A sniper is a trained marksman who operates alone, in a pair, or with a sniper team to maintain close visual contact with a target and engage the targets from concealed positions or distances exceeding the detection capabilities of enemy personnel.
Some notable military snipers include:
Not all snipers are highly trained professional soldiers. The term is sometimes used to describe criminals firing from cover at long range with a rifle and police sharpshooters. Some notable non-military snipers include:
William "Billy" Dixon (1850–1913), defended the Adobe Walls settlement against Indian attack with his legendary buffalo rifle, and was one of eight civilians in United States history to receive the Medal of Honor.
Frank Carter (1881–1927) was a notorious murderer in Omaha, Nebraska, who claimed to have murdered 43 victims.
Michael Andrew Clark (1949–1965), teenage sniper who killed three and wounded six in Highway 101 shooting spree on April 25, 1965.
Jack Hinson (1807–1874) was a farmer who engaged Union troops at long range during the American Civil War and recorded 36 "kills" on his custom-made .50 caliber Kentucky long rifle with iron sights.
Lon Horiuchi (born 1954), a Federal Bureau of Investigation sniper who shot Randy Weaver and shot and killed Vicki Weaver at Ruby Ridge.
Thomas "Tom" Horn, Jr. (1860–1903) an American Old West lawman, scout, and hired gunman, known for shooting cattle rustlers and sheepherders at long range with a Sharps rifle.
John Allen Muhammad (1960–2009) and Lee Boyd Malvo (born 1975), perpetrators of the Beltway sniper attacks, a series of coordinated shootings that took place over three weeks in October 2002 in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Ten people were killed and three other victims were critically injured in several locations throughout the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and along Interstate 95 in Virginia.
Byron De La Beckwith (1920-2001), ex-US Marine and white supremacist, assassinated NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers after the civil rights activist arrived home in Jackson, Mississippi on June 12, 1963.
Lee Harvey Oswald (1939–1963), ex–US Marine, assassinated President John F. Kennedy and shot Governor John Connally in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, and shot at General Edwin Walker on April 10, 1963.
Charles Whitman (1941–1966), college student and ex–US Marine who fired from a clock tower on the University of Texas Austin campus, killing 14 and wounding 32 on August 1, 1966.
