All four main "Einsatzgruppen" took part in mass shootings from the early days of the war. Initially the targets were adult Jewish men, but by August the net had been widened to include women, children, and the elderly—the entire Jewish population. Initially there was a semblance of legality given to the shootings, with trumped-up charges being read out (arson, sabotage, black marketeering, or refusal to work, for example) and victims being killed by a firing squad. As this method proved too slow, the "Einsatzkommandos" began to take their victims out in larger groups and shot them next to, or even inside, mass graves that had been prepared. Some "Einsatzkommandos" started to use automatic weapons, with survivors being killed with a pistol shot.