Don't have to be a trained sniper to be an excellent shot . . . back in the day I could hit a 9" plate at 600 yards with a cold barrel every time using my '53 Argentine model K98 large ring and I never served.
Well, the coward didn't stay anonymous for long . . . seems his roommate was the one who turned him in and he's now in custody with charges pending. 22 year old useful idiot . . .
Dad convinced him to turn himself in and enlisted the help of a family friend, a minister and US Marshall, to make it happen. The roommate provided communications over Discord where the coward said they needed to retrieve the rifle from the "drop point" and referencing the engravings and the uniqueness of the rifle.
I'm seeing NBC "News" is reporting that the "authorities" are concerned that the rifle used is "hard to trace" given its age and likely history that predates all of the "gun control" laws passed since 1968.
To my ear, that translates as they wouldn't be able to find a record of the rifle being purchased anywhere, so they wouldn't be able to attach it to an individual, even though there isn't supposed to be a "gun registry" on anyone's books, not even the federal government's. And they're right, there are millions of rifles, shotguns, and handguns that have been in families for generations that aren't on any of the lists they have that they aren't supposed to be keeping anyway.
There are likely millions more that have been stolen or "lost" over the years that even if they could find a record of one or more sales in their "gun registry" that they aren't supposed to be keeping, and wouldn't help them in the slightest with regards to who committed the crime using that firearm.
The background checks are supposed to be a step to insure that the person purchasing a firearm isn't prohibited from doing so, not to create a list of who owns what firearm, which it appears is the main point of concern from the NBC "News" article.
