Initial thoughts about the Attempted Assassination on President Trump
Not a chance YouTube will let me talk about this
I woke up this morning to roughly 20 emails asking me to “breakdown” the attempted assignation of former President Trump. I am not an expert in protective details, but I know a few things about firearms.
Based on satellite data it looks like this was about a ~150m / 167 yard shot. I think in yards and calculate wind drift in yards. I am also not a sniper or a competitive shooter. In this case, I don’t believe the assassin was either. Location is roughly 40°51'26.74"N 79°58'13.33"W.
Before I start talking about this subject, remember that one spectator died and one spectator has their life forever altered. Don’t forget that there was nothing about this event that should be praised.
This was not a particularly difficult shot. I’m estimating 167 yards from the tan building with the white roof to where the podium might be. Note the waving flags in the GIF below
The waving flags indicate a Beaufort scale of 2 or roughly between 4-7 miles per hour.
A 5.56 bullet drifts approximately 1.1″ at 100 yards, 5″ at 200 yards, so we're talking drift of 2.2" at that range. A person with just a little bit of training should have been able to hit a man-sized target at that range even with the wind drift and even on a rifle without optics. I cannot tell from this still image whether the rifle in question had optics. This should have been a “easy” shot. I don’t believe that this particular assassin had any kind of training. Also note that optics won’t matter if the rifle was not properly sighted.
Rifles are not typically accurate out of the box. They must be “zeroed.” This is a process of picking a specific distance and aligning the sights so that the bullet is centered on the sights at that distance.
If a rifle is not properly “zeroed” or sighted in, it will not be accurate. An inexperienced shooter may not know that a rifle needs to be “zeroed.” If most of a shooter’s weapons experience came from video games, they might not understand the zeroing process.
Note the Army typically “zeros” its rifles at 25 meters since the bullet will cross the sights at 25 meters and again at 250 meters. In the case below, near zero is 25 meters. Far zero is 250 meters.
Its seems like the counter-snipers were on a bar roof to the right of the podium if you were facing the podium. This means a shot through trees at the assassin. Not an easy shot.
The Secret Service immediately surrounded the former president. The professionalism of these officers is phenomenal.
For context, below is a gif of the attempted Ronald Reagan assignation. Watch how quickly they tackle the shooter.
A lot will be made of the picture below. This is not a bullet, it is a vapor trail. This happens during very humid days where the supersonic bullet condenses the air around it into water vapor. The bullet is a few inches in front of this condensation.
Misinformation is already developing around the notion that the shot was staged or the weapon used was a BB Gun or Paintball gun.
In the coming days, be careful about sharing something if it makes you feel emotional. You may be spreading misinformation.
It’s difficult to the point of impossibility to feel sympathy or empathy for the being who loves Putin but hates American democracy. Sorry. I’m one of millions of Americans who can at best muster a “meh.” I feel badly for what’s left of our political institutions. MAGA has already started fund raising on the event. The only loser in this is American democracy, rule of law and our once resilient institutions.
150 meters (give or take) is not a difficult shot for a properly trained shooter, even with iron sights. Optics should make it easier. Of course, that assumes the irons or optics were properly zeroed. My AR has an EO Tech holographic sight with a 3x magnifier and is sighted dead nuts at 300 as are the irons. I am an experience shooter both in the military, police, and rifle competitions. I'm actually much more experienced with iron sights than with optics. I was issued a CAR-15 (a predecessor of the M-4) in the Air Guard as a security police flight sergeant and I could hit bulls at 500-meters with it.
I was trained at 200, 300, and 500-meters distance while in the Marines with both the M-14 and M-16. I agree with Mr Stewart in his comment about a tin roof on a hot, sunny day not being a particularly good shooting spot for comfort and steadiness of aim. It's hard to be certain from the photo of the wanna-be assassin's body and nearby rifle, but it appears the barrel on the weapon is too long to be an AR-15 with a standard carbine barrel, but instead it looks more like an M-16 rifle length. Hard to tell for certain. At 150-meters, its a six of one, half dozen of another kind of thing with barrel length.
For those that want to tell me that known-distance shooting is different than combat shooting, I already know that. I've been trained in that kind of shooting too and was an instructor in it. Oh yeah, and I have some on the job experience in Vietnam too.