cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/11490010
Update, yes there are snipers:
Pictures, Videos, Articles showing just how boring it is to live in a dystopic society, or with signs of a dystopic society.
Rules (Subject to Change)
--Be a Decent Human Being
--Posting news articles: include the source name and exact title from article in your post title
--If a picture is just a screenshot of an article, link the article
--If a video's content isn't clear from title, write a short summary so people know what it's about.
--Posts must have something to do with the topic
--Zero tolerance for Racism/Sexism/Ableism/etc.
--No NSFW content
--Abide by the rules of lemmy.world
The issue is I can not even with my vivid imagination can think of a scenario where shooting into a crowd (where these teams have their rifles pointed) would have benefits that outweigh the risks.
The use for sniper teams on roof tops is in VIP protection (as in fuck all the little guys as long as the important one is safe) and offensive actions.
I don’t need to go back in time by far. Moscow shootings. One or four well positioned snipers could save some lives there.
Probably someone in a car driving over protesters, someone shooting an automatic weapon. Any person or humanoid unleashing high explosive fragmentation devices.
In all these cases the teams would have to reaim outside of the crowd, and also unless they have been given permission to shoot at their discretion (oh please no) they need to call it in. Not really a great solution where the benefits outweigh the risks.
And since no snipers saved the day in Moscow it does not really work as an example of snipers being used to defend a crowd. I also doubt with what we now know about the internal workings of the Russian federation I kinda doubt their snipers would have been fully capable.
And yet they are always present during such events so some people that aren’t random internet experts, like us, must see the benefit.
Your yearning for fitting this into narrative got the better out of you this time around. I blame twitter.
Never had a twat account, sorry. I am more coming at this from a gun nuts thinking, Oh and the complete absence of any evidence of sniper teams being used to save a crowd. But maybe I just am not looking hard enough.
Or you know, like, deterrence.
From protesting or attacking protesters? Its getting hard to tell.
Yes and probably yes. But that answers why they are there.