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Comment by buran77 | Hacker News Reader

Although this looks like it could be a professional hit, possibly part of a bigger and more hidden issue, I always wondered how long before people start taking the vigilantism road especially in countries with extensive gun ownership. And how will those CEOs react to this.

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There are two end of the spectrum:

* behaving better, potentially with the consequence that profits would be reduced

* getting more security guards, keep lobbying for laws to silence stories that could make them look bad, and keep lobbying against laws that would prevent them from doing the bad things

I have strong guesses about what the majority of them will take. But, who knows, maybe polymarket knows better ?

> * getting more security guards

It will be interesting to see how VIP security companies respond to the proliferation of kamikaze drones.

Oh my God, i has forgotten about that black mirror episode. Strange we don't see more civilian attack drones, they'll only get easier to make

> Oh my God, i has forgotten about that black mirror episode. Strange we don't see more civilian attack drones, they'll only get easier to make.

It's probably because killing someone with a gun is far more represented in the media. Guns are a product that can be purchased off the shelf.

Also civilian kamikaze drones would probably be easy to jam and on top of that require a lot more technical skill to pull off. You'd have to build a bomb and some kind of fuze, and it'd be a lot more expensive to practice and test it out to the point where it would be likely to work (v.s. a gun where you can buy a bunch of bullets for probably a fraction of the cost of a single unmodified drone).

Drone + gun + trigger widget?

> Drone + gun + trigger widget?

I feel that would work at all because the aim would be terrible.

Hope you're right, because this seems like hobbyist level to refine in this setting.

Remember that NRA used to lobby to add restrictions to open carry and gun ownership before placing your bet.

Also, in the US, AP rounds and suppressors were banned before DIAS for AR were, so...

It probably is not a professional hit. I read an interview about it with a professor of criminal law who has spent decades studying professional killers, and he mentioned several things that would be very unusually for an actual professional hit.

I don't remember all of them, but a big one was the timing and location. Professional hitmen learn the target's routine and make the hit somewhere where there won't be many people around and there is less chance of something interfering with getting away.

This guy did it in a crowded area, that is full of cameras, and even stopped at a Starbucks beforehand to buy some things.

I've also seen a few comments from experts about the gun. It seems to be a gun that a professional hitman would be unlikely to use. Here's an article that quotes several of these experts on the oddities of the gun [1].

[1] https://www.foxnews.com/us/former-nypd-inspector-skeptical-u...

Yeah the guy's photo has been put out by the police and is fairly clear. I figure a professional would have done a better job at not being seen.

The bullets had “Deny”, “Defend”, “Depose” written on them, which makes it seem ideological.

https://apnews.com/article/unitedhealthcare-ceo-manhattan-sh...

The CEOs will hire private security, expense it to the company, which causes pressure to raise insurance premiums.

Having private security around all the time makes it way harder to cheat on your spouse.

...why?

There's the risk of them talking. Also if you visibly have security it's way more likely people will take pictures of you and post them.

It's difficult to eliminate witnesses, if they're physical security professionals.

j/k

Didn't seem to bother JFK, though it did cause "morale problems" with the Secret Service. Thought it's true, they weren't private security.

Still not ideal for the life loving CEO. Anyone who had to go around with a security detail because of genuine threats to their lives knows it's a crap situation.

Plenty of your customers may have nothing to lose. It's just a matter of kicking off the trend and way more people start seeing options like this, previously considered crazy, as more and more realistic.

> which causes pressure to raise insurance premiums.

Why aren't premiums already as high as the market will bear?

Or, given the theme of both headline and several comments on this story, higher than it will bear?

Because it's not a market. I work, and thus have no choice which insurance i'd like. There's only one plan which is even remotely affordable and that's the one provided by my job. If that insurance plan decides to deny me life saving, essential medications, i can't just switch. Health insurance is a necessity, it shouldn't be a market. We can see that since everyone stopped pursuing anti trust every single industry has either or is in the process of being completely captured by some big fish, eating everyone else up and squeezing consumers to the maximal amount possible. I for one, don't think we should be basing the cost of survival on the _maximum possible the market will bear_. Inevitably that will lead to it being far above some people's means, an ever increasing number of them. I don't enjoy the look of a future which involves revolts and assassinations but what option are we giving people? When health insurance companies kill the people that matter most in your life, what do you really have to lose? When the systems stop caring about preservation of human life, why should the people care about preserving the system? Why, they might actively become hostile to it. Even if it's a system which is merely survivable for the majority of people (maximum cost the market will bear), enough disenfranchised people _will_ take their power back, even if it takes the whole thing down. And in their lives, with their experiences, they're right

In an ambush game, the ambusher need succeed only once, the ambushee always.

The best security is a society which doesn't promote ambush attacks, whether out of general respect, lawfulness, or a belief in institutional mechanisms (business practices, fair marketplaces, civil and criminal courts, penal systems).

Attempting to bolt on security where such a society doesn't exist is quite fraught. The attempts will likely be expensive and lossy.

Not that professional. Looks like a suppressor on a pistol, but not configured and tested so that it doesn't malfunction. Shooter is skilled enough to deal with the malfunctions.

This suggests that shooter's at the minimum enthusiast, possibly trained for a different profession as a rank and file guy, but not enough to actually put somewhat specialty gear together reliably.

I don't think the guy's a hired assassin per se, but more likely a very disgruntled person who felt wronged by UnitedHealth.

There is no need for gun ownership. Vigilante justice is quite popular (both the idea as well as actual instances) in many poor countries (if not most). When dysfunctional or outright malicious institutions have pissed off enough people, you can expect the fringe to start lashing out with violence.

I was thinking the same but then I thought a professional hitman probably also has families and health insurance problems.

Or people with families and health insurance problems may be able to hire a hitman.

CEOs are already reacting to this with doomsday scenarios.

Where? I'd love to see what they actually think about this. If any of them have even begun to consider treating people as human beings instead of temporary roadblocks to growth at any cost

Vigilantism is most of America’s gun violence.

Only most?

People say 'professional hit' as if it was something that existed outside of Hollywood movies.

They do, but the targets are rival drug dealers etc, not megacorp CEOs. (Except maybe in Russia.)

Cartels have sicarios but not in this country. Drug gangs aren't really the 'professional' type of killings.

"Not in this country" is some reevaluation from "outside of Hollywood movies". Other countries are real.

Most Hollywood movies are set in the US. If you want a realistic portrayal of foreign counties there's always foreign cinema.

Did you actually bring some counterarguments to "other countries are real"?

You don't believe hitmen exist?

They exist, but they're FBI agents. Try rentahitman.com

According the recent hit comedy movie “Hit Man” staring Glen Powell, they don’t exist!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_the_Jackal

Granted, it may be extremely, extremely rare. But it does exist.

Plus I have to wonder if you really think all the people in Russia who "fell out of a window" actually fell out of windows.

Hitmen at the paygrade seen here absolutely do exist, you just usually don't notice that very often unless it's either secret services that are involved (e.g. Russia's various assassinations in the UK or Germany) or it's major figures assassinated by drug cartels who are not members of some sort of cartel (e.g. the murder of journalist Peter R. de Vries). Drug and other organized crime networks routinely kill each other, but it doesn't make the headlines if it's not done in the public.

AKA "Contract killings" or "murder-for-hire". They are estimated to account for about 5% of murders.

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