American Sniper Author and Vet Killed at Shooting Range

[BITEYOASS]

I guess that "If he had a gun" argument can be thrown down the shitter.

[Nitro Express]

I guess that "If he had a gun" argument can be thrown down the shitter.

God created all men. Sam Colt made them equal. It's whoever hits their target first.

[FORD]

I guess that "If he had a gun" argument can be thrown down the shitter.

Yeah, especially the Wayne LaPierre bullshit about "the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun".

Didn't work so well for this "good guy"

[jhale667]

Speaking of which...

[Nitro Express]

Say hello to my little friend. Eric Holder gave it to me.

[Seshmeister]

Also one problem the military has is getting the infantry to actually shoot other human beings. Often solders will fire their weapon but intentionally miss. Most people aren't killers. The people in charge want to make war as impersonal as possible.

When the US military discovered that 10% of troops were doing almost all the killing and many of the rest were as you say aiming to miss or not firing at all, they did a lot of work to up this rate.

I can't prove this but I wonder if this hasn't had a downside where US soldiers became trigger happy leading to more 'friendly fire' and civilian casualties.

That's definitely been the perception here since the Gulf wars. I think in the first Gulf war more British troops were killed by Americans than Iraqis.

[Nickdfresh]

When the US military discovered that 10% of troops were doing almost all the killing and many of the rest were as you say aiming to miss or not firing at all, they did a lot of work to up this rate.

I can't prove this but I wonder if this hasn't had a downside where US soldiers became trigger happy leading to more 'friendly fire' and civilian casualties.

The case has been made that this is what contributed to the perceived higher rates of PTSD rates on Vietnam Veterans. But the truth is that a minority of soldiers tend to do the most killing - probably about 20% of the soldiers kill about 80% of the enemy KIA's in firefights...

That's definitely been the perception here since the Gulf wars. I think in the first Gulf war more British troops were killed by Americans than Iraqis.

I think that's a bit misleading, as the Iraqis largely showed themselves incapable of killing Coalition troops, and the rapid advance and technology leaps made friendly fire inevitable. But there were plenty of instances of fratricide in WWII and so on. I think almost 200 American soldiers, including a senior U.S. general (Leslie McNair), were killed in a tactical bombing raid designed to shock the Germans in Normandy right before the "Breakout" after D-Day...

[Seshmeister]

Well to be fair I imagine watching the US bomb one of their own generals would have at least surprised them if not shocked them.

Too soon?

[Nickdfresh]

Well to be fair I imagine watching the US bomb one of their own generals would have at least surprised them if not shocked them.

Too soon?

He was a bit of a cunt that made a series of horrendous decisions in WWII that probably exacerbated U.S. (an by extension, British and Allied) casualties - decisions that tended not to be based on the reality of the war, but on theoretical prewar dogma. McNair getting whacked was in a sense poetic justice for all the poor "replacements" and tankers in the Sherman he sent to their deaths with his shitty policies.....