“Geez, they’re not snipers! They’re just using the sniper scope as a telescope! They’re not for use as actual snipers! We just gotta use them to look at the evil protestors!”"
“These are not weapons trained at your precious little foreheads, they’re Democracy Spreaders™’. You go to class & learn all about democracy & when you exit the building, we use these to spread all that democracy stored up in your brains all over the wall behind you.“
Managed democracy is a joke too close to reality.
Managed democracy is not a joke.
The fact that a rifle is attached to the telescope is just a funny coincidence
Just a matter of time before we have another Kent State.
My fear is that the next one will be worse.
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Plus the police which seem even more bloodthirsty
Police have been taught that the only way to deal with anyone who doesn’t immediately comply is through violence. And increased militarization doesn’t help. We live in a police state but the narratives created by the ruling class have made people forget it
But what if a nuclear bomb drives a truck through the crowd and stabs everyone?? Please disregard the police beating and gassing people over there, think about how horrible it would be if a bad actor made it in there!
And happen because a foreign country willed it so.
It was really close at UT. State police, city police, and national guard called in by spineless university president (Jay Hartzell).
Fuck Jay Hartzell. Hope he gets recalled. No golden parachute.
The fact that no charges are being filed should result in a strong condemnation and accountability for the administration and the cops. You put everyone in danger when no crime was being committed. There won’t be, but there should be.
Don’t forget about Jackson State.
The event happened 11 days after the Kent State shootings
It feels like these protests are going to shape how the governments of the world will respond to mass unrest in the future.
Or in other words - those in charge want the common person to be disempowered, to frame a peaceful protest as an act of terrorism so they can be more aggressive in future.
Hopefully no one on either side does anything stupid.
These reactions by the US to a student protest are nothing new and the fact they haven’t sent in the army and killed anyone yet shows it’s not even as bad as it historically has been.
Not everything a shithole like America does dictates what the rest of the world does.
they haven’t sent in the army and killed anyone yet shows it’s not even as bad as it historically has been.
To be worse than Lukashenko is real achivement.
In the future?
Ask any student population in the past who were shot, beaten, tasered, hosed down with water cannons, and jailed what they thought would happen to future protesters.
The shape of silencing unrest, especially anti-war or liberal unrest, hasn’t changed at all. And it will look just the same a decade from now.
If those snipers were to shoot someone, the protests would be twice the size the next day.
Look what happened when Nixon, Reagan and Trump escalated violence in response to protests.
Nixon’s in songs for killiing Ohioans.
From Wiki, sadly: “President Richard Nixon, who is criticized in the song, won a landslide reelection in 1972, which included winning the 1972 United States presidential election in Ohio by a margin of over 21%.”
Nation-level gerrymandering
You can’t gerrymander the presidential election. There are no districts in that election.
You can however influence it with bribes, coercion, and intimidation.
You can’t gerrymander the presidential election.
*in countries where voting for president means voting for president, not voting for someone who maybe will vote for president
There are no districts in that election.
States.
You can however influence it with bribes, coercion, and intimidation.
True.
Yes. That was the election Nixon was actively cheating in, given that the Watergate commission was able to trace it right up to the president.
Yes but it would be nice if the government would listen to us before someone dies.
It would totally be nice. That’s why it’s enshrined in the first amendment that you have the right to petition your representatives for the redress of grievances. Sadly, they do not act on those petitions (Professor Lessig has studies, and crabby calls and letters to your Senator have a net zero effect) which how protests escalate to civil disobedience (to sabotage and eventually civil war).
But it’s interesting how quickly police are turning to anti-riot responses, and our government officials are supporting them. It’s noted in COIN (counter insurgency) that brutality against protests only increases public sympathy and support for the movement (which has been consistent with incidents in the past decade, the US unrest and protests after the killing of George Floyd in 2020 being a run of examples.) I suspect it’s less 4D chess and more like Trump being angry and wishing to assert his authority.
But our officials, the plutocrats they serve and law enforcement all regard the US Public as the enemy, and have been consistent about it since the 9/11 attacks. It’s one of the factors that’s been driving us towards civil war, or the end of our democratic features and one-party autocracy.
This shit has been going on for decades. I went through the Pittsburgh G20 more than a decade ago. Same shit.
No one should allow their children to attend that school. Everyone protesting should unenroll and switch to better school.
Also the administration should be fired and arrested for allowing school shooters on their fucking roof. What the fuck.
They don’t really have say. Blame the state government.
