WHAT
- Former U.S. President Donald J. Trump was shot at a rally in PA.
TRUMPS STATEMENT
“I want to thank The United States Secret Service, and all of Law Enforcement, for their rapid response on the shooting that just took place in Butler, Pennsylvania. Most importantly, I want to extend my condolences to the family of the person at the Rally who was killed, and also to the family of another person that was badly injured. It is incredible that such an act can take place in our Country. Nothing is known at this time about the shooter, who is now dead. I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear. I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”
WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW SO FAR
- gunman is dead
- Trump “is fine”
- one attendee is dead
- another attendee is in critical condition
News Sources
- CNN - Trump rushed off stage after shooting at Pennsylvania rally
- AP News - Live updates: Shooting at Trump rally is being investigated as assassination attempt, AP sources say
- The Hill - George W. Bush condemns ‘cowardly attack’ at Trump rally
- Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) on Xitter - video interview with witness who tried to warn police before shooting happened
- Sky News - Gunshots reportedly fired at Donald Trump rally - as former president rushed off stage (Article confirms one rally attendee dead)
- Reuters - Biden says he is grateful to hear Trump is safe, has been briefed on shooting
- OAlexanderDK on Xitter - The shooter was on a roof approximately 125m or 400ft from where Trump was standing.
- JakeMRosen on Xitter - An emergency room doctor I spoke with tried to save someone’s life in the crowd
Do not advocate or celebrate violence, please. Comments advocating violence will be deleted and bans will be issued.
Also, please avoid promoting conspiracies. Discussing current events is fine but suggesting things like “it’s a false flag” without evidence is spreading a conspiracy.
That’s not a justification for more violence, two wrongs don’t make a right. He was wrong for doing what he did and this is wrong as well. This is because political violence in it’s entirety is wrong. Jesus, do people not have principles anymore? Seeing all the supposedly moral people turn into Q anon level conspiracy theorists who condone violence is depressing.
two wrongs don’t make a right.
You’re right. But let me tell you all about the sympathy I have for him:
.
That’s about it.
Tell me, should we have turned the other cheek during WWII? Two wrongs don’t make a right after all, right?
So you’re telling me conservatives will realize this has gone to far and tell everyone to remain calm and peaceful?
Mhmm. Where exactly do you draw the line regarding use of force as a preventative measure?
one wrong plus another wrong, generally seems to overthrow most rights throughout the history of man kind.
I’m not sure what to do with this information, but it’s present.
The death of Hitler, sadam hussein, Bin laden and all the others who threatened the free world disagree.
A wrong makes a right if it prevents many many horrible wrongs in the future.
This shit was never here before because it’s likely CYA mode for Lemmy because feds could come sniffing here if copycat incidents occur.
bro the feds are already sniffing lemmy you think they arent?
They’re sniffing lemmy just like their sniffing literally every other social media platform right now.
And instead we got a guarantee of actual fascism in America. This was a stupid, selfish move.
How many deaths did it result in? Cause there is only one death on Jan 6 that has ever been attributed to Jan 6.
I don’t disagree that he incited the insurrection, but making false claims doesn’t help show that the left is the party of honesty.
The left, who? What party?
https://www.factcheck.org/2021/11/how-many-died-as-a-result-of-capitol-riot/
Babbitt plus suicides, and other “natural” deaths.
On March 7, the District of Columbia’s Police and Firefighters’ Retirement and Relief Board declared that Metropolitan Police Officer Jeffrey Smith’s suicide in the days after the Jan. 6 riot was a line-of-duty death. The board concluded “that Officer Smith sustained a personal injury on January 6, 2021, while performing his duties and that his injury was the sole and direct cause of his death.
Why are you pretending like right-wing violence isn’t the literal leading domestic security threat?
Have you been living under a rock since 2016?
This sub has some crazy censorship. I’m pretty sure it’s all right-wing mods.
Was it wrong when Trump triggered Jan 6 with his calls for violence?
If yes, why do you get to call for violence?
If no, you should read more about the ramifications of Jan 6
What if we disagree with what happened on Jan 6 not because of the violence but rather because of the attempted political coup?
Personally, it’s the attempted coup that really gets my goat.
My friend, you know exactly what they mean. Don’t push a “well maybe somebody set it up because …” theory unless you have facts to back it up.
I take issue with inaccurate language. This is how trains crash. A conspiracy is where 2 or more people plan something in secret. A conspiracy theory is where an outsider speculates about the nature of such plans. Also, without wanting to speculate myself, logically it was either a lone actor or a group conspiring, since it clearly wasn’t publicised in advance. I personally doubt it was some grand conspiracy.
Obviously someone set this up, bullets don’t just appear out of nowhere. It may have just been the gunman who acted entirely alone. We have no evidence that anyone worked with the gunman but what’s that saying about the absence of evidence?
I know you have to say this, but holy shit do I disagree.
This person advocated significant violence and contributed to the deaths and loss of human rights of thousands. A good whack of the world would turn up hungover to work tomorrow after celebrating only a few inches over.
