Rule Four
Be sure of your target and what’s behind it:
Fort Worth police today confirmed that preliminary ballistics tests show a stray bullet that hit a woman at Texas Motor Speedway came from a rifle shot by a 49-year-old Benbrook man.
[…]
Mr. Jaramillo told police he was target shooting five miles away from Texas Motor Speedway between 10 and 11 a.m. Mr. Jaramillo fired five or six rounds at a berm, a mound of dirt, with his .50-caliber Vulcan single shot rifle.
Adequate backstops too.
November 7th, 2008 at 9:44 am
five miles? C’mon!
November 7th, 2008 at 10:44 am
In addition to the new AWB, expect the libtards to put all .50 BMG on NFA…
November 7th, 2008 at 10:59 am
There’s no way the bullet traveled 5 miles and killed someone…
is there?
November 7th, 2008 at 11:01 am
The shot did not kill her. And 22LR can travel up to two miles.
November 7th, 2008 at 11:11 am
*sigh*.
I’ll be watching the chatter on this. If it turns bad, or the word “fifty” pops into a democrat’s mouth, I’ll immediately start the ordering process on something like a Ferret or BOHICA upper.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
This sort of thing has happened before, of course. I recall an incident from my youth. Charges were filed in this case, but I can’t find the results of the trial: (note the antigun description of an AK as high powered, a typical antigun exaggeration in the media, even back in the 1980’s)
STRAY BULLET BLAMED IN GIRL`S DEATH POLICE QUESTION MAN WHO FIRED AT TARGET RANGE
DAVID PERLMUTT And GARY L. WRIGHT, Staff Writers
Police say a stray bullet, fired from a high-powered rifle a half-mile away, apparently killed a 6-year-old York County girl Sunday in the Carowinds wave pool.
Late Monday, police were questioning a Mecklenburg County man who said he was target practicing in a nearby clearing at the time of the shootings.
Police confiscated a Russian-made, semi-automatic AK47 rifle.
They believe the killing of Michele Ann Sexton and wounding of 6-year-old
Ahesha Rollins of Charlotte…
Published on 1987-06-09, Page 1A, Charlotte Observer, (NC)
November 7th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Google-fu: the incident in the comment above was resolved as follows: a guilty plea to possession of an illegal machine gun (in exchange for dropping many other charges) led one man to testify against two others also charged in the death of the child and wounding of the other. A civil trial followed, also.
CIVIL TRIAL OPENS IN GUN DEATH AT CAROWINDS POOL
NANCY WEBB, Staff Writer
Sheletha Rollins vividly remembers the day her daughter was shot in the Carowinds wave pool.
She took the stand in Mecklenburg civil court Monday, testifying in a wrongful death suit filed by the parents of another victim, Michele Ann Sexton, a 16-year-old killed in June 1987 when a stray bullet pierced her chest while she was in Carowinds` Ocean Island wave pool.
Michele`s parents sued Crescent Land & Timber Corp., owner of the nearby property where…
Published on 1991-07-16, Page 2B, Charlotte Observer, (NC)
3. MAN TO PLEAD GUILTY IN CAROWINDS WEAPONS CASE
TEX O`NEILL, Staff Writer
Charles Hepburn Kupfer Jr., one of three men indicted in connection with the June 7 shootings at Carowinds south of Charlotte, has agreed to plead
guilty to possessing an illegally made machine gun.
According to a plea agreement filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Charlotte, the government intends to drop two charges against Kupfer – transporting an unregistered machine gun across state lines and possessing an unregistered machine gun – in exchange for the…
Published on 1987-09-15, Page 1B, Charlotte Observer, (NC)
In summary: shooting like an idiot with an unregistered machine gun near an amusement park is stupid and you will be charged and convicted for the problems you cause.
November 7th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
The end of the case is described here: 5 years each.
2 RECEIVE PRISON TERMS ON WEAPONS CHARGES
TEX O`NEILL, Staff Writer
Two Charlotte men who had pleaded guilty to federal weapons charges stemming from the June 7 shooting death of a S.C. teenager at Carowinds were sentenced to five years in prison Tuesday.