They asked police to come on campus and forcefully end the protests.
You can always count on a demented righty, often an off-duty cop, to show up dressed as a lefty to light a fire, break a window, or shoot someone. That’s why they’re always using that exact accusation against leftists, because they’re actually doing it.
too late
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming
We’re finally on our own
This summer I hear the drumming
Four dead in Ohio
Gotta get down to it, soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been gone long ago
What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?
For those who don’t know it. https://youtu.be/h-w_V0ikniA?si=oacP4alhBgcRGBrq
minus tracking link
Thank you. I am an idiot.
yt’s been sneaky about it lately-- when you copy the link even if it doesn’t show the ?si= part when you copy it can appear when you paste
makes vaguely angry noises Noted for the future.
Thanks! I am 43 and had no idea that Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young had ever collaborated.
Pretty sure Nixon was napping
the land of the free
What? The “land of the free”?
Whoever told you that is your enemyNow something must be done
About vengeance, a badge, and a gun
France?
oui oui
Liberté, égalité, fraternité
This seems so incredibly ill-advised. If students become martyred by trigger-happy snipers, these protests will boil over into open violence. Imagine thousands of videos flooding social media in an instant showing student corpses. I fear that gasoline has been poured and matches are being lit everywhere.
There won’t be any meaningful amount of violence. People in the US are total bitches when it comes to actually fighting the system. At worst, there will be a riot, where the most predominant activity is looting, and then the National Guard will be called in and everyone will roll over like they always do.
To be fair it’s kind of hard to not roll over to the National Guard
I think we could deal with the National Guard if people were motivated enough. Even I’m surprised with the shit some people get their hands on here. There’s plenty of people that treat the Second Amendment like a religion, and plenty of others that love blowing shit up for fun.
Username checks out…
We’ll get some kickass industrial songs about it in 15 years though.
There ain’t gonna be a 15 years from now.
Sir, this ain’t the exciting dystopia, this is the boring dystopia.
Totally not true lol. Jan 6th, LA riots of the 90s, the various riots during the height of BLM movements, Seattle, Unite the Right rally both sides.
People are upset, they cause damage and even sometimes try to assassinate people. The US probably faces more domestic terrorism than most places.
We have a very strong police state
The People didn’t cause damage in Portland as much as the fucking pigs lit fires and defaced buildings to then blame the protestors for it, FYI. Caught on video from multiple angles and everything, yet still nothing in the way of consequences. “Police state”, you say? It’s fascism in a candy wrapper.
Lol okay my point stands people are constantly in the streets fighting.
Fascism is a police state, a police state is fascism.
Why are you fuckin mad? lmfao
People are not “constantly in the streets fighting”, you nonce.
There is also more to “fascism” than simply “police state”.
Are you purposefully stupid, or just lazy? Smart money’s on you thinking your username was spelled with an “e” when it’s correctly spelled with an “a”.
you’re being dumb yes they are we can literally sit here all day and go through different ways people have attempted to resist the government from Waco and MOVE to the many many many many many domestic terrorist attacks. We can talk about civil rights movements from MLK to Black Panthers to BLM. Occupy Wall Street, Unite the Right Rally(counter protestors), numerous school demonstrations from Kent State to walk outs to what’s happening today for Palestine.
They’re always fighting.
What is it with Ohio and murdering college protesters? (See: Kent State)
We should treat them like snipers? ie. We should rush them and neutralise the threat they pose?
Rocket jump up there and disrupt them, that’s your job as a soldier
As a former pyro main: w+m1 with a back burner.
Use jetpack
When you play as pyro, do you get the rainbows and song?
That would be foolhardy: I so want to take this one step further for imaginary karma but don’t want to be on a list
I mean, obviously question: how does one treat them as if they are?
(Make them say the quiet part out loud)
Ideally, countersnipers
If everyone’s a sniper, we’re all safe.
That’s literally how it works, and the Black Panthers proved it a long time ago. The cops stay peaceful when the protesters are heavily armed and heavily organized, because cops are fucking cowards who don’t want an actual fight
Reposting this because it’s relevant here too: A scenario like this is what led to the formation of the Black Panthers during the civil rights era, and subsequently led to gun control laws being started by republicans. During the civil rights protests, people quickly realized that peaceful protests were violently broken. But heavily armed peaceful protests had police nervously watching from across the street.
Because police had no qualms about firing into an unarmed crowd to get people to disperse. But when the entire crowd is armed to the teeth and can immediately return fire, the police are suddenly okay with watching from afar. This was the start of the Black Panthers; a group who organized heavily armed protests.
