Purported Murder Weapon Found in Woods

ATF issues statement about weapon. FBI posts photo of suspect

Steven Crowder just posted the following.

I wonder to whom the ATF will trace the “older model imported Mauser .30-06.” It seems to me it should be easy to trace such a weapon to its importer and dealer.

The “.30-06 caliber” refers to a cartridge and rifle developed by the Springfield Armory in 1906 using a Mauser bolt, developed by the German weapon designer, Paul Mauser, in 1898.

If, as some media reports have suggested, the weapon found in the woods is a German Mauser military rifle from the World War II era—suggesting an allusion to the German Wehrmacht of the Third Reich—the caliber is NOT at .30-06, but an 8mm Mauser. The cartridges are very similar but NOT the same.

Many military and hunting rifles chambered for the .30-06 caliber use a Mauser bolt, and Mauser also makes hunting rifles in the .30-06 caliber.

A Mauser 98 .30-06 Springfield

However, that the weapon purportedly used is “an older imported Mauser .30-06 caliber bolt action rifle wrapped in a towel in a wooded area near the campus” makes me wonder if the weapon is a red herring, planted in the woods in advance of the shooting.

The FBI has published the following photograph of the “person of interest” with a request for public assistance and $100,000 reward.

Tough to say from the grainy photographs that present little means of judging scale, but it appears to be slender, delicately built young man, perhaps in his early twenties.