Say Anything Blog

Buried underneath the horrific senselessness of this entire, hideous episode is one little thing that isn’t clicking.

We have the report that the shooter, who we now know was Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was armed with two handguns when he started his murderous rampage and managed to kill 12 and wound another 31 before he was engaged and neutralized by responding police. Initial reports said that he was killed but this morning I’m reading that he’s alive and on a ventilator. Too bad.

That aside, here’s what’s sticking in my craw: I’ve been a professional with a handgun for many years and have trained extensively with them. I am telling you right now that one shooter with two handguns would have to be an amazing shot and an extremely cool hand to reap that kind of damage on running, fleeing targets.

Let’s do some math. Let’s assume that the handguns were 9mm semi-automatics. Most carry magazines with a maximum capacity of anywhere from 10 to 13 rounds. Let’s say that he hit a moving target with every fourth round (it’s not as easy as you think, especially in an environment where the targets are running and screaming and the shooter’s adrenaline is pumping wildly. Anyone out there who has trained with handguns knows what I mean) He would have had to have been carrying at least ten fully loaded magazines to have accomplished what he did, and would have probably had to have fired about 140 rounds. If he wasn’t carrying that many magazines, he would have had to go through the laborious and time consuming process of feeding rounds one by one into the empties, then resume his shooting.

Taking into account the reload time and the fact that very few amateurs - and yes, I know, he was a soldier but he wasn’t in combat arms, he was a psychiatrist and most likely had never been tactically trained (going to the range to meet minimum qualification scores once a year does not a tactically trained professional make) - could keep their cool well enough while reloading to make it a smooth process, I’d have to draw one of three conclusions.

1. This guy was incredibly lucky (from his point of view) and was able to engage his targets in a “fish in a barrel” scenario. I doubt this. Young soldiers aren’t likey to stand around and wait to be shot.

2. This guy was much, much better trained than his background would lead us to believe.

3. There was no way one shooter and one shooter only was involved and the military and feds aren’t telling the whole story yet. I hate conspiracy theories, but take note that as on the time of this piece I haven’t seen one interview with any of the witnesses or victims and by now we would usually have everyone from mom and dad to Aunt Sally in Maine having microphones shoved in their faces.

I was suspicious of the one-shooter-two-handguns thing when the information about the number of casualties began to come out yesterday. No matter how I ran it through my head, it just didn’t make sense. I waited until this morning to express this point of view, hoping that there would be some answers but so far I don’t see any.

One shooter, two handguns? Maybe. I’m not saying it’s impossible. I am, however, saying it’s unlikely to the point of being improbable. 

Hopefully, I’m wrong.

UPDATE:

New reports are now coming in from witnesss that say Hasan was cool and collected when he opened fire:

The Army psychiatrist suspected of being the lone gunman in a horrific massacre at Fort Hood in Texas took a “very calm and measured approach” to carrying out the mass shooting, the commanding general said Friday.

Survivors of the rampage that killed 13 and wounded 30 said the suspect, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, shouted “Allahu Akbar!” — “God is great!” in Arabic — before opening fire, base commander Lt. Gen. Robert Cone said.

[...]

Cone said witnesses spoke of the methodical way Hasan conducted the rampage. About 500 soldiers were lined up to get shots and eye-testing at a Soldier Readiness Center when gunfire erupted.

That goes back to the “fish in a barrel” theory, although I still firmly believe he would have had to have gotten some additional training somewhere to make this happen in this way.