle, a 12-gauge Remington 870 shotgun, and a 30.06 rifle with scope, which they shot off at a private quarry in Washougal, Wash. According to Skamania County Deputy Sheriff Mark Mercer, the alleged cell members held target practice shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
An unindicted co-conspirator of the terrorist cell, Lebanese-born Ali Khaled Steitiye, was arrested in Portland last October after attempting to buy an assault rifle illegally. Federal agents found several weapons and 1,000 rounds of .22-caliber ammunition in his home (the same caliber used by the D.C.-area sniper), a calendar with Sept. 11 circled in red, and evidence suggesting a link to the terrorist organization Hamas.
One of Steitiye's alleged shooting buddies, accused Portland terrorist cell member and black Muslim convert Jeffrey Leon Battle, joined the U.S. Army Reserve in 2000 and was assigned to a military engineering unit in Oregon. He was discharged for desertion, but had already received basic Army training -- including instruction in firearms and ordnance use. The federal terrorism indictment against him charges that Battle joined the Army "in order to receive training in U.S. military tactics and weapons which he intended to use against the U.S. and in support of al Qaeda and the Taliban."
Many in the mainstream media are convinced that a "wallpaper white male" is responsible for the D.C. area sniper killings. But the faces of evil come in every color. We must be prepared for all possibilities, not just the ones that play into reporters' preconceived notions about hunters, soldiers, tattoos and guns.
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©2002 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
She did a great job promoting her book; "Invasion" I think it's called.
If he's a terrorist, then it's safe to assume that he's at least sympathetic to Al Qaeda's cause. And if that's the case, then he must see himself as "taking the fight to the enemy." But if that's his purpose, then why go to his enemy's capitol city, but not enter it? He could have gone on a shooting spree anywhere. Why travel all the way to DC and then stop short? One would expect that a politically motivated sniper would choose a course of action that would attract the most attention to his cause. Playing around in Maryland and Virginia does not accomplish that; shooting people within the "Great Satan's" capitol would.
And why shoot-n-scoot? I would expect a terrorist to hang around, at least for the first shooting or two, to pick off "first responders". There was an anti-abortion bomber once who tried to do just that. He set off a small bomb to attract the police and then left a larger device where they might conduct a search. (Fortunately, they didn't follow the bomber's idea of "standard operating procedures"!) Wouldn't a terrorist try the same thing? Especially one who would value "martyrdom" and thus be willing to take greater risks?
A garden variety nut, however, would behave like this. (And the blasphemous message on a tarot card doesn't fit the Islamic Terrorist profile either.) A "weird White guy" would play it safe. He'd avoid DC. He'd be nearby simply because that's where he lives. He's likely a local rather than someone who deliberately traveled into the area. He would be much less likely to hang around for a follow-up shot on police or paramedics. And above all, he'd hit soft targets like civilians who aren't on guard. A terrorist would be more inclined to go after Government personnel.
No. Not sure what to make of it, but point well taken.
The SKS is 7.62x39, not NATO 7.62 (which would be a .308 by our standards). I currently own several SKS, and previously owned a .308 (still regret getting rid of it) - there is a significant difference in size.
You are correct that most SKS are fixed magazine, with wood stocks, and that you can buy after market POLY stocks for them (currently have two POLY stocks)- they cost $60-80 on average.
I know most people dont care for the SKS, but they are affordable, easy to work on, fairly cheap to shoot, not too powerful with recoil, and all around decent little rifles. Although, I have read that they are not the most accurate things, especially at distance.
On the bright side, they are incredibly durable.
Sorry - The mistake is yours.
There are many conventions shooters use when referring to weapons, chamberings, and specific cartridge terminology.
All Ammunition for .22 rifles is .22 ammunition. If you refer to a particular weapon, or chambering, then the terminology must be exact, such as ".22/250" or .25/.308 Ackley Improved.
".22 ammunition " is not synonomous with ".22 long rifle", which is a a specific, standardized cartridge chambered in rifles, pistols, combination guns, and many machine guns.
Never said it was. The 7.62X39 was developed from a very similar German cartridge, the 7.92 Kurtz (Kurtz meaning "short"))
BTW, I have had one for about 12 years now. Don't shoot it much anymore, having moved on to bigger things (7.62 NATO as a matter of fact) and smaller things also (.30 Carbine) :)
It is in a historical and technical sense, but probably not a legal sense - depending on how many 'evil doodads' are attached to it.
Mid-powered cartridge (7.62x39 Russian), high sustained rate of fire, etc., all conform to the concept of the 'assault rifle', and the SKS compares well to the best of the breed.
It is considered obsolete because of it's stripper-clip, fixed magazine -- but many shooters would rather use one for say, hunting deer, than an AK style rifle.
I love your style, but I think the eco-terror types like to be more specific with their targets. They like to go after logging equiipment, fur farms, lab-animal facilities, etc.
I don't think it's likely they'd push their cause by terrorizing the general population of the DC Beltway.
Moreover, this particular killer is strictly limiting her (oops, his) victims to one person per encounter, rather than taking in more than one target of opportunity.
That's two facts, not conjecture, that point towards strict training in this person's background.
I agree on the discipline and the training. As for the age of the perp, I think we're all in the dark.These serial sniper attacks are completely unprecedented. There's no previous profile from which to speculate.
What do you mean, " no snipers on rainy days"?
Sorry for not clarifying...
On your part, I was merely adding additional thoughts.
Somewhere else in this thread (the article maybe?), an SKS was mentioned firing a 7.62, which is not ENTIRELY accurate.
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