Check out this story in today’s Oregonian about some kid in Hillsboro who went mental and pointed a gun at a cop during a traffic stop. He was shot by that cop, regrettably but rightfully so.

Excerpt from the article; bold text is mine:

HILLSBORO — Washington County sheriff’s investigators say a 14-year-old boy who was shot by a deputy had taken his father’s high-velocity semiautomatic rifle out of an unlocked gun safe, loaded it with steel-cased, full metal jacket bullets and sped off in the family car late Monday after everyone else was in bed. . . . Scruggs did not fire his rifle, but O’Connell said it was loaded with ammunition that would “easily pierce a police vest.” Thompson added that such a round fired from a high-velocity SKS “would go through a car. O’Connell said Scruggs and his father had gone target shooting with the weapon in the past week. ”

Let’s break down some of the language here:

The article describes the SKS as a “High-velocity semiautomatic rifle“. An interesting description. In another, more accurate description, the SKS is a carbine firing an intermediate-strength round.

Describing the rounds as “steel cased“, while meant by the writer I think to impart that those rounds mean business, actually means that they are cheap plinking ammo, likely Wolf brand (among the cheapest, since they use steel cases instead of brass). This seems likely since the story mentions that the kid and his father had recently gone target shooting.

“Full metal jacket” is the basic, default style of bullet used by the countries who are signatories to the Hague Convention, which, among other things, bans the military use of expanding ammunition. It would be worth noting the bullet type only if the kid had something different than a full metal jacket. This is why the CEO uses hollowpoints when he is out wacking evil zombie spuds: they’re much more destructive than full metal jacket rounds.

Any bullet fired by any centerfire rifle on the rack at Big-5 would “easily pierce a police vest” or “go through a car“.

I’ll give the writer the benefit of the doubt and assume she is not some knee-jerk antigun nut. In fact, it may be safe to assume that the writer knows and cares little about about guns or this gun in particular and is just parroting quotes from the the police spokesman in her story. So why would the cops be trying so hard to demonize this specific gun and kid? What might the Washington County Sheriffs Dept be feeling a little sensitive about? What might make them feel the need to play up the amount of danger in the already dangerous situation, perhaps to then justify pumping some number of rounds into the suspect? Oh yeah:

Monday night’s incident was the third in the past five months in which Washington County sheriff’s deputies shot someone. Lukus Glenn, 18, died Sept. 16 after two deputies shot him eight times when he threatened them, himself and his family with a knife outside his Tigard home. Jordan Case, 20, died Oct. 21 after a sheriff’s deputy shot him when he broke into a neighbor’s Tualatin apartment, then ran to a patrol car and tried to grab a gun.

This one at least looks pretty justified, but come on guys, you’re trying too hard here. It sounds like the facts are on your side here, so spare us the hyperbole: playing up the situation makes it look like you’ve got something to hide. . .