The assassination Of United Health Care CEO Brian Thompson in New York City is, by now, common knowledge.

With relatively clear photos of the killer’s face out there, I’ll focus this brief article on the killer’s handgun. A relatively clear video of the attack is available in this New York Post article.  

Police believe the shooter used a B&T Station Six, known in Great Britain as a Welrod pistol, according to police sources. The gun doesn't have a silencer but does have a long barrel that enables the 9 mm to fire a nearly silent shot. The gun requires manually cycling ammunition from the magazine.

That media account is wrong. The Station Six-9 is a suppressed pistol.  But did the shooter use a Station Six-9? Suppressors—there is no such thing as a “silencer”—merely mute gunshots, reducing the decibel levels such that they’re not damaging—or at least less damaging--to hearing. 

Brugger & Thomet is a Swiss company that makes a variety of guns, many machine pistols, largely marketed in Europe.  Here’s a photo of the B&T Station Six-9 from a B&T website:

Graphic: B&T Station Six-9, from a B&T Website.

Notice the Station Six-9 does not have a slide like a semiautomatic pistol, but a receiver, most like a bolt-action rifle. It resembles the Welrod, a WWII suppressed pistol, which was much larger and heavier than a Station Six-9, known as the VP9—Veterinary Pistol 9—in Europe. In America, it’s rare and expensive, some $2000 dollars at the Silencershop, and currently out of stock.

Based on the aforementioned video, the killer did not use a Station Six-9, but a common semiautomatic pistol with an accessory suppressor. The video is not sufficiently clear to tell what make or model. The Station Six-9 is a National Firearms Act regulated item, as are suppressors. Owning one requires photographs, fingerprints, multiple records checks, a $200 non-transferrable tax and up to a year for the ATF to process the paperwork. If the killer bought a rare and expensive Station Six-9, it would take little time to find his photo, fingerprints and all his identifying information. That apparently hasn’t happened. But suppressors are increasingly common, and searching federal suppressor records without someone’s name would be essentially futile. But there’s a better reason to believe it wasn’t a Station Six-9.

Refer to the video in the NY Post article. Notice after each shot, the killer rotates the left side of the handgun 45° left, parallel to the ground, does not use the most efficient left-hand grip on the slide, is relatively slow, and certainly does not use the particular, four-part, motion of a Station Six-9 bolt cycle. 

Because the Station Six-9 does not have a slide, but a receiver, cycling the bolt requires turning the knurled knob at the rear counter-clockwise to unlock the bolt, fully, manually, retracting the bolt backward extracting and ejecting the fired case, pushing the bolt forward, stripping a live round out of the magazine and pushing it into the chamber and turning the knurled knob fully clockwise again to lock the bolt closed. There is no spring to move the bolt; it’s all done by hand. The video clearly shows the killer pulling back a slide and releasing it to drive forward under spring pressure. It’s not a Station Six-9. 

Suppressors work by controlling the expanding gas firing a cartridge produces. In so doing, they reduce the gas pressure necessary for completely cycling the slide.  This can be handled by using weaker springs and/or subsonic ammunition, which uses heavier than usual bullets and less powder. This produces weaker penetration, though at close range that doesn’t matter much. Either the killer was unaware of this, or he was and didn’t know enough, or care, to alter his weapon and ammo to solve the cycling issue, or just decided to do it by hand.  

Media talking heads are asserting the killer was either a professional, or highly skilled with weapons. Nonsense. His stance is incorrect and surely contributed to his first two rounds reportedly hitting Thompson in the torso and calf, which does not speak to expert marksmanship. His slide cycling technique and general weapon handling are also inefficient and unprofessional.

Professionals don’t show their faces on video, and don’t, as has been reported, leave a water bottle and cell phone nearby, go barehanded, and leave the escape bicycle and backpack behind where they can be found, all of which might yield DNA traces or fingerprints.

I’m working from media accounts and what can be found in the public sphere. From that two conclusions may be drawn: (1) I might be wrong in small or large ways, and (2) media usually gets much wrong from the start. However, based on the video we can be reasonably certain a B&T Station Six-9 was not involved. 

Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.