Curious how the shooter missed though. And just, how they seem to miss quite often in general.
The general pop culture opinion cultivated by movies, shows, video games, etc. seem to mislead a lot of people towards the idea that guns are just a "point and shoot" type of deal at any range in any situation. When the reality is like any other hobby it takes many many hours of practice and lots of $$$ worth of ammo to get to the point where you can consistently place shots on target at decent ranges and even then that's in a controlled environment with a paper target that doesn't move, no pressure on you, you're probably not firing standing up without a support etc.
it is NOT hard. whats hard is from-the-hip shooting like you see in movies.
i dont mean to be (too) rude, but if you have problems hitting accurately at 25 meters with a rested rifle, you have some serious problems that you should probably get looked at (im thinking inability to hold steady etc)
In addition he knew that snipers and police were constantly watching roof tops, and if he poked his head out he may not have many seconds to actually raise his gun, aim and shoot.
I am not an expert, but I doubt you can compare your experience on the range to a kid full of adrenaline trying to take a shot at one of the most protected persons in the world. It's a completely different situation.
Hell, many commercial and surplus rifles you buy will straight up NEVER shoot 1 MOA on their own as is even assuming you've clamped them perfectly to a table with no human input for error due to their construction.
my rifle is a 3006 with a cut barrel, and it is extremely precise. There are a couple of guys at my local range that can consistently(aka generally 4 out of 5) put hole-in-hole (with slight enlarging)
Most people aren't buying a $3-4k optic (you mentioned Zeiss in your other post) + what I assume is a (at minimum) $1-2k precision rifle + a fancy rest + I'm guessing match grade ammo and having someone set it up for them the first time they go shooting.
Majority of new hobbyists are buying an off the shelf budget AR15 or surplus rifle around $300-600, using irons or cheap ($100-200 range) optics, and whatever box of factory grade cartridges the guy at the store shoved at them first when they asked for ammo for their rifle, and grabbing the wood block or small sand bag rests the range hands out for free when they shoot. I think that's more fair to judge initial progress/consistency off of a common real world scenario- it's what most new shooters will experience, either at home or in military service, most newcomers aren't instantly splurging on the nicest gear money can buy.
Most rifles straight up can't consistently (and I mean consistently, I don't mean like those guys online or at the range that will shoot 20 groups and cherry pick the 1 lucky group under 1 MOA when the rest are all 2-4 MOA and claim they shoot sub-MOA, or shoot a group of 5 and only mark 3) unless you specifically shopped around for one or made the necessary adjustments (new barrel, etc.) either and know that good ammo can make all the difference.
as for ammo, i Used the cheapest training ammo the store had (Sellier & Bellot fmj), which many people complain about not being super good, but works extremely well for me. I have noticed that some different boxes has a SLIGHT offset in where the hit is, but groupings are more or less equally good.
edit: I should note that the rifle manufacturer gives a 1MOA garantuee, but most are way better, and for about $1000 more they would take like 10 barrels and test, and give you the best of them. I choose NOT to pay the extra fee
I definitely feel that. My father in law is a bit of a precision nut, he has a Zeiss he let me use a few times, I don't know the exact model though. Very nice stuff, always found it hard to justify for myself, haha. Ammo prices nowadays are starting to make range days pricey enough where I look at the cost of nicer equipment and think, man, I can get this or get X more trips worth of ammo instead :)
also this is not superhuman, there are other guys at the range WAY better than me.
the caliber is 3006spr, with a cut barrel, nothing special. zeiss victory 2.8-20 56mm scope.
I do not know what it would take to do that, but even if it needs AI it doesn't sound too far off.
<https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a37708762/...>
Mind you, that former sniper was also a Republican congressman so I would not be surprised if he was just using the opportunity to build the Trump Messiah narrative.
The real mistake was not going for center mass on someone over 70. A gut wound or lung or even a sizeable chunk from meaty tissue anywhere on the body could put down someone that age from blood loss. There's no achievements for head shots in real life.
One ex-USMC commentator on Bloomberg said that the shot wouldn’t have been very difficult at that range. As to why he missed, maybe the shooter had to rush his shots since he was spotted. Maybe he was just a bad shot. It was explained that he wasn’t accepted into his high school shooting team.
This is what I remember hearing while doom-browsing YouTube, so take with a grain of salt.
You know he wasn't that well trained when you see that he killed a bystander.
Firstly needs to learn how to engage in politics w/out a gun. Also needs to practice.
Meanwhile, next door in Australia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEY00iJv4CQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6KJM-MODME but we're just farmers.
Person aimed for the head, seems like he wasn't trained how to kill people.
Anyway, the person knew they would die seconds later, heavy breathing makes it is massively harder to aim when you are nervous, then it is easy to miss a moving head at 140 yards.
Hopefully I'm not giving useful tips to future assassins. :P