Advocating for violence to prevent a fascist from abolishing the democracy is the only acceptable violence. Sometimes a democracy has to be protected violently if it is too weak to protect itself. Trump allies always say its why they have the second amendment. Now that it is used against them they cry about it.
Violence is rarely good for anything as we have seen it just now. It would be better even if this guy shot at Biden that’s how counterproductive it is.
Modern problems aren’t solved with blood but with marketing. You cannot kill an idea but you can ridicule it
You cannot just eradicate everyone who opposes you. China tried, Soviets too. Now they have something vastly better - troll farms.
Why not? Isnt that what americans claim the second amendment is for?Prevent fascism?
Communism, not Fascism, or to protect workers’ rights if you go back far enough. We only got involved in fighting fascism because we were drawn into the war, otherwise it’s never been that big of an issue to Americans and many schools aren’t even allowed to teach about it anymore because “kids shouldn’t have to feel bad about something like that” or whatever excuses the far right is currently using to prevent their schools from teaching about Anne Frank, concentration camps, slavery, anything else they want to implement themselves.
I’m still here I see. Here’s the precious source since I’m full of shit.
NEW YORK — The leader of a conservative think tank orchestrating plans for a massive overhaul of the federal government in the event of a Republican presidential win said that the country is in the midst of a “second American Revolution” that will be bloodless “if the left allows it to be.”
Why, exactly, should we simply lie over and do nothing? How is calling for violence over this bad?
Original comment was removed for violating Lemmy’s content policy, and subsequent comment was removed for reposting the original.
If the only way you can discuss an assassination is by advocating for additional violence and pushing lies, then I guess not?
pushing lies
How did you determine what was true in this situation and what was false? I am curious about your methodology.
spreading a conspiracy
I know this is off-topic, but can we please go back to saying “conspiracy theory”? Conspiracy and conspiracy theories are not the same. There are actual conspiracies (a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful) , and there are theories of conspiracies. They should not be confused.
Surprised you’re not already banned just for the c-word. I mean, if someone crashes their car through a storefront, I could speculate without evidence that the driver was excessively old, young, drunk, or just plain stupid and it’s left up to the reader to take my comment with a grain of salt, but if I so much as entertain the possibility of this shooting being anything besides what is being reported by official channels, I must be silenced.
How do the people get justice for a convicted criminal that’s above the law? Is there a reason why the constitution has an amendment for guns? Why are so many platforms against the constitution and against the need for correct course when apt?
Stop acting like corpo reddit admins and mods.
“Convicted criminal” who is “above the law?”
Seems like he was convicted, thus not above the law.
You keep him from being president by getting enough people to vote against him, or you accept the will of the people.
The 2nd Amendment was originally to make sure militias weren’t disarmed, in a time when militias were more relevant. Has nothing to do with political assassination.
How about when said political candidate openly calls for violence and murder against his opponents, to the point of asking the Supreme Court if he could assassinate people.
Maybe the 2nd amendment comes in to play a little? Last I checked we didn’t vote king George off our shores.
Got him in the ear, huh?
Nobody is a good enough shot to risk grazing someone in the head without injuring them.
Someone almost certainly tried assassinating Trump and failed. It’s shocking that it was possible, and the Secret Service has a lot to answer for if it’s true that someone was able to get on a rooftop with line of sight of a former President delivering a speech. It’s hard to express how good they are at preventing opportunities for snipers these days.
If the counter-sniper team is the group who killed the assassin, it was the first time they’ve ever had to fire their weapons outside of training.
No, but a bad shooter could try to miss close to make it look legit and accidentally hit his ear. Trump didn’t have to be hit, just come close.
I can’t wait for Trump to turn pro-gun control.
Trump’s gun control: if white and conservative, you can own any firearm, if not, good luck
Wouldn’t be the first time. Conservatives are conservative up until the moment someone uses freedom from government oversight in a way that hurts or inconveniences them. Then they’re all, “There oughta be a law against blah blah blah” without an iota of self-awareness.
I like it when they say it’s not about guns, it’s about mental health and then you say okay, let’s have universal healthcare and they say, “no, not like that!”
then do process
Heads up, it’s due process because it’s the process you’re due (the process you’re entitled to or that’s proper, expected, etc), not the process you’re doing.
The bump stock ban overturned by the Supreme Court was put in place by Trump. He is not pro-gun.
He’s not pro-gun. Neither is he anti-gun.
He’s pro-Trump. He’ll say anything if he thinks he’ll get more money (and now, enough votes to escape his crimes). You won’t find a single issue he hasn’t flip-flopped on except “How can this make Trump richer?”
He’s not pro-gun.
I just said that.
Neither is he anti-gun.
I’m not very convinced of that.
“It takes so long to go to court to get the due process procedures I like taking the guns early like in this crazy man’s case that just took place in Florida he had a lot of firearms and they saw everything to go to court would have taken a long, long time so you could exactly what you’re saying but take the guns first, go through due process second.” - Trump
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du4xz6Lndxk&t=43s
He’s pro-Trump.