When conservative lawmakers saw a bunch of heavily armed black people (and allies) on their front steps, and saw the police unwilling to break the protests, those conservative lawmakers got really fucking sweaty. So instead, they gave the police tools to arrest individual protestors. The Mulford Act was drafted and quickly passed. At the time, it was the most restrictive gun control law the country had ever seen. It was written by Ronald Reagan (yes, the same Ronald Reagan that the right uplifts as a paragon of conservative values,) and was supported by the NRA, (yes, the same NRA that lobbies for looser gun control laws in the wakes of school shootings.)
This gave the police the power to arrest individual protestors after the fact. Instead of firing into the crowd to disperse the protest, they would wait for the protest to end, follow the protestors home, then kick in their front doors while they were having dinner with their families. (Remember all of the “don’t bring your cell phone to protests because police will arrest you a week or two later if your phone was pinged nearby” messaging during the pandemic protests? Yeah…)
This led to the Black Panthers diving underground. They realized what was happening after protests, so they took efforts to guard their members’ identities. They pulled tactics straight out of anti-espionage textbooks. Randomized meeting places, so police couldn’t set up stings ahead of time. Code names, so arrested members couldn’t rat even if they wanted to. Fragmented info, so no one person (even the leaders) could take down the entire operation if busted. Coded messages. Dead drops. Et cetera, et cetera…
We’re on a rocket trajectory straight down that same pipeline now.
Yup. I knew all that, but I’m glad to see it posted concisely for people who don’t
The joke was more an extension of the argument ammosexuals like to make about everyone being safer when everyone is armed. A bit of a non-sequitur, but those are nice from time to time.
ammosexuals
Lmao
I don’t know if it would go like that these days. Cops now have equipment to beat a small army. It’s insane that we let it get like this.
We were so innocent back in the day - my bit of activism was protesting campus security getting certified as a police force. Did no good, so now every incident has someone bringing guns and looking to escalate
The US military with the fanciest equipment in existence at the time couldn’t even conquer Vietnamese or Afghan farmers. If protestors took the Black Panther approach and the cops did start shit, the cops would lose.
I strongly disagree that not wanting an actual fight is cowardice. Turning up armed to intimidate unarmed people is cowardice.
Being willing to attack people who can’t or won’t fight back, but being afraid to attack people who will fight back (especially if they will do so effectively), is basically the definition of cowardice
Ah well you should’ve said that to begin with, because I agree with that!
This is what 2nd ammendment absolutists say, but unironically.
They, unironically, are not wrong. The problem is that they are usually on the fascist side, even or especially when they insist otherwise
Counter-“clearly not at all snipers”
Laser pointer into the scope.
How to get easily shot by a sniper who thinks you have a laser scope.
It would have to be coordinated, lots of people from varying angles
Ooh, I like that one
Heavy artillery? FPV drone?
Hell yeah
FPV drone with mine from fields of Ukraine.
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Love how the narrative went from “nah those can’t be snipers definitely spotters” to “snipers are commonplace at big events!” once it was confirmed. Also the fact that only msn and snopes have published anything about this (or is that just a search indexing problem?).
Yeah, that is why it fits here. The response from Americans is depressing.
I think it is a search index issue, I can find a few things on this. The arrests are also a thing.
There is also the wayback machine to watch in real time the changing of story by the school:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240426123527/https://www.thelantern.com/2024/04/university-confirms-there-are-no-snipers-on-the-ohio-unions-roof/
https://www.thelantern.com/2024/04/faculty-speak-out-against-universitys-continued-arrests-of-protesters-on-campus-look-toward-university-president-ted-carter-jr-for-response/
I think those are to protect from psychos that want to kill the protesters.
Think about it, it would be idiotic for any crowd control “measures” and doesn’t make any sense otherwise.
This is fucking cope… I guess you lived in a cave during the BLM protests
Or lived in saner country.
EDIT: for some reason I typed “like was” instead of “lived”
Oh you sweet summer child.
No. The cops ARE the psychos that want to kill the protesters.
Just look at the past century of protests in America and how much “good” cops did vs how many innocents they hurt.
Maybe touch the grass. No, seriously. Break from tankie doomerposting in some insane web bubble.
I am scared to think how you must feel on a day to day basis if you believe they will do what exactly?
It must suck to be you honestly.
