Monday, December 10, 2007

Checking Out in Omaha

A Russian SKS (Samozaryadnyj Karabin Simonova) military assault rifle of the type used by the Omaha shooter. Press reports say the former state ward and mental patient also had two thirty round magazines in his possession. This is what an on-line gun directory enthusiastically says about the weapon: "Being a sound, but outdated military design, SKS is a great all-around civilian arm, capable of numerous functions: small and even a medium game hunting, plinking, home defense. Wide variety of aftermarket accessories (stocks, sight mounts, sights,large-capacity magazines, bipods etc etc) only helped to keep this neat gun on the market...for civilian use it's still hard to beat, especially when it comes to the cost/effectiveness issues." The description fails to mention the semi-automatic weapon's usefulness for inflicting multiple human casualties in a short span of time.