CT Elementary School Shooting
- Thread starter Chrissy
- Start date
Guardian said:
Good eye spotting that distinctive stock.
But I found it very hard to make out anything else.
I still find myself not ruling out a shotgun, but if so I think it would be of the semi-automatic variety, with a darn unusual stock, perhaps custom thumbhole stock.
One place advertises these thumbhole stocks for shotguns at
http://boyds.fashionstylist.com/keystone-thumbhole-shotgun-rifle-stocks-18.html
The Rossi Tuffy has similar thumb hole stock grip, but it is single shot .410 guage, and small meant for younger shooters.
http://www.nrainsights.org/bestyear_fs.php
In the attached picture is a pump-action with thumbhole stock, but just change it slightly for semi-automatic version, and I might say it looks somewhat like the one in the video.
Attachments
Thanks guys, based on my limited knowledge (and some searching I did) it looked more like a rifle of some sort. The guy seemed to be holding it on its side and pulling back a loading pin or something like that several times to empty the chamber of any shells (apart from the one that fell out right at the beginning), which would suggest that it wasn't a shotgun, and something more like a rifle or even an ak47. I also think I see something like a magazine or a handle at about 6-7 seconds, which would also tend to rule out a shotgun.
Perceval said:
Had to look at a few photo's elsewhere of guns in general, so it appears to me he was sliding back a fairly short breach, yet it could be a pump breach (he was doing it from above, so hard to tell). The barrel appeared longer than an assault rifle type weapon, it may not be however. The stock is unusual and seems to have, as you indicated, a rear pistol grip (longer than the photo above). It should be noted that some auto shotguns can have magazines, so perhaps an auto assault shotgun can't be ruled out.
One other thing, if he was emptying the chamber of rifle shells, he would first unload the magazine, which it likely would have, he would not need to continue to slide open the breach back and forth, once would be enough (generally), as it would lock open and then you can just look inside. If it was an auto shotgun, the rounds would either be in a magazine (same unloading process as above) or a forward loading tube. As such, an auto shotgun with a forward tube would require racking the breach back and forth to empty the rounds. If it was a pump action with a forward tube and if he was in fact pumping instead of racking the breach, this would be similar to the auto, and it may indicate that either could be an assault type shotguns (long barrel, pistol grip, and similar stock) and the magazine would be parallel with the barrel underneath such as in the photo above. Rifles, to my knowledge, always have magazines (unless single shot), not forward tubes. The video is just so distanced, it is just hard to tell without visually knowing.
I've asked for help from a keener eye and will let you know if something else comes up.
voyageur said:
Ok thanks Voyageur, you hit the nail on the head of what was bothering me with that video! What Voyager observed about emptying the gun of its shells or cartridges by working a lever back and forth: such an action is only necessary IF there is NOT a magazine that can be removed.
This is assuming that is what the guy was indeed doing. Emptying is a reasonable thing for anyone to do when first picking up a firearm.
Typically, if there is a magazine then one removes the magazine, then works the side lever (or bolt, if it is bolt-action), one time to clear a round in the chamber if there is one. This would be true if it was a rifle, or an assault type shotgun that uses a box magazine inserted from below instead of a tube magazine more typical of sport shotguns.
That does not rule out the possibility that before the video starts, he did remove a magazine from below the firearm, and then just worked the lever a few times to make sure he ejected anything in the chamber, even though there was nothing there, and I did not see anything coming out each time the lever was moved.
However, working the side lever back and forth becomes completely necessary if there is a tube magazine, as Voyageur pointed out, which is much more typical in shotguns than rifles, in my experience. The only rifles I can think of with tube magazines are those lever action rifles you usually see in American cowboy movies.
Particularly, a semi-auto shotgun with tube magazine under the barrel has a side lever and you have to use it to eject all of the shells. It is a short action.
If it is a rifle, then maybe it is an unusual rifle, or else that fellow handling it was not ejecting cartridge or shells in the video but doing something else. Like maybe he is just being doubly sure it was empty after having removed the magazine before the video started.
So I looked again at the video and I do not see shells being ejected as he appears to work a side lever, from the top. (or pumping a pump action from the top, a very unusual way to do it). However, at the very beginning of the video clip I do see a large object that appears to fall from the firearm and into the trunk, which made me think we are missing the frames of the video where he possibly ejected more shells/cartridges - assuming there was more than one, of course. Maybe that was simply the one round in the chamber that you would expect from a rifle that had just had its magazine removed before the video clip started, and so we did not see that part of the unloading procedure.
If what fell to the trunk was ammunition from the firearm, because it was visible at that distance, I wondered if it was more likely to be a shotgun shell than a rifle cartridge because shotgun shells tend to be kind of big and blocky (and any color, blue, red, white, etc), whereas rifle cartridges tend to be slimmer and pointy. However even rifle cartridges vary in size quite a lot, and I cannot say if they would typically be smaller than shotgun shells. They do tend to be brass, and so would be more shiny and reflective than a typical shotgun shell, which has small brass part, and the rest is usually plastic these days. So maybe the fact we can see something falling from the firearm to the trunk in this low light situation with flashlights shining at the area is indicative of a more reflective object like a completely metal casing that are typical of rifle cartridges?
