Apparently, over at MSNBC, they’re now saying that the shooter’s weapon may actually be a Kalashnikov AK-74, a Soviet assault rifle. If so, all of this talk about .223 rounds has been mistaken. It fires a slightly smaller caliber bullet. It’s 5.45 mm, which would be .215. It would be easy to mistake the size if one weren’t careful with the calipers, and were looking for a .22.

It would also be a much less ubiquitous weapon. There’s only one problem with this theory. It’s not possible for anyone to be shooting people with such a gun in this country, because it’s a fully-automatic weapon, and thus is illegal here.

Just kidding…

Seriously, it sounds like a good weapon of choice for a criminal, or more specifically, a Middle Eastern terrorist. After all, they’re new to this country, and can’t be expected to know the law…

Actually, now that I think about it, I’m curious to go back and look at some of Osama’s home movies to see what kind of gun he was using as his theatrical prop.

And as always, perhaps out of continuing misplaced political correctness, the investigators are still unwilling to even discuss the possibility of terrorists.

[More thoughts, a few minutes later]

Supposedly they were clued in by a witness, but it seems unlikely to me that a witness would be able to tell the difference between an AK-74 and and AK-47 from a distance, even if he was familiar with both weapons.

But if he reported an AK-47 (a very common street weapon in the district), then they might have gone back and remeasured the rounds, and verified that it was in fact a 5.45 mm, rather than the assumed .223. Bingo.

[Update on Thursday morning]

Jim Henley says that the police are now saying that the witness “deliberately misled” them.