Use the Trump solution
Arm the bus driver.
Or go with the old stagecoach tradition and have someone ride shotgun.
Over the past 45 days, a mystery sniper has been shooting the windows of 20 charter buses driving Apple staff and other geeks to work in Silicon Valley. The vehicles were shot at on Interstate 280, which runs from San Francisco down into the Valley. The situation has grown so worrisome that Apple has diverted its staff buses …
That's not a little bit misleading, it's grossly misleading.
And using the word Sniper instead of schoolkid or Old Fart also changes the game. Snipers shoot to kill, whereas this is somebody who is just leaves of.
A pellet gun might sting but it certainly won't blow a hole through your average meatbag.
"A pellet gun might sting but it certainly won't blow a hole through your average meatbag."
It might, however cause something more than slight damage to said meatbag's eyeball.
Even a ricochet from an airgun pellet can blind someone. As a relative of mine found when some lads were messing about nearby.
The sooner the plod get this guy(ess) the better.
A pellet gun can easily kill someone. It wont most of the time but a shot to the eye or temple can penetrate the brain. Other 'targets' can cause death through blood loss and I dare say hitting the driver could easily kill all on board and several others too.
I've been shot twice with an air rifle and both wounds (boootock and thigh) were about 1/2 inch deep and this was an old lever action rifle. Fucking hurt getting the pellets out (fortunately I had some dissection equipment around as my parents would have killed me just as much as the friend that shot me. However you can get air guns that run off CO2 that are an order of magnitude more powerful, and if you make your own 'shells' rather than pellets its surprising the damage they can do.
@Tom 7; "A pellet gun can easily kill someone"
Two-year-old boy killed after being shot in head with air gun.
(This is with something that was- presumably- legal in Scotland as well; I've no idea how our laws compare with the US on air/pellet guns, but I'd be gobsmacked if they were weaker).
You need to do a bit more homework.
There are high pressured .35 thru .50 caliber air rifles that can send a pellet with enough force to kill someone up to 200 yrds away. You don't have to 'blow a hole' through someone to kill them.
Do some homework before you post such garbage.
What would happen if they hit the window and cause the driver to swerve ?
You need to do a bit more homework. - Oh really.
"There are high pressured .35 thru .50 caliber air rifles that can send a pellet with enough force to kill
someone up to 200 yrds away. You don't have to 'blow a hole' through someone to kill them."
If you are willing to pay for one of those High Power Pellet Guns , it would make far more sense to buy a cheap Remington and some cheap munition.. Much cheaper, far more accurate and longer distance.. I own several hunting rifles, I know what a 308 can do...
Do some homework before you post such garbage.
Ditto
I don't believe for a moment that the Pellet Kiddy had any intention of causing real damage.
What would happen if they hit the window and cause the driver to swerve .
I could also do that with a brick or a rock dropped from a bridge...
Avec des si on mettrait Paris en bouteille
Well some are not considered firearms, while it may vary by jurisdiction, that usually only applies to air guns with a muzzle velocity below 500fps.
Then on the other end of the scale are things like this
www.airforceairguns.com/The-Texan-by-AirForce-Airguns-s/118.htm
that fire a .45 caliber bullet at 1100fps. That is most definitely a firearm, without the fire.
"Arm the bus driver.
Or go with the old stagecoach tradition and have someone ride shotgun."
Becuase thats really going to make the slightest difference from inside a vehicle so they cant tell and when you dont know where the shooter is.
Not to mention that carrying a firearm increases your risk of dying from one.
You're thinking of ShotSpotter and there isn't a chance they'll put it on 280. ShotSpotter is used in the hood and the hood alone. Now, the Oakland flatlands, I'll bet there's one on every corner.
Come to Chicago. Its not just for the Hood. Its on most of the street corners these days.
Possibly helpful, but not in this particular case.
The device being used here is a pellet gun, not a firearm. A pellet gun uses compressed air, there is no combustion of propellant, there is no ballistic crack (as it leaves the barrel) as it's far less than 1100ft/sec (speed of sound) therefore, no audio signature, to speak of, to be detected. It's about as likely to be detected audibly as someone getting stabbed with a knife.
