CNN Headline News reporting shooting in Falls Church

CNN Headline News | 10/14/02 | CNN Headline News

[xjcsa]

CNN Headline News is reporting that a woman has been shot near a Home Depot in Falls Church, VA, and that authorities are investigating whether this is another sniper attack.

Breaking now....

[flaglady47]

Where's Gary Condit been lately?

[Joe Hadenuf]

This guy made another clean get away. Otherwise, we would have seen a big ol shoot out or stand off by now........This is getting a little crazy....Glad I don't have to live and work in that area. This would be a little unnerving.....

[blam]

"Fox reporting that now people on the roads are running out of gas, after idling in traffic for 3 hours, complicating things even more."

Man, what a bummer that would be. I'm sure no-one thought ahead about that happening. I do not let my vehicle get below less than half full on gas anytime anymore. Not since 911.

[Ligeia]

What was your impression of our Fairfax County Chief of Police? I thought he seemed fine. It looked like the press who was out of control and frantic.

[aristeides]

A handgun is worthless against a sniper attack like this.

Can't it shoot out tires?

[Chemist_Geek]

Does tumbling mean rolls into target rather than slice though.. (Iick)

Well, sort of.

The barrel of most guns is rifled, that is, has a spiral cut into it so that the bullet spins around its long axis while in flight. Imagine a good forward pass in football. The pointed end always faces forward, and the body is spinning around like a top. This tends to gyroscopically stabilize the trajectory of the bullet.

However, when the bullet enters a medium with higher density, that spin rate is usually not fast enough to stop it from tumbling. Most of the mass of a bullet is near the base, rather than near the tip. So, as it travels through the higher density medium, it tends to swap ends, and travel heavy end first. This is "tumbling" as most people think of it. The motion is similar to that of a punted football.

There's a separate issue with some 5.56mm ammunition - the bullets have a groove cut around their circumference, and once it enters a higher density medium the bullet breaks apart at this groove and fragments.

All the above discussion has been for what's known as "full metal jacket" bullets. If there's a soft point or hollow point, then the bullet doesn't flip end over end after entering high density medium; instead, the jacket peels backward and the diameter increases greatly. Then one also gets all the fragmentation and tumbling and so forth.

If the bullet never enters a medium with density greater than that of air, none of this tumbling effect happens.

[concerned about politics]

No Far East Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Viet Namese, Korean) yet, either.

There was that Korean guy shooting in the air at the UN about conditions in Korea.

[montanus]

And he says some people have been trapped on the road long enough to run out of gas causing more problems.

I bet those folks are really thrilled at the prospect of having to go to a gas station tonite.

Not only that, but it's rather chilly here. It's supposed to get down to the mid 30's. Can't exactly turn the car off and wait like you could if it were summer.

If I have to run down to N. Va, I'm gonna take a blanket with me.

[Ligeia]

blam, you forget...people aren't refueling around here as often.

[blam]

"They aren't bright enough to figure out that they should turn off the car?"

It's to cold.

[mhking]

What was your impression of our Fairfax County Chief of Police?

He should not have taken questions - every answer he had seemed to be "I don't know," or "I can't answer that."

He should have given the statement and been done with it. With those continued answers, he looked to be as much an idiot as Moose.

[Ford Fairlane]

feel free to throw in your $0.02 i'm on a slow dial up & having trouble keeping up

[aristeides]

Anybody know what kind of parking facilities that mosque within walking distance has?

[Audit_Jesse]

Like I said man, spell it all out for me and I'll give it to my friends on the PD.

[Tree of Liberty]

Don't be shy in asking firearm related questions. I've found my fellow shooters to be eager to share their knowledge. We're a patient lot :)

[floriduh voter]

The 13 year old's aunt had just dropped him off. He was walking away from her vehicle and she saw him slump down. I think there have been people around but they didn't hear anything in some instances - they just saw the victim slump over. The MO is to terrorize someone. The husband was as much a victim as his wife. The MO is to ONLY SHOOT ONE PERSON AT A TIME; not who's nearby.

[texasbluebell]

You would think so, but apparently not everything thinks of that!

[mhking]

Who is this moron on FNC?