The liar Elliot Fineman got me thinking about "military grade insurgent weapons" and specifically about sniper operations. Fineman makes the mistake of focusing on equipment instead of on training, but there are still lots of people who fail to understand that good equipment can't make up for poor skill. Doctrinally the "sniper insurgent" falls into three skill categories, the names may change, but it is useful for understanding how precision rifle fires have been used in the recent COIN environments. In fact the Army COIN manual FM 3-24.2 of 2009 (a bit dated, but still useful) specifies three types of insurgent snipers.
Armed irregular.
Trained marksman.
Specially Trained Sniper.
The armed irregular is someone who can fire a weapon using the supplied sights. Most US Army Infantrymen are trained to this standard where they are taught to use a battlesight zero on their rifles, and any targets beyond their combat zero are the province of snipers and machine gunners.
The insurgent armed irregular will fire from a concealed position inside the combat zero of his rifle. John Allen Muhammed and Lee Boyd Malvo are examples of this type of insurgent, when they terrorized the DC area by using the "trunk" firing position of a vehicle it was well inside the point blank zero of the weapon system. This skill level generally fires on targets of opportunity, and serve as a "harasser" or "terrorist."
The "trained marksman" is someone who can use the iron sights, or BDC reticle or turret, to engage targets beyond the combat zero of their rifle. USMC personnel are trained out to 500 yards, and US Army SDM personnel are trained out to 600 yards. These skilled marksmen are capable of firing from behind cover from the prone supported or sling supported position. The targets of opportunity here are generally supporting other operations, much like our SDM
In Iraq, at least one of the Sunni "snipers" were men who learned their craft on the internet, and applied it by using PSL/SVD rifles on the battlefields. They are more effective than the "armed irregulars" because they can fire from a concealed position outside of the combat zero of their weapon system. They generally sucked at reading the wind, lacked the operational planning experience to plan secure ingress and egress routes, and generally only engaged targets of opportunity.
The "specially trained sniper" is either someone school trained to be a sniper, or someone who has moved up from "skilled marksman" to sniper (such as Simo Haya, Vasily Zaitsev or Carlos Hathcock). In the case of Simo Haya it was clearly the school of hard knocks, in Zaitsev's case it was battlefield promotion, and in Hathcock's case it was part of the USMC standing up a new sniper school. The Iraqi sniper, "Juba" is someone I consider to be a trained sniper, although I do not know where he got his training. My best guess is either Chechen or Iranian instructors, but that is just a guess.
The biggest difference between the three levels is that you get to "target discrimination" at the "specially trained sniper" level. From pure targets of opportunity, to targets of opportunity supporting operations, to target discrimination.
I've caught flack before for telling why 20 million deer hunters does not equal 10 million sniper teams, but I'll explain it again here. At best, your "average deer hunter" qualifies as an "untrained marksman" who can't make a shot beyond the max point blank range of his rifle. "I just zero 2 inches high at 100 so I don't have to worry about range." is a pretty common sentiment. On the flip side, those guys who spend their weekends popping prairie poodles at 500 meters with 22-250s easily qualify as "skilled marksmen."
Jerry Miculek has done the trick shot of hitting steel at 1000 yards with a 9mm revolver. Definitely some skill involved in that shot (and a lot of luck in my humble opinion). I'd rather be downrange of the average deer hunter with a rifle than Jerry Miculek with a revolver, but that's just me.
Now I don't believe that you can, "just read the manual" and get skills, but at some point reading the manual is important. If you don't have a copy of the Special Forces Sniper Training manual, you can find it online. The older versions (I found multiple 2003 versions in pdf documents all over the internet) are still good for referencing as while the equipment changes regularly the tactics, techniques, and procedures change slowly. I don't believe someone can become a "specially trained sniper" all on their own, as some of the more intense training events require other people to train with, but someone can definitely become a "trained marksman" on their own. And "trained marksman" is a huge step up from "armed irregular."
And I'd like to to point out that at no time was "TrackingPoint" ever a requirement to qualify as an "insurgent sniper."