THE SHOT HEARD AROUND THE WORLD
Professional snipers mostly use bolt-operated riffles for its accuracy compared to the gas-operated semi-automatic types. This is because gas-operated riffles have more moving parts and gas venting as the bullet is travelling down the barrel. Every slight movement has the potential to create a shift in the trajectory of the bullet with a significant bearing on point of impact several hundred metres away. There are also some sniper riffles which are gas-operated. The choice depends on mission. For a one or two shot mission, bolt-operated types are preferred, Where missions require concentrated fire power, gas-operated semi-automatic sniper riffles are used.
The popular evangelist Jonathan Cahn pointed out the shooter aimed at Kirk's throat, a symbolic message of trying to silence his voice. Rather far fetched, even for Cahn, well known for his apophenia. People are conditioned by Hollywood that always shows targets in the crosshairs of snipers. The reality is snipers mostly aim at the torso. The reason being the torso offers a bigger target. At a hundred metres, the head is just a small little pin head. At two hundred metres, it is a teeny weenie dot. The shooter may use a scope and the tiny head is enlarged in his view. He is however, still shooting at a teeny weenie target. Most certainly Robinson aimed the torso but ended up hitting the neck.
I was a pretty good shot back in my national service days. At a 25m range for grouping practice where 3 shots are fired and proficiency is measured by the furthest distance between two holes. I hit "flowers" twice. This is where three bullets hit almost at the same spot, creating a single flower-like hole.. I was a recruit then and I recall several corporal trainers had to examine the target to all agree they were flowers. It was persuasive because I had already been known as the top shot of the company. Target practices were mostly at 100m where I excelled. I have never experienced firing at 200m nor have I ever used a scope.
The backgrounder is just to stress that good as I was at the range, I can tell you, at 200m, it's an entirely different affair. Many factors affect accuracy. Breathing and the trigger finger movement are most crucial and within the shooter's control. For a non-professional making a kill shot, the adrenalin rush would have pumped his heartbeat and making breathing hurried. But what he cannot control is the wind condition. At 200m, a light draft of 5kph would have caused a lateral shift of about 20cm left or right, depending on wind direction.
When a shooter uses someone else's riffle, no matter how proficient he is, it is most likely he would not hit exactly where he had aimed. This is because the gun has not been adjusted to his eye sight. So he has to aim-off, ie if the bullet lands lower, then he needs to aim a bit higher, or if it lands to the left, he needs to aim a bit to the right. That is if he can see where the bullet lands hundreds of metres away!
To make sure the riffle is tuned to his eyesight, the shooter has to do what is called 'zero' the weapon. Zerooing is making the sight adjustments on the riffle to make sure the point-of-aim = point-of-impact at a specific distance. The adjustment is done at the front sight post and the rear sight aperture. The shooter fires a shot, usually at the 100m range, and sees where the bullet lands. The front sight post can be raised or lowered, and the rear sight aperture clicked more to the left or to the right. This is done after each shot till he gets it right. The 100m range is generally used for zerooing because most bullet is able to maintain a horizontal trajectory covering the distance. Beyond that, it loses energy, gravity takes over and the bullet begins to dip. The .30 calibre bullet used by Robinson dips at around the 150m. Reports indicate Robinson recce'd the site about 2 weeks earlier. I am betting that he re-zero'd his riffle at 200m to make it more accurate for the mission.
On site, Robinson has to take care of the wind drift and his position relative to the target. As he was shooting from a higher ground, the elevation makes it a more complex calculation to adjust for the bullet dip. In order to take care of the lateral shift due to the wind and vertical shift due to the elevation,, he had to take these factors into consideration and adjust his aim. He can aim off to adjust for the holdover. In this case, when looking through the scope, the point of impact, ie the head, may not be in the crosshairs. Or he can adjust the scope by tuning the turret and the reticle accordingly. For professional snipers, these adjustments are often done using a computational app. There's some math to work out. For Robinson, he would have adjusted the scope purely by estimates based on experience.
All these is to show that a sniper's job is not so easy, what more for a non-professional. To top it off, shooting a live, moving target is entirely different from shooting at papers in target practice. What more a target in close proximity to people on the stage. There are however, reports that Robinson has boasted of his shooting proficiency. As it stands now, the narrative is we have a very proficient recreational lone gunman.
Robinson's live-in trans boyfriend Lance Twiggs is assisting the FBI. According to Twiggs, Robinson's political ideology is Left on every issue. But according to Robinson's grandmother, their whole family is staunchly conservative. A relative of Twiggs described her as extremely toxic, evil, and full of hatred for conservatives and Christians.
There is evidence of possibly 6 individuals of a trans chat group posting cryptic messages that indicate pre-knowledge of the shooting. One of Robinson's neighbours reported seeing several suspicious looking out-of-state visitors who moved in and out of Robison's home about 2 weeks before the assassination, which is about the time when he was checking out the rally site. FBI continues with its investigation whether Robinson had assistance.
And then there is the queer case of Anastasia Casey who wrote a book "The Shooting of Charlie Kirk" which was listed on Amazon on Sep 9, one day before the incident. Amazon has investigated and explained the Sep 9 date was a 'technical hitch', possibly metadata error. . It was re-listed on the afternoon of Sep 10. There is no Wayback Machine webpage for the Sep 9 listing but lack of achive doesn't prove page wasn't live, it just means it wasn't achived. Amazon also blocks or rate-limits bot crawlers. Casey has no other publications so it is most likely an opportunist post event AI production under a pseudonym.
The last person to debate Kirk said he was refuting the latter's claim that shootings have been carried out predominantly by trans. Some have suggested that the shooting was timed when the issue of trans shooters was being argued. Some sharp-eyed netizens pointed out the video of the shooting showed two persons next to Kirk seemed to make some hand signals at exactly at that point. Conspiracy theorists are quick to say aha rogue elements in Kirk's security team. Whilst it is true they were indeed making funny signs with their hands, it's laughable that anyone knowing bullets are incoming would want to stay that close to Kirk and call in the shot. Conspiracy theories are made of these.
"Signature" and "ritualistic" shooters leave behind something personal, symbolic, or psychological that satisfies their fantasy. Some "taunting" shooters leave clues, notes or hints to taunt police to catch them. These allow police to profile the perpetrator. Robinson left behind 4 spent bullet casings with etchings on them :
- "Hey fascist! Catch! (with arrow symbols)
- "Oh Bella, ciao, bella, ciao Bella ciao ciao ciao"
- "If you read this, you are gay LMAO"
- "Notices bulges, OwO what's this?"
My knee jerk reaction was these were diversionary materials. A false flag shooting of MAGA putting the blame on the Left. This indicates high probability of a Deep State operation to cause civil unrest, a timely distraction for the impending indictments by the Trump admin on the various players involved in the Russia Russia Russia hoax. Knowing what we now know, this seems very remote.
"Hey fascist" and "Oh Bella" are obviously ideology signaling. "Oh Bella" is an anti-fascist song sung by Italian revolutionary fighters during WWII. "LMAO" is a typical internet trolling meme to provoke or amuse. "OwO" is well-known in furry, anime, and meme communities, often used humourously which suggests familiarity with online subcultures.
Tyler Robinson is an Ace student, and according to grandma, their family are staunch conservatives. Under police custody, Robinson indicated he wanted to commit suicide. Psychological profile - weak personality. I would put a small bet that what we are dealing with here is a guy who has been radicalised by a toxic trans boyfriend. It's a kind of "daughter-in-law from hell" story.
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