The gunman does not have a scope. He is looking through iron sights, which don’t magnify the scene as a scope would. This isn’t liberal pendancy, it is optics.
I assume the guy is a douche who pointed the gun for the camera betting that either there were no snipers who could see him or that the feds present are operating a don’t fire first rule of engagement. If he’d accidentally squeezed off a round, the injuries or deaths of the people around him would have been completely on his head. Bonus points for good trigger discipline, however.
Given the wide angle of the lens used to take the picture, he was probably pointing the gun at people only 200 yards away, which is not far at all in bright sunlight. A good shot doesn’t a scope at that range. I’ve known people who don’t even need to use the sights at that distance.
skrillton posted “Dumb to create confusion but he could have been using his scope to see what was going on.”
djhopscotch replied “He doesn’t have a scope.”
jerwin countered “He could have been using his sights! Happy now?
I hate liberal pedants!”
I just thought it was ironic that someone tossing out “liberal pendant” doesn’t know that iron sights don’t do shit for magnification (as you say 200yds with iron sights and a 30 round mag of .223 is a lot of casualties in the hands of a good shooter).
No one has said that anyone should be “killing militia nuts.”
My point was that if you point a gun at cops, you should expect to get shot. This fellow only got away with it because he’s a white crazy and the cops are generally more hands off with that crowd. If he was Black, Latino, or any other minority, I expect someone would, at the very least, arrested him and, more likely perhaps, shot him.
He might want to read Nevada’s constitution then. And linger longingly over Article 1, Section 2:
But the Paramount Allegiance of every citizen is due to the Federal Government in the exercise of all its Constitutional powers as the same have been or may be defined by the Supreme Court of the United States; and no power exists in the people of this or any other State of the Federal Union to dissolve their connection therewith or perform any act tending to impair[,] subvert, or resist the Supreme Authority of the government of the United States. The Constitution of the United States confers full power on the Federal Government to maintain and Perpetuate its existance [existence], and whensoever any portion of the States, or people thereof attempt to secede from the Federal Union, or forcibly resist the Execution of its laws, the Federal Government may, by warrant of the Constitution, employ armed force in compelling obedience to its Authority.
Rural Westerners have a very long, complicated relationship with feds and federal land. I grew up there and I don’t even pretend to understand it. But I do know that the people who actually live there, on and amongst the land and resources, occasionally get kinda cranky that they live there and yet get little to no say in whether and how vast swaths of local land is allowed to be used and at what price. Whatever the legalities are, this is at the crux of a lot of anti-fed sentiment, and why someone might break or ignore a law and still feel as though they are in the right.
The fact that they stood down at least gives me hope that they learned something from Waco and Ruby Ridge. Even if the rancher is in the wrong, this should have been resolved a long time ago, peacefully. The fact that it wasn’t is a failure on the part of the feds.
Your assessment isn’t far from the truth. These guys are nowhere to be found in the frack fights, where old family farms are getting turned into saltwater taffy by the gas companies. But as soon as it somehow gets twisted up into Obama’s fault, they are ALL OVER that one with their scopeless AR-15’s. What a bunch of dummies.
