Zoos' Weapon Response Teams

Via Wretchard, this week's tribulation over the gorilla has brought to everyone's attention the fact that zoos have some pretty serious ordinance right to hand.

The team armed themselves with four guns from a locked cabinet kept in the general curator’s office. Salisbury carried a 12-gauge shotgun. The remaining staff carried two .375 rifles and a 30.06 rifle.

That .375 is a beast. If it were used in a crime, the news media would describe either of those calibers as "a high-powered rifle" and/or "a sniper rifle" and/or "a rifle designed to penetrate police body armor." Well, it wasn't really designed to do that -- it was designed to penetrate heavy bone and fat deposits in order to reach the vitals of big game animals like buffalo. But it certainly would penetrate any body armor you want to name.