Gerald Turner, 30, and James Bogatay Jr., 32, each had pleaded guilty to charges of illegally making a machine gun, possessing an illegally made machine gun and possessing an unregistered machine gun.
U.S. District Judge Robert Potter also sentenced a third defendant, Charles Kupfer…
Published on 1987-11-11, Page 1B, Charlotte Observer, (NC)
Some years later, when the Assault Weapons Ban came up, the victims’ parents were interviewed: I am not going to pay to read the entire article, but here is the lead:
STUPIDITY KILLED MY DAUGHTER DAN HUNTLEY, Staff Writer
Once, the first week of June was Jean Sexton’s favorite time of the year – the mornings still cool with the dew of spring, the giddy schoolchildren slipping barefoot into summer.
June 7, 1987, was such a day. Sexton’s 16-year-old daughter, Michele, packed a cooler of soft drinks and headed to Carowinds to swim with her boyfriend, Rex Freeman, and 1,000 others. At 3:45 p.m., Rex heard a sliver of copper the size of a stubby pencil go by his ear. He thought it was a…
Published on 1994-06-02, Page 1A, Charlotte Observer, NC)
November 7th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Two men were given five year sentences. While I won’t pay to read the whole article, the excerpt below is from the time the Assault Weapons Ban was under consideration in 1994, 7 years after the death. So you can expect the same press treatment of the .50 accidental shooting when the next AWB comes up.
STUPIDITY KILLED MY DAUGHTER DAN HUNTLEY, Staff Writer
Once, the first week of June was Jean Sexton’s favorite time of the year – the mornings still cool with the dew of spring, the giddy schoolchildren slipping barefoot into summer.
June 7, 1987, was such a day. Sexton’s 16-year-old daughter, Michele, packed a cooler of soft drinks and headed to Carowinds to swim with her boyfriend, Rex Freeman, and 1,000 others. At 3:45 p.m., Rex heard a sliver of copper the size of a stubby pencil go by his ear. He thought it was a…
Published on 1994-06-02, Page 1A, Charlotte Observer, The (NC)
November 7th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
“And 22LR can travel up to two miles.”
Not if you shoot it parallel to a fairly flat surface it won’t.
I’d love to know the difference in elevation between his firing position and the spot his ended up.
He was either firing off the top of a large hill, or shooting up into the air.
A ricochet could have deflected the shot up into the air, but would it have gone 5 miles after that?
November 7th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I call BS.
Shooting a 50 into the ground is going to shatter the bullet. Get some scientists on this one ASAP to prove it! The guy, if free, really needs to do that, otherwise should he face charges he’s going up against the liberal medias best congregation, the unthinking propaganda swilling dupes who rely on emotion not intelligence.
November 7th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Using Modern Ballistics…
Using the 800 grain Barnes VLD Borerider bullet with a BC of 1.18 and a MV of 2700 fps, elevation of 1000 feet, temperature of 59 F:
The departure angle would be nearly 30 (26.98) degrees from the horizontal.
The terminal velocity would be about 375 fps.
He didn’t hit the backstop.
November 7th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Per DA Pamphlet 385-63, Range Safety, the max distance for the Surface Danger Zone (SDZ) when firing .50 cal M2 ball ammo is 6,500m. (Pg 175, Table B-1)
5 miles is roughly 8,000m
However, max distance on the SDZ for Saboted Light Armor Piercing (SLAP) ammo ranges from 8,700-9,745m, depending on altitude.
So…either it wasn’t his bullet, or homeboy was firing rounds that are either considerably faster or ballistically slicker than M2 ball. Even then, to go that far, he’d almost have to be firing up into the air at close to the optimum ballistic angle.
November 7th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
An ND at port arms angle would do it.
November 7th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Vulcan .50, huh? I bet it’s one I considered buying some months ago that was for sale in a shop nearby there.
Rabbit.
November 8th, 2008 at 3:15 am
five miles? C’mon! must have been on airliner duty.