I was standing on the corner of 320th Street and First Avenue in Federal Way, waving a campaign sign last year, when a police officer walked over and introduced himself.
The officer was a sniper with an infantry unit in Iraq. I will not use his name because I have heard terrorists have been known to track certain personnel that served in the war on terror. Additionally, anything an officer says publicly is scrutinized by the department.
I recently saw the officer in front of his house and asked him what kind of rifle he used for sniper duty. He used the M24 — a Remington 700 in .308. The Remington 700s were popular hunting rifles in the early 1960s when Marine snipers like Carlos Hathcock started ordering them to counter snipers killing U.S. troops in Vietnam.
Introduced in 1988 as the Army’s designated sniper weapon system, the M24 is a bolt-action rifle. After World War II, most army snipers used scoped regular-issue rifles with match-grade barrels. These were often M1 Garands in 30.06 and M14 rifles in .308.
The bolt-action M24 is difficult to load quickly for close-quarter combat situations that can develop suddenly in Iraq and Afghanistan, so the M14 (aka M21) sniper rifle is making a comeback; i.e., the semi-automatic .308 standard issue that soldiers used during the Vietnam War.
When I have participated in shooting activities like 600 yard CMP practice at the Paul Bunyan Club in Puyallup, I found that many of the riflemen (and women) shot the same weapons discussed above. I started out with an M1 Garand with a match barrel that the club lent to me and eventually started shooting a semi-automatic version of the smaller caliber M16 (sometimes referred to as an AR15). The M16 is the weapon that most U.S. soldiers carry today.
I have heard that many more officers across the country now carry while off duty. Officers that used to only wear their weapons at work until a few years ago are purchasing additional personal weapons. More officers are also encouraging their wives, husbands and children to learn gun-handling skills. But local officers don’t talk “on the record” about such matters — especially when they know that what they tell me can end up in The Mirror!
I am still looking for verification as to whether officers keep AR15 rifles in their personal vehicles while off-duty. Increasing threats to law enforcement officers, their families and the public make it feel like we are headed into rough waters.
Recently, Seattle and Federal Way experienced officer-involved shootings. An assailant can run up and kill an officer with a knife or other deadly weapon from 21 feet before an officer can react. Trained officers make sure that assailants can’t close that gap.
Most officers appreciate trained citizens who take the trouble to wear a weapon responsibly. They can’t always say it publicly, but we should let our officers in Federal Way know that we appreciate the tough circumstances they confront every day.
