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.
My biggest hope now is that he legally purchased the gun with no background check from a maga at a gun show.
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.
A brave and true republican boy, who got corrupted away from his family by the antifa deep state complex, he would have been such a great person, if only his parents had homeschooled him without interference from the communist atheists, and were allowed to hit him more as a child 😢
I should have saved it but I didn’t. Someone else posted an actual MAGoo fiction about how a good kid goes to college and instantly gets a hot Black girlfriend who corrupts him with sex and Antifa ideology…
a hot Black girlfriend who corrupts him with sex
You son of a bitch! I’m in.
I think I saw a documentary about that on Elon’s new video site, Xvideos.com.
(/s, NSFW)
Why is it asking for my driver’s license?
Are ya in an anti-porn state right now by any chance?
You live in a red state that requires a government ID to watch porn online.
I love educational videos.
hot black girlfriend who corrupts him
Go on…
They met in a coffee shop and she bought him a drink spiked with an afrodisiac (yes correct spelling). Then while he couldn’t think straight, she tricked him and brought him home where she literally f’d his brains out. During this time she was whispering deep state woke ideology in his ear. After cumming back to earth, he was fully corrupted and became a deep state sleeper agent.
Where do I sign up?
Worth it.
I need to read this. What was the title?
Like I said, I wish I remembered. I vaguely recall the GF’s name was Shondra, but that’s iffy.
I’m usre you could come up with a better version if you put your mind to it.
Was it on AO3?
Someone mentioned the story on Lemme. They gave a description.
Then he got the covid vaxx and the 5g nano microchips got implanted in his brain and made him a deep state sleeper agent.
You really think that any of the cultists are going to care about what actually happened?
No, but it might be enough to convince independents not to feel sympathy for him.
Up until 2016 I could pretend to myself that, when the chips were down, most Americans could tell chicken salad from chicken shit.
Too many people assumed Clinton would win.
Ergo, she didn’t. Even so, never should have been close in the states that carried it over the line.
I sadly knew people who attended “Clinton Won!” parties, these same people didn’t vote. Complacency is a killer.
Holy shit AND tried to assassinate a fascist? Why do they keep making up such fucking cool people
The cultists are gonna cultist no matter what. Truth still matters even in a political and media landscape that looks to be ‘post-truth’. Don’t get me wrong, I wish it mattered a whole lot more still.
When it was discovered Rittenhouse beat up a little girl, the story the Right made up was that the “Girl was a transgender who was spying on his sister in the bathroom!” when there’s no evidence for that claim.
I didn’t know Rittenhouse had attacked a child; I’m not in the least surprised.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/kyle-rittenhouse-video-kenosha-shooter-punch-girl-a9702206.html - Video used to be on Youtube
Like I said, I’m not at all amazed.
He was a responsible gun owner. They’re all responsible gun owners.
Until they’re not.
Close, got it from his dad.
People in this post thinking that any fact will matter to the MAGA base…
Yup even if it turns out it was the father of one of the children trump raped, they won’t care.
“ReGiSteReD RePuBliCaNs aRe AnTiFa!!!”
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.
He was hired by Trump to miss, but “make it look good”, and killed for being a “loose end”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
The glass thing was to my knowledge reported by TMZ though more recent reporting does say the bullet grazed his ear.
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.
Or the kid was just shooting at the teleprompter. Maybe he didn’t intend to shoot Trump. We’ll never know.
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.
I would imagine that the secret service men would have tourniquets and similar on hand to stop the bleeding.
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.
Read my comment again. The FIRST sentence specifically says I’m not going that way with my comment…
There’s apparently a video of him saying he hates trump and republicans. It’s getting messy.
So we should all watch Rogan and infowars because those guys will figure it all out just by “asking questions” /s
Republican voter and somehow this will be blamed on everyone else.
“Missed to the left, therefore a leftie”
~ Maga probably
Used to vote for Republicans and then donated for Democrats
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.
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…
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.
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.
He’s pro-gun and we can point out the dangers of that alone.
20 year olds don’t have wealth to reasonably donate to an election.
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.
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
Apprently that was a differnet person in Philly that shares his first and last name.
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: https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/fe91e6ba36695009/ac182c3a-full.pdf
Can you share that source?
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
A 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.
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.
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?)
The street address is registered to his father.
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)
Lots of noise right now. Dont have a source past a random comment, so doubt is warranted.
The mental illness angle will be met with
“Interesting how he so easily acquired a gun.”
Funny how he chose an AR type, too.
What’s an AR type?
Edit: right answers only
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Asking this stuff will get you banned
just another case of Republican on Republican violence
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
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
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
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
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.
… it would been a whole lot easier if he hadn’t been shot dead.
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.
Non-lethal shots are a possibility.
No one in the history of actual combat shooting is taught to take non lethal shots. Ever.
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.
I cannot argue with your rootin’ tootin’ shootin’ logic.
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
I mean US military and police training.
Combat shooting? It’s not a warzone. Come to Europe, mate.
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.
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.
Or what happens in places outside of the US.
Is that what happened?
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
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?
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.
The guy was 20…he is an adult.
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
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.
How is voter registration even a thing. wtf
Can’t have homeless people or people with limited means actually voting. A republican would never win again.
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.
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.
deleted by creator
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
So, can we get celebrate this patriot like they celebrate Kyle bitchenhouse?
Yeah, let’s not elevate idiots to a pedestal - and I’m not calling him an idiot (just Rittenhouse), we don’t know squat about him yet.
Atleast this one had the balls to go after someone more secure than a bunch of random protesters.
True but didn’t him shooting two innocents after Trump make this a bad thing?
Collateral is an inevitable side effect of said actions within the hands of a non professional.
I feel… Mixed, on that.
That is correct response for folks who arent bloodthirsted or otherwise accepting of the concept of collateral damage. Which puts ya peg over where I am, but I also think that the bombing campaign on Japan during ww2 was too lenient, that includes the nukes.
Considering Trump can now campaign on being an assassination survivor and win with that? Lol no
Yes you’re right but that wasn’t my point.
“False flag” - Fox and co-conspirators
Trump is literally a paid actor, how do we know he was actually shot and not just pretending for attention? /s
How do we know he actually got shot?
Jfc fuck off
Wait, are they really saying that? Do they know what that implies?
Pretty much expected. His precise reasons are what have me curious though
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.
Maybe the creation of a martyr and just accelerationism. Or the shooter was just a patsy
Follow the money. Who paid him to do the shooting is what we should be asking.
Of course they are are, and the MAGA cult will buy it saying it was a deep state conspiracy to discredit them or some bullshit like that.
the MAGA cult will buy it saying it was a deep state conspiracy to discredit them
Isn’t it funny how every single time a psycho with a long history of supporting republicans turns out to just be a deep state crisis actor paid by Soros to discredit them?
Thank god this is getting muddled.
I’ll take a win where I can. The election is too close for comfort now (or even leaning towards a Trump victory right now). We have time to change that, but we need to recognize the threat is growing right now.