One thing bothers me about the beginning of the video that shows something falling from the gun to the trunk, is that it appears to fall from beneath the gun (to my eyes, what do others see here?) rather than from the side, like an ejecting action, which would throw it more to the side of the firearm. I think this behavior would be more likely in cases where a magazine has been removed from the bottom. I cannot see such a thing happening in semi-auto shotguns with tube magazines that have that area closed off except when feeding shells into it (has a spring loaded moveable door on the bottom).
Before doing this thinking I was leaning towards going with the man's actions which seemed typical of unloading a semi-auto shotgun, rather than trying to rely on the appearance of the firearm because it was so hard to see it. However now, I do not know if I can assign any higher probability to either kind of firearm!
Perceval said:
This helps, because it added to the information since it included some crucial bits from the beginning that were missing in the other video. However those crucial beginning bits are before the camera zoomed in! Drat!
Anyway, I saw, or I THINK I saw, the man removing a box-type magazine. When the camera zooms in, I THINK I can see that same box magazine in the trunk. Further, if I am correct at all, then this was a quite a large box magazine. But remember, there are both rifles and shotguns that can have box type magazines.
However, it might still be significant info if it was a shotgun with box type magazine, because it implies a specialized assault/military shotgun and not your run of the mill sports shot gun. I have not been to a gun shop in the USA since about 1993 or so, in Detroit, so maybe even this type of weapon is something you can just buy nowadays. I dunno.
Anyways, in this video I took another look at the ejecting shell/cartridge, and I now think it is more probable it came from the side, not the bottom, for what its worth.
Darn, I really doubt my powers of observation though.
Endura
The Force is Strong With This One
On the last video the vertical box magazine is clearly visible before 1sec and it's HUGE. After a little search on the web my choice goes to this one : a russian-made Saiga-12 shotgun with a 10-round box magazine and long barrel. This site : http://www.saiga-12.com/ describes various versions.Breton said:
It is either semi-auto or full-auto.
Here are videos showing its use : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD0PKDGlwiw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUe4NWiOq5A
[quote author=Endura ]
On the last video the vertical box magazine is clearly visible before 1sec and it's HUGE. After a little search on the web my choice goes to this one : a russian-made Saiga-12 shotgun with a 10-round box magazine and long barrel. This site : http://www.saiga-12.com/ describes various versions.
It is either semi-auto or full-auto.
Here are videos showing its use : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD0PKDGlwiw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUe4NWiOq5A
[/quote]
If it is this feature below his hand (5 o'clock) sitting on the bottom of the truck, it might be a possibility. If it is that type of drum, it seems however rather narrow, not wide like in the Saiga video link; just not sure. Right off the bat though, it seemed one ejected round (shotgun type shell) was flipped out.
Without really good angles or stills, Perceval's reference above to the Benelli M4 or even the M2 is inline with what I can see at the moment.
On the last video the vertical box magazine is clearly visible before 1sec and it's HUGE. After a little search on the web my choice goes to this one : a russian-made Saiga-12 shotgun with a 10-round box magazine and long barrel. This site : http://www.saiga-12.com/ describes various versions.
It is either semi-auto or full-auto.
Here are videos showing its use : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD0PKDGlwiw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUe4NWiOq5A
[/quote]
If it is this feature below his hand (5 o'clock) sitting on the bottom of the truck, it might be a possibility. If it is that type of drum, it seems however rather narrow, not wide like in the Saiga video link; just not sure. Right off the bat though, it seemed one ejected round (shotgun type shell) was flipped out.
Without really good angles or stills, Perceval's reference above to the Benelli M4 or even the M2 is inline with what I can see at the moment.
Endura
The Force is Strong With This One
voyageur said:
If it is this feature below his hand (5 o'clock) sitting on the bottom of the truck, it might be a possibility. If it is that type of drum, it seems however rather narrow, not wide like in the Saiga video link; just not sure. Right off the bat though, it seemed one ejected round (shotgun type shell) was flipped out.
Without really good angles or stills, Perceval's reference above to the Benelli M4 or even the M2 is inline with what I can see at the moment.
[/quote]
I was not thinking to the drum magazine but to the vertical 10-shot magazine which is narrow : http://www.saiga-12.com/prodimages/AGP-S12-MAG.gif
Endura
The Force is Strong With This One
I was not thinking to the drum magazine but to the vertical 10-shot magazine which is narrow : http://www.saiga-12.com/prodimages/AGP-S12-MAG.gifEndura said:voyageur said:
If it is this feature below his hand (5 o'clock) sitting on the bottom of the truck, it might be a possibility. If it is that type of drum, it seems however rather narrow, not wide like in the Saiga video link; just not sure. Right off the bat though, it seemed one ejected round (shotgun type shell) was flipped out.
Without really good angles or stills, Perceval's reference above to the Benelli M4 or even the M2 is inline with what I can see at the moment.
[/quote]
I took 2 snapshots, one for the magazine at the early beginning when it is still on the gun and the other one showing some details of the stock : 2 rectangular holes near the buttplate.
To me the Saiga shotgun with an ATI stock seems to fit quite well :
