Thomas Matthew Crooks, the suspectin Saturday’s shooting, was registered as a Republican voter, according to Pennsylvania records.

Already the republicans are dismissing his voter registration as meaningless. Here comes the “mental illness” angle.

Edit: apparently it’s not uncommon to register with the party you oppose in PA. This is going to be a fun ride.

    • LordCrom@lemmy.world
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      MAGA will spin this… He was a plant, he was hired by Biden, he was a sleeper agent meant to sow discord in the GOP…

      Whatever fox does with this story, the MAGA people will believe it.

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    My biggest hope now is that he legally purchased the gun with no background check from a maga at a gun show.

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      You really think that any of the cultists are going to care about what actually happened?

      Their story will be that he’s a transwoman high on legal weed who listened to woke podcasts about Gaza.

    • Trump’s already not pro-gun. He passed some of the most significant “anti” gun legislation during his term. Thing is, he’s a pathological liar, so it doesn’t matter what comes out of his mouth. He’ll stay on the “pro-gun” rhetoric, and when he’s elected will enact more anti-gun legislation, especially now that he’s been on the receiving end.

      And it won’t matter, because MAGA’s gonna MAGA. He’ll lose maybe a few truly 2A-focused people, but it won’t matter because after 2024 there will be no more free elections in the US.

      • Optional@lemmy.world
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        Trump’s already not pro-gun.

        Point of order: Trump’s not anything except Pro-Trump. THAT’S IT. That is the sum total of his actual identifiable personal beliefs.

        He’s a demented narcissist and a sociopath. He’s a rapist, a fraud, a money launderer for human traffickers, he’s a traitor, a colluder, and a piece of shit.

        But he is absolutely NOT “not pro-gun”. He does not give a single solitary shit-in-a-vacuum. This has been proven. It Is Known.

  • Ioughttamow@kbin.run
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    Conservatives when a poc is convicted of rape:”if that was my daughter I’d happily be in JAIL now!”

    Conservatives when their violent , rapist prez gets shot: “this is the democrats fault since they call him a fascist, let’s pull back the violent rhetoric peeps”

    • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      Only that the “let’s” is referring to only Democrats. Republican/alt-right people will continue to use violent rhetoric.

  • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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    He probably is a registered Republican. He’s a kid. His dad probably made him register Republican. His dad bought him the gun.

    What are the odds he hates his father and blames Trump for turning his dad into a soft-brain conspiracy-minded dumbass, filled with hate?

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      Listen, while I don’t know exactly what his circumstances were, I agree he probably didn’t like the convicted felon, alleged by victims child rapist and ex president Donald Trump. I share that hunch with you.

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        Old enough to vote …to young to drink. He’s still a kid in my book until he can buy a round at the bar

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.worldOP
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    Crooks was supposedly wearing a shirt for a YT channel “Demolition Ranch” being called a pro-gun channel by the news. Quick scan of their content seems to indicate that guns are toys to be played with and how much destruction you can do with them.

    • Curiousfur@yiffit.net
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      IIRC, DemoRanch uses (or at least used to) a portion of its income to run his Veterinarian clinic, but that is a few years old and it looks like he stepped back from the business in 2021? I fell off from most of YouTube before the pandemic, so I’m bummed but not surprised that he’s a Trump guy.

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        I bailed on his channel when he started making comments about the George Floyd protests in his videos. It was always pretty clear what his beliefs are from a religious and political standpoint, but up to then, he never brought it into his videos.

      • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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        Basically every single gun nut youtube is inherently right wing. Any content creator who actually gives a shit about humanity would have made MASSIVE changes following… ANY school shooting.

        The best you can hope for is channels like Forgotten Weapons where Ian actively refuses to “be political”. He still lets his biases show any time he talks about legislation but he also has very clearly mocked a lot of the “loophole” devices and mostly comes across as a rich jerk talking about engineering. Or (funny enough) Carl at InRange who is 100% in the “useful idiot” category but seems to have a good heart.

        • Curiousfur@yiffit.net
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          The YT algo also drives the content further right. I keep getting recommended Herrera’s channel, and if that’s the kind of stuff you’ve got to compete against for views, it’s just going to create a runaway phenomenon. If a tech literate, vaguely media literate leftist with a “mechanical porn” fetish can’t stop getting recommended Right-wing political gun garbage, then the average viewer doesn’t stand a chance…

          • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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            A lot of that is less the algorithm and more the creators.

            I Did A Thing/Boy Boy are as (obnoxiously) tankie as it gets and they literally did a “let’s shoot some kids with a drone” video using herrera’s guns*. Which means that basically an entire chunk of maker youtube now has an actual palpable connection to herrera.