Doomerposting is all the rage nowadays but while I acknowledge things aren’t going that great some people take it a lil bit too far. Bordering on mental illness. I blame twitter
Triggered much, kitten? 🤣
lol that’s kinda cute thanks
OK, so lets think this out. These are pointed at the crowd correct so lets assume the threat is from the crowd.
You have some Ne’er-do-well in the crowd who is planing some type of trouble, you notice this person looking “dastardly” from your sniper nest. You radio in and get the go ahead to take the shot with your trusty Remington M700. You shoot centre mass as you have been trained to do and the villain drops like a puppet with its strings cut.
You saved the day right? Oh no that is just the start, since the round fired was a 7.62x51mm NATO (there is no “rubber” round for this firearm) it went straight through the torso of that protester with a box knife and into and then back out of at least a few other people in the dense crowd (must be their fault for not wearing better body armour). The gunshot is still noticed even with the police issued silencer and at seeing the carnage the crowd does what crowds do, they stampede.
After the chaos settles down the body count will be a lot higher then that one person with a box cutter could ever manage (not that you can even say they where going to do anything).
These are not there to protect people, that is not their role, this is not an action movie.
I imagine there are situations where benefits outweigh the risks. Probably not your interestingly creative scenario. But congratulations for your vivid depiction.
The issue is I can not even with my vivid imagination can think of a scenario where shooting into a crowd (where these teams have their rifles pointed) would have benefits that outweigh the risks.
The use for sniper teams on roof tops is in VIP protection (as in fuck all the little guys as long as the important one is safe) and offensive actions.
I don’t need to go back in time by far. Moscow shootings. One or four well positioned snipers could save some lives there.
Probably someone in a car driving over protesters, someone shooting an automatic weapon. Any person or humanoid unleashing high explosive fragmentation devices.
In all these cases the teams would have to reaim outside of the crowd, and also unless they have been given permission to shoot at their discretion (oh please no) they need to call it in. Not really a great solution where the benefits outweigh the risks.
And since no snipers saved the day in Moscow it does not really work as an example of snipers being used to defend a crowd. I also doubt with what we now know about the internal workings of the Russian federation I kinda doubt their snipers would have been fully capable.
And yet they are always present during such events so some people that aren’t random internet experts, like us, must see the benefit.
Your yearning for fitting this into narrative got the better out of you this time around. I blame twitter.
Never had a twat account, sorry. I am more coming at this from a gun nuts thinking, Oh and the complete absence of any evidence of sniper teams being used to save a crowd. But maybe I just am not looking hard enough.
Or you know, like, deterrence.
From protesting or attacking protesters? Its getting hard to tell.
Yes and probably yes. But that answers why they are there.
I think you either overestimate overpenetration at range or underestimate the training a sniper has on that very subject.
As someone who has shot this round, no I don’t think I am overestimating the penetration. Also as it turns out police (I think state troopers in this case) snipers operate at ranges of 100 yards or less according to the police https://www.police1.com/swat/articles/a-first-of-its-kind-effort-describes-police-sniper-use-of-force-engagements-in-us-j7JjrYjYZmPtsoMt/. I know of no way to magic a bullet fired into a crowd to not over penetrate and yes I checked if there was some sort of less lethal or low pen police round (I found none).
Know your target and what is beyond it. This is basic firearm safety, but that seems to not be common in the US of A.
There are a million low pen rounds, they’re called expanding hollow points or fracturing rounds. They are designed to dump all their energy in soft targets, they are ubiquitous in hunting.
(And practically everyone has fired a 308 or equivalent, 300 win mag they are not)
Funny you should compare the round I am assuming they are using (just went with the current most common police rifle) to a 308 but not a 300 win mag. They use both the 308 and the 7.62x51 NATO from what I can look up.
The 7.62x51 nato has more punch then a 308 and a bit less vilocity then a 300 win mag. Now if you where to compare it to a 30-06 or a 7.62x54R then yeah sure. The point is the police are not using anything more fancy then hollowpoint according to what little I can find https://oklahoma.gov/content/dam/ok/en/doc/documents/policy/section-04/040106aa.pdf and I don’t know any even slightly competent shooter (hunters more so) that would take the risk of that hollowpoint stopping at the first target with a 308 or hell even a .223.
I think we are getting lost in the weeds but my point is you don’t set up sniper teams to protect people, you set them up to take people out or intimidate.
You absolutely set up sniper teams to protect people, such as every US president in a long time and most major sports games. Obviously there is a risk in taking someone out like that and that risk is weighed before giving an order to fire. And I’m not comparing 308 to 7.62x51NATO arbitrarily, they are virtually identical rounds like 5.56 and .223
Welp, thankfully you have a very easy way to identify if you’re right or if you’re wrong.
