This kind of caught me off guard this morning when I saw the pic. This is from a barricaded suspect scene going on in the Los Angeles area. I guess an SBR could serve as a sniper role in most police distance contacts. It just isn’t what you would traditionally think of as a sniper rifle.
Nothing about that picture indicates “sniper” to me.
Looks like perimeter/containment, which was not uncommonly accomplished with pistols/shotguns.
Sent from my VS980 4G using Tapatalk
True.
I was just going by the caption by the newpaper.
Inglewood police snipers take up a position outside a residence, Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2013, in Inglewood, Calif., where a police officer was shot and another received minor injuries in a confrontation with a gunman who barricaded himself inside a home and could be holding a hostage, authorities said.
Lol! Snipers engage long range targets (1000+ meters) DMRs from (6-800) and everything less can be done with any AR. The term “sniper” is very popular with the media, any scoped rifle is a sniper rifle these days. :help:
On a rooftop? Magnified optic? Sniper.
Yours truly,
The Media
I would bet that they, like my local teams, have designated ‘snipers’ that likely have something like a 308 bolt gun.
Now they do have magnified optics on those rifles in the pic. I bet they are “designated marksmen” set up within 100yrds of suspect
At least they didn’t call it an AK-47. DMR is a term that hasn’t hit the LE world yet, even though it’s more closely aligned with what LE snipers do.
Similar to what DOE issues on its rifles Leupold CQT. Its just a 1-3x optic.
Hmm. I am a Sniper, and I had no idea that we had to engage targets beyond 1k. The only people worse than the media when it comes to understanding our profession are the litany of randoms that spend an hour on SH and become subject matter experts. Just to be clear, the most basic definition of the shooting portion of being a Sniper is the ability to pick up a weapons system with unknown DOPE and make a first round “cold bore” hit an an unknown distance. I use the term cold bore loosely, as numerous studies have shown that “cold shooter” and “clean bore” are more accurate terms. (We could go down the rabbit hole here, but to sum it up, the barrel doesn’t heat up, it just accumulates the same amount of copper it had the last time you zeroed it, if you stripped the barrel when you cleaned, and the shooter warms up.) I would also love to meet the non-sof Sniper that is comfortable scoring a first round hit at 1k with a regular units provided Sniper Weapons Systems.
FWIW, shooting is about 5 percent of being a Sniper. I have RECON tattooed on me, not a mil-dot reticle, because reconnaissance, stalking, fieldcraft, and radio etiquette are the other 95 percent of our job. The deadliest weapon I ever handled as a Sniper was a radio and a map, and given the choice I would take those over the latest 338 doo-dad and a kestrel. The only thing more exciting than hitting with a man portable weapons system is watching a well executed CAS run that you coordinated, and leaving without ever firing a round or anyone knowing you’re there. In a modern Sniper team, the shooter is the most junior man. This is because a monkey can apply the fundamentals of marksmanship, enter the adjustments I provide, and hit. I can take anyone reading this and having you dinging steel at 1k in under half an hour, but you won’t be calling your wind, elevation, hold, numerous environmental factors , or judging the ROE of that particular engagement. You just turn the knobs, hold where I tell you, breathe out and squeeze, Monkey! If you halfway paid attention in Boy Scouts Rifle Instruction, you possess the shooting capabilities of a Sniper.
Also, a “Sniper Rifle” is whatever rifle a Sniper is carrying. I chose an bone stock M4 with an EOTech and a EOTech magnifier for 99 percent of the missions I ran in the middle east. As some of you might be aware, we like to blend in, whether it be with plants, or things that have a pulse, and it’s pretty hard to be inconspicuous walking through the local market with a four foot long musket with the Hubble screwed into the top of it. For the record, because I know the controversy sights can incite on this site (Yeah, I did that.), I did get a false low battery indicator while I was in Iraq after 500 rounds. I called EOTech who without hesitation sent my family a replacement unit(They can’t ship OCONUS or whatever). They told me not to worry about sending the old one back, just to hang on to it until the end of my tour and concentrate on the mission (I was on a combat outpost at the time, with limited access to mail). The customer support is amazing, and the target acquisition speed is totally unmatched. Also, fellow unit member asked to use the “Broken” unit and did so successfully for the rest of the tour without any issue, except the false low battery blinking upon start up of the sight. He is still in, and immediately after we returned he bought one for himself.
I hope this clears up some misconceptions about our profession. It wasn’t meant to be an insult to anyone. I have also found that a great majority of LE Snipers attend a 5 day course somewhere and are authorized by their department to throw a telescopic optic on their patrol rifle and start cutting up burlap. That being said, there are numerous LE Snipers and LEO’s with plenty of experience doing things like I have, but I have found that the majority of us choose a patrol or other non-tacticool position because hey, if I wanted to kick in doors or wipe salt out of my eyes in body armor lying prone I would have re-enlisted.
I don’t know who the hell the men are in the pictures, they could be LAV’s former teammates for all I know, but chances are they are patrol officers who went to a few week long schools, got authorized to throw an optic on the weapon, and are looking cool as shit for the camera. They aren’t even remotely trying to conceal themselves, have no consensus on PPE, and look to be a step or two above the officers who parked their units at the end of the street to stop traffic from entering the engagement area.
I hope this might have helped someone understand the art, and it is an art, not just a science because we have electronics and precise formulas now! If anyone has any questions, feel free to PM me, or if you want to throw some lead anywhere in Texas, let me know. Have gun, will travel. (I’m not Carlos Hathcock or Chief Kyle, but I have been behind the curtain). I hope y’all have a great Thanksgiving.
Thank you! Great post
No problem, glad someone got something out of it!
I had a general idea, but yea i honestly didnt mean to throw it out there as such, i have a relative who was a marine dmr, i forget exactly which model he used but i do know it was a .308 ar type, maybe sr25 type? But yea the roles played today are mostly recon and scouting right? I know you guys spend alot of time just sitting there waiting for someone to pass by, and provide detail about them, correct? Thanks for your service by the way.
Wouldn’t surprise me if they had different optics set up to run for different situations. Red dot/Magnified.
Could be there to distract the individual in the house so the “sniper” or “Tac” Team can take advantage of the distraction.
I totally agree.
Thanks for sharing! Awesome post
I liked the whole damn post, but the part I left, that was the part I liked the most.
Remember that there are people who equate a weapon with a scope with being a “sniper” it mostly ghey media people who have no idea what they are talking about. If that was the case every hunter in America would be a sniper during hunting season.
Scoutchris thanks for the excellent post.