            Everyone wants to blame the algorithm and… it is fucked. But the reality is that these youtubers (and twitch streamers and so forth) are all businesses first and most have zero problems collaborating with a known evil if it makes them money.

            I suspect it is why people like Simone Giertz and Xyla Foxlin have basically stopped all collaborations with people who aren’t part of their “inner circles”.

            *: Well worth looking up the “drama” around that. On Boy Boy, Aleks (?) tore into the gun fetishism and basically painted him as a kid with toys who got made if anyone even thought of taking them away while highlighting how fucked it is that some of herrera’s favorite guns are literally what drove Aleks and his family out of his home country. The response was herrera throwing a shitfit and insisting that anyone who enjoys shooting guns can’t be pro gun control and they are liars.

            • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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              Wasnt Herrera part of a sons of the confederacy organization years ago? You really expect someone like that to be smart. Anyways I find it funny when dipshits throw a fit about pro guns folks being in favor of some amount of gun control. Like im in favor of a basic training course at government funded ranges for example. Nothing fancy just a course on firearm safety and cleaning viola heres the card letting you buy.

              • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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                I genuinely hope this was manufactured drama. Because I can’t imagine ANYONE dumb enough to let a couple of infamously tankie youtubers (whose claim to fame was flying out to North Korea for a day trip and insisting it isn’t that bad…) do a school shooting weeks after Uvalde with actual child cardboard tagets using his guns and his range and then being surprised by the outcome.

                Like, even Michael Reeves pulled out of that video. And that is a kid that EVERYONE is amazed hasn’t been cancelled for some stupid joke at this point.

        • shalafi@lemmy.world
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          Or Paul Harrell or,

          Massad Ayoub or,

          Hickock45 or,

          James Reeves or,

          Honest Outlaw or,

          Black Powder Maniac Shooter or,

          MidwayUSA or,

          Royal Armouries or,

          Garand Thumb.

          And those are only ones I’m subscribed to.

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          The closest thing I can think of to a non-right-wing gun nut YouTuber is Adam Savage. If course, most of his gun nuttery is centered on movie props, not real firearms.

    • NoIWontPickAName@kbin.earth
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      That’s one I had to stop my kid from watching because their gun safety is not non existent but is also not safe at all

    • Gerudo@lemm.ee
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      I think the channel is hilarious.

      I also think the channel shows off WAY too much reckless, butthole puckering lack of safety. I’m actually surprised no one has gotten injured or killed.

      • MagicShel@programming.dev
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        He was 20. He could have voted only in a single election. Someone said he donated to democrats 3 years ago. This math is confusing the fuck out of me.

          • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
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            With just the same first and last name, where as the Republican party registration had other corroborating data, such as middle initial, address, and date of birth.

            So the donation is nowhere near as solid as the Republican party registration.

        • Asafum@feddit.nl
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          Unfortunately I think what we’re going to learn is that he’s one of those people that register Republican to vote in their primaries to choose the weakest candidate giving Democrats a better chance.

          Either way I unfortunately think this is going to give Trump yet another boost… God knows that’s what we needed…

          • Gerudo@lemm.ee
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            I read a snippit that in PA, it’s not uncommon to register for the other party. More than likely, he really was a dem/non repub.

          • MagicShel@programming.dev
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            That’s possible. Because we damn sure aren’t going to learn that people are more complicated than a simple black & white label.

            If this comes across as argumentative, I don’t mean it that way. It’s just pure cynicism.

          • MagicShel@programming.dev
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            17 year olds, supposedly. (I can’t verify the three years ago, so grain of salt.)

            This doesn’t really make sense and we might just have to wait for actual details from the investigation.

            • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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              Some people are saying $10, which is a lot more to a kid than to an adult. But kids can afford $10.

              EDIT: $15 to more reliable sources. Still in the rough ballpark tho

        • jeffw@lemmy.world
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          The donation? Source on that? Not doubting you

          Edit: I am now doubting you. Found the FEC filing and it lists a Bethel Park, PA zip code.

          Edit 2: I was asked for my source:

            • jeffw@lemmy.world
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              NYTimes, so there’s a paywall. It links to the FEC (wouldn’t load on mobile for me but the FEC page did fully load on my desktop).

              https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/14/us/politics/trump-gunman-thomas-crooks.html

              Edit: actually, the article has been updated since I read it. It no longer links to the FEC, just a NYT screenshot:

              https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/fe91e6ba36695009/ac182c3a-full.pdf

              Though it says Pitt, the zip is a Bethel Park zip

              voter-registration record showed Mr. Crooks’s Republican registration, though federal campaign-finance records show he donated $15 to the Progressive Turnout Project, a liberal voter turnout group, through the Democratic donation platform ActBlue in January 2021.

              • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
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                Where as the Republican party registration has other corroborating information listed, the donation doesn’t have anything other than the same first and last name. So it’s not confirmed to be the same guy yet.

                • jeffw@lemmy.world
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                  Name, job, and zip code. Find me another guy living in Bethel Park with the same name who was unemployed in 2021 (edit: Bethel Park has 4 zip codes, so not even all of Bethel Park. People really think there’s another guy with such a unique name in town? None of his relatives share the same name, so an unrelated guy?)

                • jeffw@lemmy.world
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                  He lives there too. Without doxing anyone or putting their info on here, you can read in the news that they all live together (dad, mom, son. Sister moved out a couple years ago)

          • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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            Lots of noise right now. Dont have a source past a random comment, so doubt is warranted.

  • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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    I don’t mean this in a conspiratorial way, but I would not be surprised if this kid was a huge Trump fan. What better way to pump up the MAGA crowd than more bullshit to make it seem like some shadowy force was trying to stop him.

    Right now the FBI has all of his friends and family in custody for interviews, the NSA is pulling all the comms info they have on him, his phone company is pulling what they have to provide…his entire life is going to get taken apart in very short order. What we actually get to see of that data probably is very little. I really hope what we need to see is disseminated quickly to not make the situation more murky.

    • Rolder@reddthat.com
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      If it was a leg shot or a deliberate miss I could go for the conspiracy angle. But as it stands he was inches away from taking trumps life, which does not scream trump supporter to me.

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        Apparently he was hit by shattered glass from the teleprompter being shot, not grazed by a bullet.

        (Not that I buy the conspiracy angle. I think it makes far more sense that we have a dangerously polarized society and a lot of seriously unhappy young men who don’t know what to do with their anger. That leads to violence.)

        • SirMcCheese@lemmy.world
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          The glass thing was to my knowledge reported by TMZ though more recent reporting does say the bullet grazed his ear.

      • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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        A shot to the leg can cause significant bleeding and is often more deadly than say… headshots (see Gabbie Giffords).

        Trained gunmen / soldiers shoot for the center-of-mass. In fact, its clear that Trump wasn’t struck by a bullet now but instead by glass shards. So some glass deflected the bullet out of the way.

        • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          I know a guy who survived being shot in the head, he says doctors told him only 5% of people shot in the head survive and less recover as well as he has (he has minor issues, you’d never know if he didn’t have a dent and some metal in his skull.) Sure you can easily hit an artery in the leg and leg shots are for sure deadly too, but I wouldn’t say head shots are less deadly lol.

          The training to aim center of mass is mainly because it is larger, if you’re familiar with The Patriot you may remember the scene where Mel and his small kids shoot at the British, he illustrates this point by saying “Remember, aim small miss small.”

          Aiming for a larger target means you’re more likely to hit the target, and yes in modern times it means you’re more likely to get proper expansion of a hollow point, which means you’re less likely to shoot through him into a bystander. It also does just so happen that the A zone contains the heart and lungs, which are vital organs much like the brain. Head shots are “more deadly” if you hit, center of mass is more likely to hit a vital area rather than miss simply by virtue of being larger.

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          I would imagine that the secret service men would have tourniquets and similar on hand to stop the bleeding.

        • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.worldOP
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          Yeah, blue shirt in the car.

          That would be really bizarre if a dude that looks so much like the shooter was able to whip out a video so quickly. The only thing I couldn’t quite tell was that images of the shooter looks like he has an underbite almost, and the vid clip guy looks more normal.

          Edit: found it. Allegedly someone called Maxwell Yearick?

          E2:… ok. So looking up Maxwell Yearick gets things a little confusing. There are nsfw images of the deceased shooter that definitely look like he has the slight underbite/protruding lower jaw. Yearick is a protester who was arrested at a political demonstration and I don’t think he looks like the video guy at all nor do I think he looks like the deceased. Blue shirt guy looks closest, but we’ll have to see what shakes out of that.

          • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            I won’t be surprised if they will use generative AI to spread disinformation as well

            They can make the shooter say and do more or less anything, even if it’s not true

    • suction@lemmy.world
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      So we should all watch Rogan and infowars because those guys will figure it all out just by “asking questions” /s

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      Can’t have homeless people or people with limited means actually voting. A republican would never win again.

