I opened the image in a new tab and zoomed in. The leg on the right looks thicker than the one on the left. I believe I’m seeing the third leg peeking out slightly from behind the leg on the right which explains its thicker appearance.
1 Like
Yeah, many of us had already picked up on that message when it wasn’t being shouted quite so loudly. They now have professional microphone and are broadcasting at Disaster Area levels of sound.
6 Likes
Sigh…
I would say at least the rifle probably won’t shoot no more, but the taxpayers are just going to shell out for a replacement…
By the statistics, it’s a coin flip whether they get the mass shooter or the unarmed person who disarms them.
2 Likes
It isn’t guns that kill people, it’s gravity.
Or something
The complete opposite of reassuring on so many levels.
For example, their sniper dropped their special, super complicated rifle, so surely, they wouldn’t have been able to fire it anyway if that was called for. I mean the average person could almost certainly keep it on a roof with them…
7 Likes
It’s raining guns! HALLELUAH!
I feel substantially less safe with police snipers overlooking the streets. They do not inspire any level of confidence.
5 Likes
Incompetent cops are the ones posing an immediate danger to the public.
3 Likes
I bet that they either didn’t lock the tripod’s leg extensions, or the locks couldn’t take the load of rifle + sandbag + shearing wind.
5 Likes
Every time I think America can’t get creepier… sniper rifles fall from the sky and I learn that apparently cops point guns at random crowds for their own safety without telling anyone.
7 Likes
A gunman killed a bunch of people at a parade in Highland Park, IL (about 20 minutes from me) on July 4th last year. I imagine the thinking is the old “good guy with a gun” idea. The idea that a sniper would be able to make an accurate and correct shot in the midst of a milking, panicked crowd is so small as to be laughable.
7 Likes
I had thought of that exact scenario too, but yeah a sniper would have to be perfectly placed and have perfect information and make the perfect shot in order to make a positive difference. Anything else would just make things worse
4 Likes
It’s all speculation, but patterns show they are cowards who go where there is little to no protection at first and police have to show up to the location. They don’t pick a place where police presence is already strong (unless someone wants to die via suicide by cop, but that’s another matter.)
But like I said, it is largely theater, because:
It wouldn’t be easy, that’s for sure.
Just to point out, it isn’t super common. Don’t expect this sort of thing at every parade. Though most of them do have SOME cop presence.
Speaking of which, is having a weighted pendulum under your sniper rifle not a bit counter productive?
3 Likes
Or the sniper-cop – roaring and shaking with joyous laughter after finally being given a chance to use such firepower – backed into and bumped the rifle.
Begorrah! The 25-foot Medusa of St. Patrick’s Wingman was due a half-hour ago and I’m the number of sheets to the wind that all of them are! This must be when the crowd all hopes very hard together to snipe her snakes! Everybody close your eyes and hold the muffler high! Higher than murdering 25 you todgers, there’s 18 snakes! Gracious this green meth…
2 Likes
America is like the frog in the boiling water with regards to being a fascist police state. It’s sliding into it so slowly that few seem to notice and don’t listen when people tell them how crazy it all is. Happy Mutants excepted of course- obviously everyone here knows what’s going on and is doing their best to stop it.
You can still blow many an American mind by telling them other non-autocratic countries don’t start every school day with reciting a pledge of loyalty and in fact we find that intensely creepy and weird. Every American friend I’ve made has been surprised to hear this isn’t normal.
5 Likes
Forcing 5 year olds to pledge loyalty to anything is weird.
6 Likes
It’s performative conservatism, like the “In God We Trust” motto, which was adopted in place of E Pluribus Unum (a much better expression of what the American nation-state aspires to be.)
It doesn’t work. Look at the way people grow up and adopt radically different ideas of what loyalty to the flag and state mean. Proud Boys versus Antifa.
Japan has a similar issue with the rules compelling school teachers to join in the singing of their national anthem, Kimigayo.
1 Like
