Florida school shooter’s AR-15 may have jammed, saving lives, report says - Sensationalist Headlines

[quote]Nikolas Cruz’s semiautomatic rifle may have jammed during the massacre at a high school in Parkland earlier this month, according to Miami Herald news partner CBS4. Cruz then dropped the AR-15 and fled with other students, CBS4 reporter Jim DeFede tweeted Tuesday afternoon, citing three sources familiar with the investigation. [b]Cruz still had 150 rounds of ammunition[/b] — meaning many more people could have died had he been able to keep firing. [b]A source not authorized to speak on the record confirmed to the Herald that Cruz struggled with his gun during the onslaught, either due to the weapon jamming or because he fumbled trying to reload it.[/b] Several state legislators who visited the school with crime-scene investigators said they learned from police that Cruz’s rifle was not top-of-the-line, perhaps explaining the malfunction. The “weapon and bullets were not high quality and were breaking apart,” one of the legislators, state Sen. Lauren Book, D-Plantation, told the Herald. [b]Cruz went in with only 10-round magazines because larger clips would not fit in his duffel bag, Book said.[/b] Seventeen people died in Cruz’s attack. Another 15 were wounded. It could have been far worse had he continued firing: Before the weapon jammed, the 19-year-old tried to shoot out a third-floor window in the freshman building of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School so he could spray bullets onto helpless students and staff below. But the hurricane-impact glass did not break. Michael Limatola, a weapons expert and consultant based in New Jersey, said jamming is a weakness of rifles like the one Cruz used. They “are prone to this type of problem if not cleaned thoroughly,” he said. Sen. Marco Rubio had hinted last week that Cruz’s weapon malfunctioned.[/quote] [url]http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article202486304.html[/url]

This is honestly scarier in my opinion if it's true. Had his initial plan all went how he wished the death toll could have easily multiplied by a significant amount. Especially if that hurricane glass broke, could've been like Vegas all over again with his huge supply of ammo.

Surplus ammo maybe? (@ the ammo was breaking apart bit) Surplus ammo is known for being closer to "dirt in a tube" than a proper round and is basically about the shittiest, most liable to break your gun, cheepo "worse than walmart" ammo around.

[QUOTE=TheMrFailz;53173113]Surplus ammo maybe? (@ the ammo was breaking apart bit) Surplus ammo is known for being closer to "dirt in a tube" than a proper round and is basically about the shittiest, most liable to break your gun, cheepo "worse than walmart" ammo around.[/QUOTE] Bad ammo, improperly seated magazine, obstructoins in the magazine well, under-lubricated, over lubricated. I've never used an AR-15 but if it's as much internally as it is externally alike to the M4, it's a reliable platform but with more strict tolerances than other rifles. Speculation aside, thank goodness he was forced to stop shooting.

Only 10 round mags. There goes any legit argument for full capacity magazine bans.

That could've been much worse with how much ammo he still had left. Thank fuck he didn't know how to use or maintain his rifle.

[QUOTE=Ridge;53173164]Only 10 round mags. There goes any legit argument for full capacity magazine bans.[/QUOTE] Because this one instance means that no one would use a larger mag to mow down people But what fun is there in making sense?

[QUOTE=spazthemax;53173179]Because this one instance means that no one would use a larger mag to mow down people But what fun is there in making sense?[/QUOTE] What is a high capacity magazine ban doing to stop actual killers? Clearly as this is the worst school shooting in history it would have done nothing here. So what is the efficacy of the method your proposing? We need real sensible gun legislation, tailored around proper and thorough background checks. A gun registry, high capacity bans, "assault" style weapon bans, they're all feel good fluff and don't address the core issues. With guns being so proliferated you have to look at the practical and real options. Not bandaids. Not kicking the can down the road. The democrats have failed to allow decent legislation to pass in favour of these methods. It leaves an issue that is polarizing to be poorly communicated by each side. But the fear mongering that is the base of democratic rhetoric is useless

[QUOTE=spazthemax;53173179]Because this one instance means that no one would use a larger mag to mow down people But what fun is there in making sense?[/QUOTE] Well that fact that 17 people still died, despite him using magazines that comply with restrictions in every state except New York, as well as Canada, shows that the capacity of the magazines a shooter has is of little relevance to how many people they can kill, which is something people opposed to banning magazines based on capacity have been saying all along.

