Right, I have a feeling that the “spotting” thing and the “not snipers” is the university using some sort of literal definition to dodge the facts that there was a man with a rifle and scope on their roofs.
I don’t agree with it, and as I said in the other threads (or maybe it was here, they’re starting to blur), I don’t think the police are even trained properly enough to handle traffic stops, let alone a rifle at a protest in a university. But I don’t know how to reconcile the, very real threat based on rising tensions, and other terrorist attacks, that someone could walk into one of these protests and hurt a lot of people.
How do we prevent this from happening.
One person suggested that this is a systemic issue, that these attacks (both from outside and from inside from other americans) are solved with better living conditions, better mental health care, better health care period, etc. etc. That happy people don’t do this stuff. But the fact is, that number is falling and very quickly and our only plan (in the states) is apparently to have a fucking sniper on a roof.
This is sickness manifest.
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
My understanding of the original comment was that it was a marksman/spotter. Those are two people who work in tandem to perform a function.
The spotter looks at the larger picture, usually with some kind of binocular or similar, looking for threats and scanning a large area. Their other function is to protect the marksman. So if a threat (or anything really) approaches their position, the marksman can continue to focus on their job, while the spotter defends their position.
The marksman is simply just a sniper. It’s a fancy name for a sniper.
They deploy like this in pretty much every operation. Two man teams. The spotter providing protection and support for the marksman, and the marksman executing the mission.
I feel like people missed that, or maybe I misunderstood the poster? IDK.
Killing people is bad.
FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 8 months ago
A needless inaccurate distinction obscuring what it really is, it is a sniper. It is not normal. These crowds existed before the snipers arrived and will exist long after the protests end.
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
I’m not trying to obfuscate anything. The job title of a “sniper” is “marksman”.
A marksman is basically a highly accurate Rifleman which is a type of infantry.
This is all military shit.
“Sniper” is just a more commonly used term for a marksman, but they’re exactly the same thing.
The only point to my comment is that you seemed to think that the commenter saying it was a marksman meant it wasn’t a sniper. They’re literally the same job.
M0oP0o@mander.xyz 8 months ago
Are they also not the students from the school? So they would have been on campus but not all in one place anyway.
FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 8 months ago
Again with pointless and needless distinctions that attempt to lessen the sin being committed.