Posted on 10/16/2002 11:21:33 AM PDT by TC Rider
Ballistic Fingerprinting will be a joke soon, or why the Moose can't admit the shooter has a AK-74
Chief Moose and others involved with the investigation into the sniper shootings can't lend any credence to the witness who claims he saw a AK-74, because it would point out the ineptness of all of the ballistic testing to date.
After Moose, the ATF and others trotted out all of the Mini-14's and AR-15 variants that used .223 ammo, they know they are in trouble if it turns out to be a AK-74.
While the tests that show all of the rounds to have been fired from the same weapon may be accurate, they produced the wrong weapon.
Additionally, Kathleen Kennedy-Townsend, the VPC, Sarah Brady, Governor Glendingaling and others calling for ballistic fingerprinting will have to eat a lot of crow.
The problem for them is, that while all the US made weapons and the AK-74 fire a nearly identical .223 diameter projectile, or bullet, the actual complete round is slightly different in length and uses a different brass casing.
Does anyone else recall some of the early reports that the sniper was using some kind of special 'military' bullet? Chances are the sniper is using Wolf or some surplus Russian ammo.
I knew when they produced the .223 casing from the schoolyard shooting they were in trouble. It looked like it had laid in the woods for ages, or was a steel casing from Russian ammo . If it turns out the sniper is using a AK-74, that cartridge can't have come from it. It is actually possible to fire AR-15 ammo in the AK-74, but not recommended. The case is a tad longer, does not completely seat in a AK-74 chamber and will make a very tell-tale bulge in the base of the case, provided it doesn't explode out of the ejection port. So if the US AR-15 casing had been fired, the geniuses at ATF should have picked up on the tell-tale bulge at the base, where the round does not fully seat.
What the shooter is probably firing is 5.45X39 Russian hollow point ammo.
I've noticed that in the last day or two, a lot of the calls for ballistic fingerprinting are focusing more on bullets and less on casings. I suspect the powers that be, know that they are now dealing with a AK-74 and haven't quite figured out how to cover their asses.
Bottom line, even if nationwide ballistic fingerprinting had been in place for all firearms in America, it would not have helped in the least in this case. It might have led to the arrest and harassment of some poor SOB who had hunted in that area 12 years ago, provided the technology was good enough to trace the casing back to his own hunting rifle.
the redwings are smaller than the yellow-heads; less meat on 'em.
ain't been compared to spotted owl by me, yet...
Ok, I missed that in my original searches. But, from a search I just did on AK-74 and .223 ammo, it appears that the AK-74 puts a very distinct 'dent' in the brass.
How did the 'balistic fingerprinting' miss that?
I have heard that too. I've never noticed the spent casing from a AK-74 because it whangs them far and away on ejection, just like an AK-47 does. They end up about 40 feet away, directly to the shooter's right.
I don't know why the ATF hasn't noticed this, unless the spent .223 cartridge that the investigators found is a plant to throw them off the case.
Are they? With a wooden stock, semi-automatic fire only and no bayonet lug, they should pass muster.
I suspect there are people here more qualified to answer than I. I did call a buddy who knows these things before I started this thread. I asked him if they were still available at gun shows. He said there were plenty.
The actual select-fire AK-74 would probably be illegal unless you are one of the fortunate few who somehow managed to buy one legally that was made and legally registered in the US before 1986. There may not be any. There are a few legal select-fire AK-47s registered to private owners.
Semi-automatic only rifles that look like AK-74s and shoot the same rounds are available in the US from numerous sources. They just don't shoot full-auto, but that little detail never mattered to the gun-grabbing crowd...they're all evil assault weapons. You really can't tell the legal ones from full-auto ones from 10 feet away, they're that close in appearance. Anyhow, if the DC shooter has an AK or an AR-15 or whatever, it really doesn't matter if it's legal or not since I believe that, even in DC and MD, murder is illegal.
Not a bad rifle for $225-which is what I paid for mine.
thankz for the laff
No matter who he(they) is, you can bet they will be tried, fried and buried as terrorists...after a few years of appeals, earning a law degree, writing a bestselling book and appearing on Donahue :)
Seriously, if they turn out to be al Qaeda or the like, and I think they will, this changes everything. We are going to have to kick some butt...domestically...or be devastated by attacks like this.
Check out the link above for a Russian made weapon sold in the US by Hesse of Minnesota that shoots standard .223 (5.56 x 45) Remington ammo.
A shell retriever. MMMMMM. What I would give to have one of those.
I've very sorry. I couldn't resist.
The proper term of a device for catching empty cartridge CASES is a brass catcher. They mount on the side of the receiver. It's more than possible the killer is using a brass catcher.
I stopped believing any of the reports anymore. The police are using Psych. Ops. and the media is ignorant.
"Brass catchers" are aftermarket items available for almost any brand of semiautomatic rifle, including the AK family. There is no reason to leave a piece of brass unless you intend to.
And I'm surprised the shooter left a "death card" from a tarot deck. How many "snipers" have tarot decks around the house? Now if he really wanted to freak people out, he could have left one of those ace-of-spades "death cards" that a lot of GIs used in Vietnam. You can still find reproductions of them, and it would go a long way to point a finger at a "crazy Nam vet" (who are now in their 50s and 60s).
As far as "ballistic fingerprinting" goes, the people pushing for that are both ignorant and deceitful (nothing new about that). There is absolutely no scientific analog to human fingerprinting. Human fingerprints can be roughly classified, and key elements used to provide an indication of where to look in the fingerprint files. Ten perfect prints will get you to a drawer where there may be dozens or hundreds of similar prints that then need to be checked by experts one at a time to see if there is a perfect match.
There are no comparable principles to organize a library of bullets or cases. If you're lucky, you may be able to narrow it down to a particular manufacturer, but that's it. Any comparisons after that would have to be on a "brute force" method, comparing the suspect case against those on file. There is no way of further classifying the items based on scientific principles to cut down the search to reasonable numbers.
Due to its classification system, fingerprints can be stored on cards, or in computers. Cases and bullets must be physically saved, since their characteristics can't be reduced to something that can be easily stored, much less indexed.
"Ballistic fingerprinting" is nothing more than a piece of black propaganda put out by the gun grabbers. It's part of the blood dance they're so gleefully doing right now.
Finally (geez, will this guy ever end?), my own theory is that there are at least three guys involved in these shootings. One guy does nothing but drive the white box van in the opposite direction of the shooter's escape. That truck is big and tall, and easy to spot. While everyone is looking for white trucks, the shooter and his driver calmly drive off in an ordinary car, which changes for each shooting.
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