On the one hand, the sick bastard is smart enough to listen to what the police and media are saying and to adapt. For example, when they started talking about "geographic profiling", he broadened his area of operations. For another, when the police pointed out that he wasn't targeting schools, he shot a child.

The author is right that much of what passes for marksmanship in movies is so much bilge. Any time I see some idiot in the movies hold a pistol sideways, I can't help but think, "What a moron."

On the other hand, there's this:
The police haven't been explicit about ranges, but the shooting in the District may have been at a range of about 80 yards and the shooting in Bowie was at 150 yards.

150 yards is hardly a long shot with a rifle, even one as puny as a .223. Like Frank, I was shooting small targets with a .22 rimfire when I was 11 years old. I learned basic "Shooting 101" in the Boy Scouts. Before my eyes went bad when I was 15, I could hit bottlecaps at 50 feet standing up without a brace. It was fun.

In the Army, we routinely shot at targets 300 meters away (330 yards) with the conventional sights on M-16s. I could hit the targets consistently at 200 meters free-standing without a brace. Hitting people at 150 yards is hardly a difficult shot. Bracing against the frame of a vehicle makes it easier. If he has a properly sighted scope on the weapon, it's damn near hard to miss at those ranges.

Overall, I agree with the general gist of the article - this guy, as sick as he is, isn't anything special from a marksmanship perspective. His choice of weapons and the type of shots he's taking strongly suggests he isn't some highly skilled sniper. No, he's just some sick bastard that needs to be stopped, preferably in a hail of gunfire.