[QUOTE=spazthemax;53173179]Because this one instance means that no one would use a larger mag to mow down people But what fun is there in making sense?[/QUOTE] While I don't want to do this right now: Everyone who said a "large capacity magazine" ban would have saved lives was wrong. He already had used small capacity magazines, banning "large capacity magazines" wouldn't have done squat in this instance. It wasn't laws or police that stopped him, it was his own incompetence. We should learn from our mistakes because we cannot rely on another's incompetence to save us. Police need to be better trained in active shooter scenarios, and we need to rectify the flaw in our purchasing system that let a man who dealt with the police 39 times buy a weapon; and the failure of the FBI that allowed him to kill with it.

[QUOTE=Ridge;53173164]Only 10 round mags. There goes any legit argument for full capacity magazine bans.[/QUOTE] Some areas are proposing seven round limits, now. Ten is clearly too high. (/s)

[QUOTE=Hilton;53173092]This is honestly scarier in my opinion if it's true. Had his initial plan all went how he wished the death toll could have easily multiplied by a significant amount. Especially if that hurricane glass broke, could've been like Vegas all over again with his huge supply of ammo.[/QUOTE] It's important to remember that if most shooter's/mass killer's plans went accordingly, more people would die. However, most mass killers fit the form of not being the type to competently plan and execute such a large scale operation in secrecy. For instance, the Columbine perpetrators had intended for 3 large propane bombs to go off during lunch in their school cafeteria, which failed for an unknown reason.

[QUOTE=Zombinie;53173212]Some areas are proposing seven round limits, now. Ten is clearly too high. (/s)[/QUOTE] New York's law was originally going to be 7 rounds. They wanted 5, but decided on 7 so as not to scare off the gun manufacturers in New York that made 1911 pistols (7 round magazines). They decided you could have 10 round magazines, but were only allowed to load 7 rounds. I hear the NY Supreme Court smacked that down on the basis of being stupid.

[QUOTE=Raidyr;53173133]Bad ammo, improperly seated magazine, obstructoins in the magazine well, under-lubricated, over lubricated. I've never used an AR-15 but if it's as much internally as it is externally alike to the M4, it's a reliable platform but with more strict tolerances than other rifles. Speculation aside, thank goodness he was forced to stop shooting.[/QUOTE] It’s basically the same thing. If you’ve taken apart the bolt carrier group on the M4 platform you can do the same thing on an AR-15. Only difference is the fire selector. Also, the shooter missed the first critical step of AR15 maintenance, smash the fucking butt stock or magazine on something to clear the jam.

[QUOTE=Ridge;53173331]New York's law was originally going to be 7 rounds. They wanted 5, but decided on 7 so as not to scare off the gun manufacturers in New York that made 1911 pistols (7 round magazines). They decided you could have 10 round magazines, but were only allowed to load 7 rounds. I hear the NY Supreme Court smacked that down on the basis of being stupid.[/QUOTE] Curios, how would they classify the bullet already in the chamber?

[QUOTE=Megadave;53173347]Curios, how would they classify the bullet already in the chamber?[/QUOTE] "Why would it matter if you keep bullets in your chamber? We're talking about bullets in your gun, not in your house"

[QUOTE=Ridge;53173164]Only 10 round mags. There goes any legit argument for full capacity magazine bans.[/QUOTE] I don't support magazine capacity bans but because someone killed [x] people with low capacity magazines doesn't mean he couldn't have killed [y] people with regular or high capacity magazines.

[QUOTE=Raidyr;53173377]I don't support magazine capacity bans but because someone killed [x] people with low capacity magazines doesn't mean he couldn't have killed [y] people with regular or high capacity magazines.[/QUOTE] Not Really. He had 150 spread across 15 mags instead of 150 rounds spread across 5. As he was not in a fire fight he basically had the advantage of being able to take as much time as he needed to reload. Reloading, even if you're a bumbling idiot, takes at most 5 seconds unless you have your mags stored in some god aweful way. 30rd mags offer an advantage in a fire fight, where the difference between 2 seconds can mean the other guys head is down or he's up and shooting at you. When you're not being shot at, there's really no practical difference.

[QUOTE=Ridge;53173164]Only 10 round mags. There goes any legit argument for full capacity magazine bans.[/QUOTE] Magazine capacity limits aren't supposed to stop mass shootings, they're supposed to make it more difficult for a shooter to cause casualties. If he fumbled a reload or the gun jammed up as a result of improperly loaded magazines, that is a direct result of the fact that he had to reload more often and/or properly load more magazines. Given 30+ magazine capacity, he may have very well killed even more people. Try again.

