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.

  • Today@lemmy.world
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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.

    • 𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍@midwest.social
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      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.

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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.

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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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        He was hired by Trump to miss, but “make it look good”, and killed for being a “loose end”

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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”

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

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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.

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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

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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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        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.

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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…

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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.

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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.

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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.

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            I disagree, though it seems to happen to everyone else. Right-wing content is vary rare for me even though I’m subbed to lots of gun channels.

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            It’s weird how on Youtube survivors of Sexual Assault are blacklisted for saying the words “Sexual Assault”, but PragerU goes “We should bring back slavery and kill the gays!” every five minutes and get pushed to the front of my feed despite the fact that I mostly look up gaming trivia, not Right Wing shilling, meaning the algo shouldn’t be recommending it to me.

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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.

        • 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

        • Rolder@reddthat.com
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          I would imagine that the secret service men would have tourniquets and similar on hand to stop the bleeding.

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            That’s a lot of Hollywood bullshit about guns in your understanding of the world. I’d recommend that you stop watching movies (maybe even cartoons?) and instead read up on actual tactics and some physiology.

            A fat, elderly, unhealthy 78-year-old-man could die from a heart attack from the tourniquet alone. Anyone taking shots at Trump at this age is going for the kill. There’s very, very few areas that are non-lethal, and those few areas are exceptionally difficult to hit 300meters away.

            EDIT: A skilled marksman should be able to reliably hit someone at those ranges with an AR15. The kid fortunately wasn’t a skilled marksman. But even a skilled marksman won’t be aiming to do a Comic-book level or Hollywood level called shot to a non-lethal area at these ranges.

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          What’s surprising is how unsurprised I am by that shit. I didn’t read it and go, “No way, no one would do that!” Nope. As soon as I stumbled on it, I thought, “Well of course the chuds on 4chan did that.”

        • 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.

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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

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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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        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.

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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…

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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        Apprently that was a differnet person in Philly that shares his first and last name.

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

    “Interesting how he so easily acquired a gun.”

        • 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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                “these guns that are different than a completely different kind of gun that nobody brought up before this particular comment are completely different!”

                Your grasp of the obvious amazes me.

                Do you always resort to ad-hominem when called out for thoughtless comments?

                It’s still not a good look, dear.

                • dragontamer@lemmy.world
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                  “these guns that are different than a completely different kind of gun that nobody brought up before this particular comment are completely different!”

                  You’re talking about the fucking 1990s style Assault Weapons Ban.

                  And suddenly its unfair for me to bring up mass shootings that took place during that ban, and compare them to the AR-15 (aka: how mass shootings happen today).

                  Got it. You’re a dipshit who was hoping that I was some kind of ignorant dumbass. You guessed wrong. Learn history next time before you challenge random people online.

                  Do you always resort to ad-hominem when called out for thoughtless comments?

                  I resort to ad-hominem after its become clear that my debate opponent is a dumbass who couldn’t follow my earlier words. Because the discussion is over and I’m not debating anymore. You were too ignorant to follow my earlier points and are now fucking pwned.

                  I directly referenced 90s mass shootings. Of course I’m referencing Columbine, or are you also ignorant of the 90s or some of the most important mass shooting events of my childhood?

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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.

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            I mean, sure? But it’s not just conservatives who own ARs. Look at leftist gun community / subreddit posts, literally everyone likes ARs, not just conservatives. Hell I’m a lefty with an AR and I have lefty friends with ARs. It’s not that far fetched of an idea dude.

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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.

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    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

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      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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        1 month 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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        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”

      • tugrim@sh.itjust.works
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        That’s fair, you’re right as I haven’t seen statistics either. While I don’t do it myself, I’ve seen many speak about doing this over the years though I’ve only lived in PA for a little over a decade.

        Edit: autocorrect

    • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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      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.

      • bstix@feddit.dk
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        … it would been a whole lot easier if he hadn’t been shot dead.

        • dhork@lemmy.world
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          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.

            • NoIWontPickAName@kbin.earth
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              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

            • teft@lemmy.world
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              No one in the history of actual combat shooting is taught to take non lethal shots. Ever.

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                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.

                • teft@lemmy.world
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                  I cannot argue with your rootin’ tootin’ shootin’ logic.

              • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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                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

                • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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                  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

            • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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              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.

            • dhork@lemmy.world
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              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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                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.

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              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.

              • ABCDE@lemmy.world
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                Was overwhelming force used? It sounded like one person going up a ladder and retreating, before the guy got shot(s) away.

        • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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          Dunno how they would’ve done that, wasn’t he shot from another roof by a sniper while he was still posing an active threat? That’s the image I got from some articles

  • 【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

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        Nah I’ve been told here on lemmy that 20yr olds are kids.

        But I’ve also had comments removed for being “ageist” for pointing out 20yr olds have virtually no life experience.

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

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

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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.

    • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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      Any time you apply for a driver’s license or whatever, you are asked if you want to register with a party. That is the party that you will vote for in the primary elections. Some (many?) states offer same day registration which, in my opinion, is how it should be. It puts you in a database in case voter fraud ACTUALLY happens (insanely rare) where they can check to make sure Ur Quell only voted once and investigate what happened if they see multiple votes.

      As for the primaries: This is how the US handles our version of Ranked Choice and… I kind of prefer it (with some major caveats). The general idea is that all right wing politicians should run for the republican seat and all sane people for the Democrat seat. You campaign at the tail end of the previous year and the party members vote on you in the spring. There is definitely some sketchiness with super delegates (although, that is not overly dissimilar from how many parliament systems pick a Prime Minister), but this creates a unified front come November.

      Yes, two party systems are bad, but that is what things tend to converge on when push comes to shove. Just look at France where the Left more or less unified to stand a chance against fascism.

      Like almost every aspect of the US government: it is a fundamentally good system that needs to be iterated on and better taught to the populace. It is just that republicans know that education hurts them and want to take advantage of all the loopholes that Tommy Jefferson obviously intentionally wrote while he was raping his plantation full of slaves.

    • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      You can register as Unaffiliated fwiw, you don’t have to choose Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, or Independant. It’s mainly a choice of which primary to vote in anyway.

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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