If you wake up tomorrow morning and 24h news cycles are megaphoning the murder of innocent protestors, you were right.
If nothing happens, you’ll learn you were wrong, and hopefully you’ll learn from it.
If nothing happens, you’ll learn you were wrong, and hopefully you’ll learn from it.
How does this make me wrong? All I see is 40ish arrests so far and unless they save the day with some sniper shot my point still stands. I am not sure how you think if the police don’t kill people somehow that is an own. This is not a rational response to a protest unless you are in a place with very poor civil unrest or one that is not very free.
I was unaware 40 protestors have been arrested. nonviolent?
Looks like they just grabbed them. I was reading it might be the biggest mass protester arrest since the Vietnam era, but I am waiting for the final picture.
You saved the day right? Oh no that is just the start, since the round fired was a 7.62x51mm NATO (there is no “rubber” round for this firearm) it went straight through the torso of that protester with a box knife and into and then back out of at least a few other people
High angle means it would likely go into the ground. Also could use hollow point though, I don’t know if police use hollow point on rifles.
They use various soft point rounds (you can’t really use hollow points on high velocity rifles). The rounds are basically hollow points with a plastic ballistic tip.
I would not want to be behind someone shot with a .308 fragmenting round or not.
Here is a video showing the sort of penetration at 100 yards (what distance police snipers shoot from)
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that crowds of people in public venues … draw snipers.
No, not here. Must be an american thing.
Happens here in the uk, used to see them all the time at big events.
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Snipers flock like birds.
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French know how to protest.
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Da fuck? Not a furry. He is wearing the hat Sir Shootsaloot. TF2 is hat simulator, not a furry simulator.
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Halloween magic except Medic which “experimented on his own head”.
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In other parts of the world, snipers would draw in the authorities but I guess in the US they are LEO themselves
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Well yes, I knew that snipers are routinely deployed at large crowds. That is why this is posted here.
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I wanted to find a list where deployed snipers where used to a positive effect in a crowded area. So far no luck…
I could not find many good current reports on deployment in general. Here is some older info (2004) so the number is likely a wee bit higher now.
https://www.policemag.com/special-units/article/15349350/swat-snipers
some bits of note are:
“The ASA study, which is titled “Police Sniper Utilization Report 2005,” revealed that contrary to the old 70-yard myth, the average range at which police snipers engage suspects is actually 51 yards.”
and is funny when combined with:
"The overwhelming majority of SWAT callouts do not result in shots fired by the SWAT team. ASA estimates that there are 10,000 callouts per year. Nationwide for the 20 years included in the study that adds up to about 200,000 deployments. ASA calculates that out of those 200,000 callouts only 172 incidents have ended with a SWAT sniper killing a suspect.
The survey also shows that police snipers don’t always kill suspects that they fire upon, nor do they always intend to. ASA documents 219 SWAT sniper shootings. Of these, it’s known that 104 struck the suspect in the head or neck, 104 in the body, seven in the arm or hand, and two in a leg. The suspect died of his or her wounds in only 172 of these incidents.
ASA notes that even some of the suspects who were shot in the head and neck survived their wounds. However, none of these suspects were shot in the brain or spinal cord. Instead, they were hit in the jaw or mouth."
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Are you saying that it is not dystopic? or it’s not comonplace enough to be boring?
I’m glad we dont have/need (probably can’t afford) that shit where i live.
Do they have them at sports events and carnivals, music festivals and stuff like that too?Removed by mod
That does sound crazy.
I’ll not complain so much about the odd bag checking queue and occasional half hearted patdown/grope we get over here any more.Removed by mod
Can’t wait for a headline about them accidentally shooting an innocent person and then admin goes on the defensive, claiming that the snipers were only doing their job. That, or hush the grieving family by either paying them to shut up or flat out erase them by buying off the police.
Is that bitch wearing a mask to hide their identity?
Maybe pantyhose? Are we sure these are the police? It is getting very hard to tell.
I don’t know why but this amuses me. An amateur can easily hit a target at 200 yards the size of a baseball using a 6.5 Creedmore. These snipers are extremely visible and exposed. I’m guessing an attacker or a mass shooter would probably not be thinking about taking out snipers though.
I think they felt safe and being seen was the point.
True, I guess the point is to make a show of it
They are visible on purpose. They’re there as a message