[QUOTE=CG-105;53173513]Magazine capacity limits aren't supposed to stop mass shootings, they're supposed to make it more difficult for a shooter to cause casualties. If he fumbled a reload or the gun jammed up as a result of improperly loaded magazines, that is a direct result of the fact that he had to reload more often and/or properly load more magazines. Given 30+ magazine capacity, he may have very well killed even more people. Try again.[/QUOTE] Look, I get it, it seems obvious and from a glance you think you know what you're talking about, but take it from people with hands on experience: it really doesn't work that way. If you re-ran the scenario but gave Cruz a single shot rifle with a pocket full of loose rounds he'd probably have killed roughly the same number or [I]more.[/I] Like Jimmema said, reload times only impact a shooter's efficacy when he's under fire. When your targets can't do anything but sit still and hope you don't pick them, it doesn't matter how long it takes you to load the gun. Cruz was an inexperienced shooter firing in anger and delirium. Forcing him to be more methodical would make it worse. I'm not going to call you dumb or insult you because I really do get why it would seem to make sense but it just doesn't work that way in practice.

It also has to be mentioned that in states with magazine bans like California and Colorado, you still had the shooters of San Bernardino and Aurora respectively, using high-capacity magazines. It isn't exactly hard for criminals to just get the high-capacity magazines despite the banning of them in a state.

[QUOTE=InvaderNouga;53173338]It’s basically the same thing. If you’ve taken apart the bolt carrier group on the M4 platform you can do the same thing on an AR-15. Only difference is the fire selector. Also, the shooter missed the first critical step of AR15 maintenance, smash the fucking butt stock or magazine on something to clear the jam.[/QUOTE] SPORTS Or Smack, Rack, tap, bang.

[QUOTE=UncleJimmema;53173432]Not Really. He had 150 spread across 15 mags instead of 150 rounds spread across 5. As he was not in a fire fight he basically had the advantage of being able to take as much time as he needed to reload. Reloading, even if you're a bumbling idiot, takes at most 5 seconds unless you have your mags stored in some god aweful way. 30rd mags offer an advantage in a fire fight, where the difference between 2 seconds can mean the other guys head is down or he's up and shooting at you. When you're not being shot at, there's really no practical difference.[/QUOTE] You say not really but this reads like you are agreeing with me? My point is that there is no practical difference between low capacity and high capacity magazines because the killing potential of someone armed with either can and has varied dramatically.

[QUOTE=Grenadiac;53173520]Look, I get it, it seems obvious and from a glance you think you know what you're talking about, but take it from people with hands on experience: it really doesn't work that way. If you re-ran the scenario but gave Cruz a single shot rifle with a pocket full of loose rounds he'd probably have killed roughly the same number or [I]more.[/I] [/QUOTE] I don't even pretend to have your high speed low drag operator level mastery of firearms so could you please elaborate for us non-gun peasants how you come to this conclusion? Could the Las Vegas shooter have had more causalities if he had a Mosin Nagant with a sticky bolt and a bag of surplus stripper clips?

[QUOTE=nox;53173553]I don't even pretend to have your high speed low drag operator level mastery of firearms so could you please elaborate for us non-gun peasants how you come to this conclusion? Could the Las Vegas shooter have had more causalities if he had a Mosin Nagant with a sticky bolt and a bag of surplus stripper clips?[/QUOTE] It's in the second part of my post - the part you cut out? The LV shooter could probably have scored a lot more actual hits if he'd been aiming between shots and it would've taken a lot longer to find him. I don't think at his range the open sights on the Mosin would be useful, but with optics probably. It's hard to say in his case. Spraying is uniquely effective when you have a height advantage and you're firing into a gigantic crowd like he was. In general rapid fire is more useful for causing panic and suppressing a target than for scoring reliable hits, but the crowd in the Vegas scenario was huge and it's kind of hard to talk hypotheticals in this case.

[QUOTE=Grenadiac;53173555]It's in the second part of my post - the part you cut out? The LV shooter could probably have scored a lot more actual hits if he'd been aiming between shots and it would've taken a lot longer to find him. I don't think at his range the open sights on the Mosin would be useful, but with optics probably. It's hard to say in his case. Spraying is uniquely effective when you have a height advantage and you're firing into a gigantic crowd like he was. In general rapid fire is more useful for causing panic and suppressing a target than for scoring reliable hits, but the crowd in the Vegas scenario was huge and it's kind of hard to talk hypotheticals in this case.[/QUOTE] In your earlier post your argument is that reload time doesn't matter when your target is defenseless, but I'd say that's not the case, your time is going to run out and first responders are going to catch up sooner or later so with something like a single shot rifle you'd be pretty limited to how much damage you could inflict compared to a semi-auto, I fail to see how this could be otherwise. As for the LV shooter with a Nagant hypothetical, I'd have to wonder if it's even be likely that someone could line up 90 or so shots with a bolt action in the time the whole thing went down.

