Not So Heavily Armed

My fellow denizens of the Twin Cities we may be having a guest from Wisconsin in the near future (heck, he could already be here). The dude, who goes by the name Eric “Buck” Hall, is a recently released felon who stole a truck with a couple of guns in it:

On Saturday in the same county, Hall allegedly stole two vehicles, with one of them containing a scoped rifle with hundreds of rounds of ammunition and a pump-action shotgun. The weapons have yet to be recovered.

On Sunday, Hall is suspected of stealing yet another vehicle in New Auburn, Wis., this one a tan 2000 Chevy Silverado pickup truck owned by a volunteer firefighter. That vehicle remains missing.

Hall is described as 5 feet 10 inches tall, 170 to 190 pounds, with blue eyes. He has numerous tattoos, wears glasses and has a goatee and beard.

The truck has Wisconsin license plate JE7691. It has several pink and hunting-themed stickers, as well as emergency lighting and siren.

Anyone with information about this case is urged to call the Chippewa County Sheriff’s Office at 1-715-726-7714.

OK, now that the public service announcement is out of the way I do want to point out the phrasing of the article. It states that Hall is heavily armed:

you-keep-using-that-word

A scoped rifle and a pump-action shotgun aren't things to laugh at but I don't think possessing them really qualify as heavily armed either. In my book heavily armed implies the ability to lay down sustained fire for an extended period of time. Doing this generally relies more on the accessories than the weapon. Unless Hall has a good number of magazines and the scoped rifle is a magazine fed weapon I don't think he's that heavily armed. If he only has one or two magazines or the rifle is a bolt-action then he can't really sustain firing for very long before he has to open a box of ammo and insert rounds into the gun's magazine(s).

Again, neither weapon mentioned in the article are something I'd sneer at. But I think saying he's armed would be more accurate than heavily armed. Anyways if you see this bloke steer clear of him, it sounds like he may have a few screws loose (oh, and if you're anti-gun you might want to put one of those "guns banned here" signs around your neck so Hall can't shoot you).