seriously, seriously, just how in hell do you know what a lunatic, a general lunatic no less, would or wouldn’t do?
seriously, seriously, just how in hell do you know what a lunatic, a general lunatic no less, would or wouldn’t do?[/quote]
Just a hunch.
Depends on the handgun. A 10cm group at 25m is fairly typical of anything halfway decent. A good barrel on a T/C Contender will easily shoot 10cm at 100m. OTOH I was lucky to hit a 30cm target at 7m with a derringer I once owned.
The AP has reported that a “homemade gun” was used. Has there been any evidence of this in the Taiwan media? Did the recovered bullets have rifling marks on them or not?
Obviously he did not shoot accurately or Chen would be dead.
If he wasn’t a lunatic then he would be a loose end and would be sleeping with the fishes.
I think with this kind of round and a “Saturday Night Special” the effective accurate range would be 30-40 feet max.
Keep in mind the “Contender” barrels are a specialty item meant for long range hunting/plinking/target shooting with a high velocity shell…Freehanded groups of 10cm at 100meters are for a very special elite, and not possible for us laymen. Groups of 10cm at 25 meters with a fixed sight handgun are also just fantasy for anyone who doesn’t spend a good part of his every waking moment on the shooting range. I own some pretty accurate handguns, (Ruger Security six .357, Browning 9mm Hi power, and a 50’s vintage Colt woodsman .22) and have been shooting since the age of 8, and could never do that kind of grouping consistantly…Maybe I’m just a lousy shot…
Throw in the adrenaline, the type of gun and lack of time for a fixed shooting position, my humble opinion goes for a distance of perhaps 10 meters or even less. Considering the circumstances, the guy was a pretty fair shot to even hit the jeep, let alone wing the President in the stomach…
Yes - over and over again. And that the two bullets were made of different materials (one brass, one lead), and that they weren’t deformed after impact. Would a bullet (lead or brass, homemade or otherwise) still be pointed after going at an angle through a car windscreen? This is not a rhetorical question - I am just asking.
Does anybody know which of the brass and lead bullets is supposed to have gone through the windscreen and which bullet is supposed to have hit which one of Chen and Lu? I understand the bullet (if any) that hit Lu should be the one that went through the windscreen, and the one that hit Chen was fired from the open kerb side of the car - allegedly.
p.s. The consipiracy thread is [b][url=Pan-Blue Conspiracy Theories, E-mail Rumors & Hoaxes
p.p.s. My A-Bian-supporting girlfriend is currently backing the election-gambling-related gangster as the most likely culprit.
The bullet that is allegedly supposed to have hit Chen, if any, could be lead or brass, depending on whichever makes it look less plausible. Not to mention if it was actually fired from a gun, or if there was a gun, or a maniac, or a car, or Tainan city, or if Chen and Lu were even there. Perhaps the “projectile” perhaps hitting Lu could perhaps be one of those too, if it in fact exists, apparantly.
daltongang wrote:
sticks of fury replied:
The same sort of hunch that the Blues have that the election was rigged, unfair, and that “democracy is dead”?
Until investigations are completed, very little beyond common sense speculation can be made.
I think, following this reasoning, it is easy to say that with all the firecrackers going off (unbelievably loud), the smoke, the distractions of well-wishers, an apparent homemade gun (no one said the shells or bullets were homemade), a moving target, the need to conceal the weapon during the act, and lastly, the fact that the window of opportunity for the shooter to have a clear shot was very small (a couple of seconds as the vehicles passes) make the case for something less than a precision “hit.”
Factor in the nervousness that must have accompanied the act (remember, this is not some Hollywood cool-as-a-cucumber contract man) and it was amazing that the president was even hit at all.
I don’t understand the Blue protesters; the Chen administration has said from day one that all stops would be pulled out to find the shooter, but the Blues call for an independant investigation. Does anyone with even half a brain think that the government would say, “Ah hell, let’s just drop it. Whatever, pass the betelnut”?
I saw on the news that in order for the shooter to be that accurate with a hand-made gun, he would have had to have been within 10 meters of the president.
BTW: Anybody see Dongsen TV news today? Somebody did an experiment on a windshield identical to the one on Chen’s Jeep to see if it was possible for the bullet to scoot off to the right and hit Lu (as Chen’s team says is the case). Experts say with the minimal glass breakage on the windshield it would have been made by an extremely fast-moving bullet. But the experiments with fast-moving bullets showed that regardless of where the gunmen stood (front or side), the bullet always went back and up, not sideways, and certainly not a sharp right-turn and down. Hmmmm…
No, silly. The blues think it was a conspiracy and want to prove it on their own. I don’t think they think the greens are actually going to stop their “investigation.”
[quote=“Michael J Botti”]I think with this kind of round and a “Saturday Night Special” the effective accurate range would be 30-40 feet max.
Keep in mind the “Contender” barrels are a specialty item meant for long range hunting/plinking/target shooting with a high velocity shell…[/quote]
Sorry, I got carried away there – I was giving examples of what’s possible with handguns, not what is likely to have been used. A T/C Contender is an unlikely assassination weapon, at least in this case.
You said it, not me. 