    • Snapz@lemmy.world
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      republicans need barriers for people of color, poor people and young people traditionally to avoid full participation in democracy. In this modern time, some states actually still require you to print paper applications and mail them to your Secretary of State’s office at the post office with a physical stamp to register to vote… The list of individual barriers to completion within those seemingly small actions can not be overstated, especially to young people who on average don’t own home printers and may have literally never bought a stamp or mailed a physical letter.

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      For primaries, parties may close their primaries to only registered members of the party to vote in

    • Kaboom@reddthat.com
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      Its for the parties themselves.

      But to answer your question, theres intentionally no list of citizens. The only way to verify that they can vote is registration, unless you want a passport or birth cert or whatever

  • foggy@lemmy.world
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    The mental illness angle will be met with

    “Interesting how he so easily acquired a gun.”

    • Gerudo@lemm.ee
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      What’s even better, he was already on secret service/security radar when he tried to enter the metal detectors by acting weird.

      Why the fuck wasn’t he literally followed at that point?

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        I mean they probably get like a ton of people who enter the metal detectors and act weird. I don’t really expect that to actually be a part of their security that’s reliable or useful in really any way, it’s TSA security theater shit.

      • ValorieAF [she/her]@lemmy.world
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        Funny how? ARs are the most common and versatile rifle in the country. How is it any surprise that’s what he was using? Any gun owner in the US will likely have at least one AR.

        • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.worldOP
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          Funny that so many conservatives love the AR and one was used to shoot at their President. Maybe irony would be a better choice of words. Not sure where you get “any gun owner…at least one…” I know plenty who have zero and no need of such a tacticool fashion accessory.

        • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.worldOP
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          Armalite Rifle, Armalite is still a maker of military rifles. The AR-15 is a rifle that was pitched to the military by armalite, then re-designated the M-16 by the military when it was adopted. The civilian version retained the -15, and is incredibly popular with gun owners because of the number of components made for it making it very customizable. It is also the one most often referred to as an “assault rifle”, though that isn’t what “AR” stands for.

          So to sum up, the “AR type” means that it’s likely a variant of the -15.

        • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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          “AR” refers to a pattern of rifle. Any manufacturer can produce complete rifles or various components and accessories that fit the AR pattern. Those components are interchangeable. This allows you to customize your rifle to your current and future needs simply by swapping parts, rather than needing a gunsmith to machine and fit them.

          “AR” is to guns like “Pickup truck” is to cars. A pickup might be a simple, ordinary vehicle. It might be a heavily customized rock crawler. It might be a lowered and styled cruiser. It might have a ladder rack, or have the bed swapped for a maintenance truck, or flatbed. It might be converted to repossess vehicles, or fight brush fires. Likewise, an “AR pattern rifle” refers only to the most basic structure of the rifle rather than a specific gun.

        • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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          A gun that’s more accurate and can shoot longer distances.

          When bullet goes faster, it is more accurate and deals more damage. In the 90s, the AR-15 was banned but today its allowed and has been the gun of choice in pretty much every mass shooting of the last decade.

          • Transporter Room 3@startrek.website
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            more accurate and can shoot faster

            Than?

            Go on, you started out so strong.

            It IS more accurate and shoots faster than a gun that’s less accurate and shoots slower.

            Beyond that, you haven’t said anything about it, and you’ve not only just clearly shown you can’t be objective when talking about them, you’ve given just… So much bullshit and called it “information”

            Bullets going faster doesn’t mean more damage, or more accuracy. It can mean more penetration into things, but that’s not a given.

            It has never been banned in any meaningful way country-wide

            It has been the front and center firearm of every shooters arsenal on the news whether it was used in the shooting or not, specifically because it cosmetically looks like a military rifle. In fact the most common used things aren’t even rifles, but handguns.

            Functionally it’s no different than several other firearms, some of which even shoot the exact same round, but nobody focuses on those because they look like a hunting rifle.

            This country needs mountains of reform, including tons of changes to gun control, but what you are doing is not helping that goal in any way.

            Be better.

          • MorrisonMotel6@lemm.ee
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            It also has a shoulder thing that goes up, right? Your ignorance is on full display here.

            Don’t answer questions you don’t know the answer to.

            • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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              I don’t need to use technical terms like 556 or 7.62 rounds or rimfire to prove I’m a knowledgeable gun owner.

              When the other guy doesn’t know what AR means, I must bring down my language and remove technicalities. What I said earlier is the gist of the argument, we all expect the shooter to have some variant of AR-15 given the range and number of shots taken.

              The important tidbit, politically speaking, is that this gun was literally illegal to own in my childhood. Do you disagree with me on that?

              • MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca
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                To prove you’re a knowledgeable gun owner you should probably refrain from framing the AR-15 as a good long range weapon. It’s passable, but not what one would pick for a long range shot.

    • retrospectology@lemmy.world
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      Maybe one of his cultists actually realized he’s been lying to them for the past 8 years. It’s a far fall from where MAGA is back down to reality.

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          Yeah, hating Trumpism is certainly the expected angle, but a Boogaloo type looking to start a civil war couldn’t ask for a better target. Even if he actually was for all the Trump stuff he might think a civil war is necessary and Trump winning the election would just continue the muddled mess where liberals still get to make some decisions.

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    PA has a closed primary. In closed primaries, people tend to switch their registration in order to effect the primary they see as most impactful. It is not unlikely that the shooter registered as republican to vote against Trump in the primary.

    Edit: Downvotes without explanation are fun…

  • tugrim@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    He definitely could be Republican and I would not dismiss it at all. However, in the state of Pennsylvania it’s common to register for the party primaries of the opposing party whose candidate is someone you’re not in favor of and vote for someone else. It should be clear this does not mean he’s not a Republican or imply that he might be a Democrat. It’s only to add some context.

    Source: https://ballotpedia.org/Primary_elections_in_Pennsylvania

    • quixotic120@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I wouldn’t say it’s common, that’s misleading. some people do it, probably, but I’ve lived in PA for 2 decades and have never met anyone who has claimed to do so nor have I seen any actual statistics on the matter

      • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        My older sister has been doing it since the 80s. I don’t think there’s very many of them because assholes keep winning the Republican primaries

      • Good_morning@lemmynsfw.com
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        5 months ago

        As much as I’ve heard this parroted in multiple places since yesterday, I think this is just a talking point to edge towards it. In another couple of days it wont be maybe. It’s directed to make it a left vs right, while, what’s so outrageous about him being Republican and not liking Trump? It’s not like there hasn’t been a huge divide in the Republican party, so much so that we have the “alt right”

    • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      He also has donated to Democratic cause three years ago. Might not mean anything but we’ll see if they better figure out this guy.

        • dhork@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          If law enforcement sees a guy on a rooftop with a gun threatening a crowd of people, though, that’s an acceptable situation for “shoot first, ask questions later”. That shot that killed the guy probably saved other lives.

            • dhork@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              If you’re standing 20 feet in front of the guy, yes. If your only shot is across a field from one rooftop to another, you have much less control over where the bullet hits.

              • teft@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                At those distances (200-300 meters going by the map i saw) with professional shooters they can put multiple rounds inside of a spot the size of a dime. That isn’t the point though, you shoot to kill in those situations. Non lethal shots are hollywood shit.

            • NoIWontPickAName@kbin.earth
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              5 months ago

              They also allow people to keep shooting.

              That is some Hollywood shit, in real life you shoot until the threat is neutralized, it could have been another las vegas

              • ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                Yes, one of the rules of gun safety is that you don’t point your gun at anything you don’t intend to kill.

            • constantokra@lemmy.one
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              5 months ago

              They’re less lethal, not non lethal, and they’re frequently used as an excuse to escalate violence needlessly. I’m very critical of the use of their use of force and would generally prefer police to be unarmed, but this is not a situation where I have any complaints. That threat needed to be neutralized as quickly and effectively as possible. Overwhelming force was the best way to do that.

            • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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              5 months ago

              Non-lethal shots are a fantasy.

              You have plenty of blood vessels in your limbs and it is very easy to bleed out via the femoral artery or whatever else. This is literally why tourniquets exist

              Assuming it is an actual threat and not a black kid with a toy train: Shoot to kill and then, when it is safe, have EMTs try to keep them alive.

            • teft@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              No one in the history of actual combat shooting is taught to take non lethal shots. Ever.

              • Mog_fanatic@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                Idk what your talking about. You shoot the gun out of the hand. Then you shoot the hat off for intimidation and the somewhere nearby you shoot the rope of someone getting hanged to free them to kinda balance things out. This is all common sense.

                • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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                  5 months ago

                  It’s the normal procedure here in Finland to try to take someone down with shooting in the legs or somewhere else that they might survive from. Not the case if they start shooting of course, it’s more for situation where they’re wielding a knife and coming for the cop or someone else

              • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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                5 months ago

                What do you mean with combat shooting? Because here in Finland police is trained to (and required by law) to try to minimize the damage and if possible, to stop someone without killing them, usually by shooting at the legs etc. But that’s more for knife fielding attacker and other situation where such shots are more possible and not when the cops or others are being shot at