Um want o try that again. oh and .45 is not a auiet gun and most rounds are under 1,110 fps.
Like getting 2 rifles for the price of one! Includes .177 caliber and .22 caliber barrels. Red fiber optic front sight and green fiber optic rear (fully adjustable). The Beeman 4x32 scope will help get the most accuracy possible from the gun. Everything fits neatly inside the included soft carrying case. Velcro tie-down straps secure the barrels, gun, scope & rings to stop things from shifting during transport.
Max velocity in .177 is 1000 fps, and in .22 it's 830 fps. You could use this rifle for plinking, small game hunting, shooting cans and just plain fun
30 gr (15 g) FMJ, Winchester 835 ft/s (255 m/s) 356 ft⋅lbf (483 J)
165 gr (11 g) Hydra-shok, Federal 1,060 ft/s (320 m/s) 412 ft⋅lbf (559 J)
230 gr (15 g) FMJ, Double Tap 960 ft/s (290 m/s) 471 ft⋅lbf (639 J)
185 gr (12 g) JHP, Underwood 1,100 ft/s (340 m/s) 497 ft⋅lbf
I wonder if the offender has a cell phone on him/her.
If so, it might be easier to collect the IEN numbers of all cell phones within the vicinity of the buses for a couple of weeks. As incidents occur, just run an analysis and see if there are any IEN numbers that are around each bus (but not on the bus) near the time of each incident - license plate readers would also help (and be effective even if the individual doesn't have a cell phone). Big Data is your "friend". Since pellet guns have a very limited range and lose power very rapidly over distance the person is probably close (my guess would almost have to be in a moving car).
My only concern with this is that I would <hope> that LE has to get a warrant that would only allow this data to be collected for a specific period of time (or until the perpetrator is caught).
Shot detection is triangulation.
However it doesn't work or work well in this situation. Depending on the air rifle, getting a sound signature is going to be difficult. On a rifle where the pellet is subsonic there isn't much of a signature.
Even when traveling supersonic the location will be difficult to triangulate.
Plus the stations are static and expensive.
Want to bet that when they catch the guy/gal, the shooter will be a member of Antifa.
Samsung's local executives released a statement denying they had anything to do with the attacks on Apple buses.
"What? Us? Um...no!...I mean seriously....We would never do a thing like that....What?....That rifle in the corner?...I..um...hunt! Yeah, that's it, I'm a hunter!! Grizzly bears! Those things are totally out of control!!"
(Mine is the Kevlar vest sitting on the bus stop bench over there.)
Apple is now publicizing a formerly unreported suit against ammunition manufacturers over trademark and design issues. "Clearly a bullet is literally nothing more than four round corners glued together," said an Apple spokesperson. "However, when we sent out a demand letter requiring infringing parties to surrender their remaining inventory of bullets to our Apple Infringing Hardware Collection Buses, we did not expect at least one party to perform this action ballistically. This is obviously against the spirit of our legal demands."
Seems to fit in the same sort of crazy category with the perfect cretins who shine lasers at cockpits.
And the lack of imagination is ... feeble. If you really want to mark your grievance against Apple buses, wouldn't you knock up a home-made EMP generator? It's a far more interesting way of expressing your hostility: a highly educational, industriously character-building project, including a productive training and learning experience, and it will give you math, design, engineering and electronic assembly skills that can only come in very handy during the next phase of your life as a long-term guest of the local correctional institution.
PS The granny in the photo is going to get a wicked black eye from that 1911 if she pulls the trigger.
Exactly. The cops have zero evidence and this is a desperate tactic.**
On the other hand, I am perversely re-assured that they did NOT claim to have a record on CCTV, which would have been an almost certain outcome in the CCTV-blanketed UK.
**Reminds me of the scene in The Milagro Beanfield War when the local sheriff played by a Ruben Blades is told to find the culprit who shipped a crate of ripe fish to the property developer’s wife as a scare tactic. His response : “What do you want me to do? Check them for fingerprints?”
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