Nah, I can’t do anywhere nearly that well either. Oh well. But I know plenty of shooters who can get those 10cm @ 25m groups.
I would bet that the shooter(s) was(were) near the front of the crowds along the parade route. How wide was the street, how far back were the crowds being kept, and where was the jeep on the road? Figure out the angle of the shot, do a little trig, and I’d bet that that would be the distance.
Yes - over and over again. And that the two bullets were made of different materials (one brass, one lead), and that they weren’t deformed after impact. Would a bullet (lead or brass, homemade or otherwise) still be pointed after going at an angle through a car windscreen? This is not a rhetorical question - I am just asking.[/quote]
Deformed – “it depends”. A jacketed bullet would stand up to a windshield better than a lead bullet. Neither of them would necessarily be seriously deformed after hitting soft tissue. The hardness of the lead bullet (really lead alloy) would make a difference, too. This is a fancy and longwinded way of saying “I don’t have any idea.” Sorry.
How do they know it was a homemade gun, though? No rifling marks on the bullets? If that’s the case, then the bullets might have been tumbling as they hit, whatever they hit – so all bets are off for how a bullet might have bounced off that windshield.
A couple of years ago, I was shooting SS109 ammunition (heavy, long military bullet) out of my .223 T/C Contender carbine (designed for ammunition with light, short hunting bullets). The SS109 bullets were impacting sideways on the target at 50 yards because the rifling couldn’t stabilize them. The group size was “all over the paper”, probably a good six inches at 50 yards – this from a rifle that normally grouped about an inch at 100 yards, with appropriate ammunition.
(The T/C Contender carbine is the same as the aforementioned handgun, but with a longer barrel and a buttstock.)
tcarms.com/
Sorry, I’m a Contender fanatic. :lovestruck:
with all the uncertainty of sending bullets flying around, or the difficulty of making a fake shooting look convincing, why fake wounds for both Chen and Lu? Surely Chen would have been enough.
If the experiments of the Taiwanese polling stations are as good as their exit poll teckniques, then dongshen is not quite likely to be spot on. 
Sounds to me like the Chen administration has hired some of the world’s top experts to investigate the shooting. Will the pan-Blues accept the results? Or is the US forensics team part of the conspiracy?
[quote]U.S. Forensics Team Probes Taiwan Shooting
March 29, 2004
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) – A U.S. forensics team led by an expert who investigated John F. Kennedy’s assassination began its probe Monday into the election eve shooting of Taiwanese leader Chen Shui-bian. . .
The team leader, Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, suggest the conspiracy theories that Chen faked the shooting seemed unlikely. The bullet left a 4 1/2-inch gash under Chen’s navel. "Looking at this wound, it is consistent with a gunshot wound,’’ said Wecht, who also helped investigate the death of former Federal Bureau of Prisons intern Chandra Levy, and consulted on high-profile cases ranging from the Kennedy assassinations to the death of Elvis Presley. The team, invited by Taiwan’s government, also includes Taiwanese-American forensics expert Henry Lee, who has investigated several prominent cases including those of O.J. Simpson and JonBenet Ramsey. . .[/quote]
nytimes.com/aponline/interna … ction.html
[quote=“scooter”]Experts say with the minimal glass breakage on the windshield it would have been made by an extremely fast-moving bullet. But the experiments with fast-moving bullets showed that regardless of where the gunmen stood (front or side), the bullet always went back and up, not sideways, and certainly not a sharp right-turn and down.
[ad infinitum]
[/quote]
Would these be the same “experts” that say there’s no global warming? That the theory of evolution is wrong? That the Holocaust never happened?
You can always find (i.e., hire) an “expert” that’ll back up any agenda you have.
What’s really scary about this thread is not the amateur sleuthing and speculation of some posters but the seeming detail that others go into with regard to ballistics, firearms etc. If they are professionals in the field, fine but if they are lay people…scary. What’s so good and ‘big’ about being knowledgable about Guns ‘n’ Ammo? I am happily ignorant of such stuff and grateful that the society I grew up in doesn’t worship these repugnant items. People that harp on about this gun type and that bullet type etc. disguised as intellectual discourse are just showing off in a mis-directed quasi-macho way. Guns…heap of shit. Societies that allow guns…bigger heaps of shit.
that’s just your own hangup that anyone who knows anything about guns is some macho barbarian.
there’s nothing wrong with being happily ignorant when it comes to guns, but frankly, there’s not much you can contribute to a discussion on the forensic details of a shooting if you think knowledge of ballistics is “scary”.
[quote=“Flipper”]that’s just your own hangup that anyone who knows anything about guns is some macho barbarian.
there’s nothing wrong with being happily ignorant when it comes to guns, but frankly, there’s not much you can contribute to a discussion on the forensic details of a shooting if you think knowledge of ballistics is “scary”.[/quote]
Maybe it is just my own hang up. So what. 
I find non forensics experts having a discussion on ballistics to be pathetic. Go and become a forensic expert if you like it so much. :snore: There’s not much you can contribute to a discussion on ballistics either without being an expert or a member of the NRA ( :wanker: ).
BroonAle,
Do they have this obscure sport colloquially known as “hunting” over in Ireland, or are you just an ignorant city boy?