Sniper

A sniper is a person who is trained to shoot perfectly at things that are very small or very far away. The sniper's target is usually an enemy. Many military snipers get special training to use a sniper rifle, a special type of gun. Most sniper rifles have a telescope called a sniper scope to help the sniper see the target. Snipers are also trained to be stealthy. Snipers hide or use military camouflage such as a ghillie suit that looks like (and may include some of) the surrounding foliage so that it is hard for the enemy to see them. A sniper is also called a "marksman".

Experienced hunters often share many of the skills that long range shooters need to know. The two jobs are very similar. The word "sniper" came from Britain when highly accurate shooters would hunt–also known as "snipe"–birds that were very hard to see and shoot.^[1]

Many police departments have snipers on their SWAT teams.^[2] Because police snipers do not always perform the same tasks as military snipers, police snipers are sometimes known as "marksmen".

1. ↑ "Online Etymology Dictionary - Snipe". Etymonline.com. Retrieved September 27, 2007.
2. ↑ "The Sniper, SWAT Teams Grow In Number". CBS News. Archived from the original on November 4, 2012. Retrieved October 2, 2008.