When criminals commit crimes with firearms and police chiefs or their spokesman talk to the media they love to suggest that the criminal’s weapon was especially deadly.Today, such an event happened in Miami when a gunman wearing camouflage invaded the Miami Herald. Whatever the issues were they somehow got resolved as the gunman, a cartoonist and former employee of the paper surrendered to police.
At a press conference, the Miami police chief, John Timoney said the gunman carried "some kind of automatic machine pistol" with 30 rounds of ammunition. That’s vague enough to send reporters off to new adventures in sensationalizing their story like wildfire.
Is there not one officer in that town with enough knowledge to identify the make and model and caliber of the firearm in question? It’s not very difficult for a knowledgeable person to quickly determine if the firearm was really fully automatic as suggested. By the time the media learns the skinny on this firearm the story will no longer be newsworthy.
That begs yet another question that the reporter never even asked, was this gun even real? Most reporters don't have a clue about firearms so they report whatever vague information they get as fact.
Oh, that picture above is only a very convincing replica of a genuine, HK-MP5 fully automatic pistol. It does fire little plastic pellets.
I doubt very much that the gunman really had an automatic machine pistol. Cops don't come accross those things too often.
An update! How'd I guess?
Of course, the fact that it was a realistic looking toy will be used by the police and politicians to ban such toys...
ReplyDeleteI have seen police officers that did not know how to work the charging handle of an AR-15 or drop the magazine out of a 10/22 rifle. Most cops only know the weapon that was issued to them. Beyond that they know nothing. It is really sad and I believe that the police should recieve some kind of training to deal with all sorts of firearms that they may come across.
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