[QUOTE=nox;53173573]In your earlier post your argument is that reload time doesn't matter when your target is defenseless, but I'd say that's not the case, your time is going to run out and first responders are going to catch up sooner or later so with something like a single shot rifle you'd be pretty limited to how much damage you could inflict compared to a semi-auto. As for the LV shooter with a Nagant hypothetical, I'd have to wonder if it's even be possible to line up 90 shots in the time the whole thing went down.[/QUOTE] Depends. He only fired for 10 minutes, but it took them an hour to find him after he stopped shooting. That's a big gap. A Mosin? Maybe not. A better rifle like an Enfield or Kar98? That's more realistic. Anyway, if you just fire 30 rounds into a classroom and move on (which was evidently Cruz's method), your casualty rate is going to be lower than if you walked in and individually shot every person in the room. You know the knife sprees in China? You tend to envision someone running around frantically chopping with a knife, but really they're moving from person to person stabbing each of them methodically. That's why they easily rack up huge casualties. If you applied the same methodology with a firearm you could potentially guarantee more deaths than a knife would be capable of.

[QUOTE=Grenadiac;53173520]Look, I get it, it seems obvious and from a glance you think you know what you're talking about, but take it from people with hands on experience: it really doesn't work that way. If you re-ran the scenario but gave Cruz a single shot rifle with a pocket full of loose rounds he'd probably have killed roughly the same number or [I]more.[/I] Like Jimmema said, reload times only impact a shooter's efficacy when he's under fire. When your targets can't do anything but sit still and hope you don't pick them, it doesn't matter how long it takes you to load the gun. Cruz was an inexperienced shooter firing in anger and delirium. Forcing him to be more methodical would make it worse. I'm not going to call you dumb or insult you because I really do get why it would seem to make sense but it just doesn't work that way in practice.[/QUOTE] Yeah I've never been in a combat situation, but I get out to the range at least a few times a year. I've jammed up a rifle due to improperly seated rounds even in those ideal conditions. How does Cruz's inexperience and emotional state make it [I]easier[/I] for him to repeatedly perform a methodical action? I understand what you're saying if he was shooting at mostly stationary targets, but do we know that was the case? It sounds like he was roaming the halls, shooting anyone unlucky enough to be in the way. If his targets were scattering, every second he spent reloading mattered. If the police hadn't waited to go in, those seconds would've mattered even more. How does it not strengthen the argument for magazine capacity limitations if he had to stop killing people because he fucked up a reload? The article makes it sound like the poor condition of his gun and ammo are more to blame for the jam than anything to do with his magazines anyway, and I appreciate you taking the time to explain the counterpoint without insulting me, but I just don't see how Ridge here can rule out magazine capacity as a factor given the information available at this point.

The slower rate of fire afforded by a bolt action rifle would force him to slow down and shoot only when he's got something in his sights - rather than mashing the trigger and sweeping the muzzle across the targets, expecting to hit at least a few per magazine. I think if he were going from person to person with a bolt action rifle he would miss a lot less, and such a gun isn't as likely to bind up and misfeed. The reason I'm discussing this at all is because it's a good way to talk about how semi automatic rifles are not just across-the-board better. They have a sense of ease about them that tends to make shooters sloppy. In this kind of situation, that is arguably better than if they were forced to be slow and methodical. I don't really have the heart to look into the specifics of the shooting, so I'm not sure if information is available about how he picked his targets. But I think it's easy to see how while it's intuitive to think a semi automatic rifle would be even deadlier across the board than a "simple" gun like dad's Kar98, that's not always the case. In this case, it wasn't. He lacked the calmness to reliably operate a semi automatic.

[QUOTE=Grenadiac;53173520]Look, I get it, it seems obvious and from a glance you think you know what you're talking about, but take it from people with hands on experience: it really doesn't work that way. If you re-ran the scenario but gave Cruz a single shot rifle with a pocket full of loose rounds he'd probably have killed roughly the same number or [I]more.[/I] Like Jimmema said, reload times only impact a shooter's efficacy when he's under fire. When your targets can't do anything but sit still and hope you don't pick them, it doesn't matter how long it takes you to load the gun. Cruz was an inexperienced shooter firing in anger and delirium. Forcing him to be more methodical would make it worse. I'm not going to call you dumb or insult you because I really do get why it would seem to make sense but it just doesn't work that way in practice.[/QUOTE] So what if Cruz had not fled and instead gotten into a shootout with the police (which apparently would've happened if the police sitting outside had instead elected to go in)? Surely him having 10rd magazines would've helped then. While I do agree that banning high capacity mags and other feel-good measures won't do much to stop shootings, even your own argument supports the ban.