Wisdom Of Crowds
By Mitch Berg
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Media is identifying this as the LAX shooter’s rifle.
What is it? The long bare snout looks like an M1 Carbine that my Dad carried in Korea:
. But it has a pistol grip the M1 didn’t have.
The body looks like wood, which nobody uses for modern assault rifles, they’re all black plastic, and the receiver is the same size as the fore-grip.
It doesn’t have the huge carrying handle of an AR-15 or a rail to attach scopes, etc.
Weird. What is it?
Joe Doakes
I’m gonna place it as a “Tacti-Cool” modified Ruger Mini-14. In its original form, it’s one of the most popular working guns in rural America…
…an excellent varmint gun, built on the legendary M-1 Garand operating system (which was adopted by the M-14 service rifle – hence the name “Mini-14” – it’s basically an M-14 chambered for 5.56x45mm (like the AR-15/M-16/M-4 series) instead of the much more powerful 7.62x51mm round.
With some “tacti-cool” accessories added – as not a few police departments have done – it does a passable “assault rifle” impression:
That’d be my guess.
Any other takers?
Speaking of the LAX shooting – how about the absolute dearth of details about the alleged shooter?
November 4th, 2013 at 7:20 am
Kinda wondering why we haven’t heard much about the shooter?
Another person with mental illness legally buying a gun?
Hhhmmm…. No mention on how the NICS system needs some improvement and better participation from the states.
November 4th, 2013 at 7:44 am
“…dearth of details…”
The only stuff I saw on Twitter over the weekend is that the shooter has ‘anti-government’ views. As one wag noted – ‘anti-government views’ is broad enough to be used to describe the Democrat Dominated Media Culture when there is a Republican Administration in the White House.
November 4th, 2013 at 7:57 am
I violated my own rule, by talking about a shooting incident based on early reports. My bad. Later media reports claim it’s a Smith & Wesson .223 and say the guy had 5 extra magazines giving him 150 rounds total, so it’s apparently a model that takes 30-round mags. I still can’t find anything that looks like the photo – there’s a slot in the butt-stock that doesn’t show up on S&W’s website and the receiver doesn’t look right.
November 4th, 2013 at 8:15 am
Gee, if the guy was mad at the TSA he is only one of many millions! Are we going to confiscate guns from all of them?
November 4th, 2013 at 9:05 am
I can’t remember where, but someone was reporting that the guy was more or less in the “black helicopters” crowd. If so, I wonder if people at the NSA are being chewed out for not picking it out. Maybe Ed Snowden can help us!
November 4th, 2013 at 11:59 am
So a mentally ill guy moves from NJ to CA, gets a gun and goes on a rampage.
One problem, “assault weapons” are illegal in both NJ and CA. And he’s too young to be grandfathered in either state. So how’d he get it if it’s illegal in both states? You mean he might have committed a crime getting that gun?
The “assault weapons ban” in CA and NJ work about as well as Healthcare.gov. Just another reminder than when you need something to work, government is not to be used as a template.
November 4th, 2013 at 12:23 pm
A guy on the radio the other night said it’s “interesting” that his name is “CIA ‘n CIA”.
November 5th, 2013 at 12:35 pm
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-lax-shooting-gunman-rifle-20131104,0,2649122.story#axzz2jnT5aKHm