Yup, this unskilled non-marksman, using a clearly ineffective, puny girlie-rifle cartridge, managed to KIA 9 people with a single shot from various ranges, without getting caught or EVEN OBSERVED up until his most recent shooting.
You miss the point. Yes, the .223 is entirely capable of killing people. Yes, the attacker has avoided observation. Yes, he obviously has trained for this mission.
HOWEVER, a serious sniper - trained as such by people who truly know the subject - would have behaved differently. While the .223 may do the job, it does not have the assurance of a first-strike kill that .30 caliber rifles have. .308 is considered the minimum adequate round for the job, and if the MD killer had used one we would have 11 KIA, not 9.
Those folks would be at least TWICE as dead had he used some sort of approved SNIPER RIFLE cartridge
No, we'd have 11 dead 0 injured instead of 9 dead 2 injured.
This guy can shoot - people claiming otherwise are confusing mechanical accuracy with tactical marksmanship, they are NOT the same.
You're confusing tactical marksmanship with sniping. There is a difference between hitting a target and running away before someone notices, vs. "one shot one kill" and never being seen. That may seem indistinguishable to most sheeple, but there is a difference. This guy's MO is to shoot people and eventually be found out - that's terrorism.
has little to do with making what are apparently nearly perfect CNS shots CONSISTENTLY under intense pressure, at a variety of ranges and from marginal shooting positions against moving targets.
Pressure for the shooter is limited, as he may pick arbitrary targets at arbitrary times under arbitrary conditions. Head shots - a rather large CNS target - do not require a great deal of practice for those distances. The targets were not moving, being engaged in activities with predictable pauses (pumping gas, loading groceries, mowing lawns, etc.). While the attacker has obviously trained for this scenario, the training is for terrorism as contrasted with sniping.
the fact remains he's been UNBELIEVABLY successful with his "substandard round" and "mediocre marksmanship".
Any average "man on the street" could learn to do the same with just a few hours of training. 9 dead 2 injured out of 12+ attempts is not "unbelievably successful". An 81% kill/hit ratio IS substandard ammo performance. A 92% hit rate at 30-150m IS mediocre marksmanship (and that's assuming we know of all the attempts).
Yes, this killer is good enough for his job. That doesn't make him a "sniper".
9 of 11 attempts were fatal, with a single round of .223REM. That's just not accidental, nor is it the result of "a few hours of training".
If consistent CNS shots under 100yds were EASY, LEA marksmen wouldn't need daily practice and $5000 rifles to do their jobs. Again, performance on the RANGE is often difficult to replicate in the FIELD, thus the need for constant practice and intimate knowledge of one's equipment.
This a**hole is certainly not a "sniper" in the traditional sense, but he's not some clown that learned how to shoot at the carnival, either.