Would you agree with it, if it resulted in the removal of evil people from society? May be a court has decided in their absence that they are guilty, but unreachable by normal means.
Although we in the US signed the Geneva Codes, we do not participate fully. Snipers, Chem./Bio./Nucl. weapons, and also disrupting Citizen life are quite common tactics. The first two are obvious, but we are known to destabilize the economies of enemy territories, then rebuild. Snipers are pretty much trained assassins. If you qualify with your service rifle at Expert Marksman, you are offered the position. Some can hit a target from about 2 miles out, with 85% or better accuracy. Which is quite intimidating.
I never thought about snipers, i guess you could call them legal assassins in war time, but would a government openly admit to using assassination as a means of fulfilling a courts decision when war has not been declared?
decantemix, Do you have documentation to back up this claim, or know when it was implemented? The reason I ask is because I qualified well up in the expert catagory, in the top .1% of over 1100 trainees at my Army post. I was not offered, nor sought, sniper duty. There are Army snipers, of course, but they do not act as 'assassins', as in assassinating foreign political figures. Such activities, if true, would fall under CIA or similar control. I have no knowledge of such CIA assassination attempts. Do you have references?
You tawlkin 'bout a legal hit. Scrub. It happens. But, not court ordained. Statistics show of all homicides involving weapons, about 40% are justified. Most prominent case was a father whose son was abused. When the media was trying to interview the perpetrator at an airport, the father popped up on screen, pulled a pistol, and shot him. Resulting in a fatality. The father was never charged. I doubt it would ever be court ordained, but there's acceptance as to someone's motives. A tipping of the scales, so to speak.
Also quite nonsense. Unless you really mean "a target" (large wooden structure with a series of circles on it) as opposed to "the target" (human being).
Why ashamed? if your country has the death sentence and is sure that this person is evil (responsible for deaths), then why should this person be allowed to escape justice by running to a seemingly safe haven. I can see problems if every country did the same thing, as one country may view this person as a hero, even if the two countries were not at war.
Apologies, got my miles, kilometers conjobled (now I need to work for NASA): www globalsecurity org/military/systems/ground/m107.htm On goarmy dot com, if you do a search for snipers, you see they are actually quite common. Training may have changed, but I distinctly recall when asked to join that certain skills would qualify you for what disciplines were needed at the time. I'm sure with demand these days being computer related, it may have changed. But, I do know at the range I watched two guys qualify for sniper duty. And, one of them was interested.
And you also got the percentages wrong. The longest-ranged sniper kill is currently credited to Canadian Corporal Rob Furlong (appropriately enough Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!) at 2.4 km. Further checking shows that he killed his target with the third round = 33% accuracy. 85% accuracy at extreme range with a non-guided weapon is something only dreamt of (by all militaries).
I read about a (smart bullet) that is on the drawing board, no idea how it works. A kill from 2.4 km, some shot, the guy must have had to point his gun at the moon.
There are steerable 40mm rounds available now IIRC, from Bofors, but the technology is still in its infancy. Very expensive. I think they dropped steerable rounds in favour of AHEAD (pre-fragmented, multiple hits from one shot). But that's not completely feasible in a man-portable weapon and isn't "precise", which a sniper should be.
i dont agree with the death penalty, i think that to many mistakes can be made, but some people need to be killed. ashamed i am of myself i think we should kill people who rape children, the reason i say that is, they are more than likely adults and will die when they are ready top, but chidlren live with it for the rest of they're lives.
I have a list of crimes that deserve the death penalty. Genocide. Mass murder 1st degree murder Child rape Other.
If your reason for disagreeing with the death penalty is becaue of too many mistakes, why do you think no mistakes can be made in child rape cases? Children can be easily manipulated by the police or by the prosecutors (even if they don't intend to do it) to accuse the wrong man. Personally, I think we should execute people the moment that they're convicted in court. Just take 'em out behind the courthouse and shoot 'em. Sure, we might make a few mistakes, but we'll get rid of a helluva lot of vicious criminals. As for assassinations ...I think if someone wants to do it, they should just go ahead and do it. Besides, what's to stop them? ...some silly law that says assassination is wrong?? ...LOL! Baron Max
With modern techniques dna, finger printing etc i think it would be a rarity for a mistake to be made now, and i agree with getting the sentence over quickly, unless there is a marginal jury decision.
Just to clarify, from the site I gave: "The M107 .50-caliber long range rifle is semi-automatic and is being fielded to infantry soldiers. It can engage targets to 2,000 meters with precision. " ..with precision... which indicates reliability. Heard some time ago the CIA had a round that could hit a target in California, from New York State, before the shooters finger left the trigger. And the smart bullet you're are speaking of is an explosive round. Saw a show on Discovery about it. It is computer controlled. When the shooter selects a target via screen, the bullet is programmed to fire at, and explode in the vicinity of the target. Quite deadly.
