He could have been aiming for the skull for all we know. He could have been aiming for the chest. Hell, he could have been aiming for someone behind Kirk.
In my nonprofessional opinion, that is crappy aim. I can hit an apple from 100 yards away, with a black powder rifle, with an unriffled bore, with iron sights, standing up, repeatedly. I would expect a modern rifle with a riffled bore and a scope and a larger target to be much more accurate from a prone position.
The shooter had 1 target, and he delivered a 100% kill shot.
You could say "it wasn't impressive", but you can't say it was crap...
It was crap. I highly doubt the neck was the target. If the head was the target, then the same distance but in another direction, would have missed.
Regardless, it's still sad that someone died, especially in this manner (regardless of politics).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pmteh_NChOQ
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrackingPoint
Between that and cheap quadcopter drones, I expect political assassinations to skyrocket in the future.
So this is a outlier only in that someone was equipped and trained to a fairly serious degree. Someone on the order of a squad designated marksman (SDM) is certainly capable of this. The US military has a few thousand active duty personal trained to that level across the several branches, and there are 10's of thousands of veterans. There are also many SWAT and other LEOs and an uncountable number of enthusiasts and serious hunters with sufficient training and weapons.
Anyway, the point is that it's really not a difficult shot at all, and only requires very rudimentary training that is readily available to anyone who can make a few trips to the range.
At say 3000fps velocity, time to target is less than 450ms.
This is almost point and shoot. It’s entirely possible someone fairly untrained just aimed at the forehead and ended up with neck
No serious training or equipment would be required for this close of a shot. I've taken deer over 200 yards away with my $500 rifle, no training other than shooting on and off since I was a kid.
I've killed deer beyond 200 yards sitting on a stump with a cheap rifle, it's not actually that hard if you've shot a bit before. The nerves though... you're right there, I couldn't imagine.
High pressure.
Under pressure, a poorly trained person is unlikely to be capable of this. It takes some degree of training to simultaneously deal with this pressure and still perform.
Yes, this is the level of training I imagine as sufficient. A match applies pressure: you're on a clock, there is an audience, you have a safety regime and people scrutinizing you on it, and at the end, there is a score. I don't claim Fort Benning sniper school is necessary. Only that you likely can't just wander out of a gun shop with your scoped deer rifle at any price and snipe targets at range under pressure: there is more to it than the weapon.
> Combat trained random people are probably more common than you think.
I listed a wide variety of people with the training I believe is sufficient.
Training.