I wouldn’t argue with that.
Man, I would love to watch his supporters work through the dissonance on that one. On one hand, they already chose Trump over their god… On the other hand, “come and take it” culture is right up there with evangelicalism as far as being really ingrained.
Sure Trump wants to take some of our guns, but Biden wants to take them all!
I love when people downvote your comments as if half the shit you say on here isn’t facetious.
Guys, I’m pretty sure they don’t actually think Biden is going to take your guns
Alright, let’s get it out ahead of time, since I’m already seeing this:
It’s probably not staged. Trump reacts quickly - the fuck kind of timing you think that bloated potato has? To lift his hand to his ear just as the gunshot rings out? And the idea that the shooter grazed him on purpose is, likewise, absurd. The kind of risk that would entail, to just nick his ear?
Whether the shooter was insane or politically motivated, this is a real event.
Plus, the rally attendee being confirmed dead. Someone shot at him, 100%.
Do we know yet whether the would-be assassin or Secret Service hit the bystander? I was driving when it happened and am still getting up to speed
Edit/update: It seems the gunman was on a rooftop, not in the crowd, so, no idea what happened. I have a few theories, but I’m not gonna risk starting rumors.
Thank you. And fuck the idiots spouting off with the “staged” nonsense. The time to believe something is staged is when you have evidence that it was.
People are obviously on high alert, considering how far Trump is willing to go given Jan 6th. From the Reichstag fire to the Russian apartment bombings, such events manufactured or actual have profound impact on public perception and action. Naomi Klein’s (not to be confused with the nut job Naomi Wolf) The Shock Doctrine details this well.
No sign this was a false flag, but holy fuck does it have terrible implications.
Trump’s entire persona is built on lies, it shouldn’t be a surprise that it’s many people’s first thought.
I don’t doubt the shooter was genuinely trying to kill him. But I also think there are an unprecedented number of Republicans and Democrats who would be secretly relieved if their own party’s candidate were assassinated.
It’s a very common gut reaction to assume something like this has to be “staged”, I said it in the other thread in some discussions: It’s understandable to have it as this feeling. But everyone who feels that way: take a breath, remember the world is much more chaotic and much less controlled than you think, you don’t have to think of yourself as stupid for thinking it, but wait for more information to come out and be ready to give it up then.
Reacting properly to this new reality is much more important, than trying to adjust reality to fit an emotion. It’s human to do that, react instinctively in a first gut reaction, but it is also human to be able to let go of that.
In the spirit of not promoting violence, I’d like to promote the alternative of the Alex Jones treatment. Gaslight the fucker and set a conspiracy in motion to hound him the rest of his days.
I agree. We’re all just processing this and should probably take a break and come back when there is more info and we can think critically. That said, this is very scary, like, I feel like my physical safety is at risk because of this. So, not knowing what others are going through, I’m going to have some compassion for any initial reactions. People are having these same discussions face to face right now but not everyone can do that and may need to.
the way i like to look at it, is that it doesn’t matter whether it was staged or not, it still happened. People still died, people still evacuated, trump still got shot, none of that changes.
If it does, you’re doing a conspiracy theory, and you should stop.
I think it absolutely does matter for the political conclusions.
But at the very least it is far to early to get into these conspiracies, even if the events had unfolded very differently like the bullets not hitting anywhere close.
However given what we already know and what was caught by dozens of cameras, all the points the conspiracy theorists are coming up with are just insane.
Genuinely infurating that the moment anything happens, NeoLibs will just start copying right-wing talking points.
If you check the modlog, before the Mods here started removing them, dozens of commenters said its a false flag, set up by trump.
Here’s a screenshot of it happening on PoliticalMemes. EDIT: Used the proper screenshot. https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/9664605
And here’s some screenshots of the mod logs:
This isn’t getting into the ones on Mastodon and Twitter who also repeated the same Alex Jones level thinking.
EDIT: Weird how I gave proof, they move the goal posts. Give proof, move the goal posts. I’m starting to think they just want an excuse for their weird takes and Q-Anon thinking.
I said this in another one of these threads- it is not at all outlandish to think that someone unhinged with a gun would see the threat of a fascist dictator and decide to do something about it.
Yeah, I remember my grandfather telling the story of how Hitler held a speech at a Stadium that was visible from his attic window, and his biggest regret was, that he did not have a machinegun to take him and the other Nazi officials with him out. The US has enough guns and desperation for someone to attempt this, definitely.
it happens a lot more than you would think throughout american history, sometimes with guns, sometimes without. Obama had 8 attempts throughout his terms in office. Biden has had one so far, trump has had a few, nothing more significant than obama though, except for maybe being shot, just barely.
The right has been agitating for stochastic terrorism for about sixteen god damn years. Well, they got it.
It’s likely a good thing the guy missed. Trump being assassinated might just kick off the open violence that has been brewing. Still might, but it’ll depend on the next couple of days. If that dude turns out to be a left-winger, and Trump makes no attempt to stop it, I could see things getting very, very ugly.
If that dude turns out to be a left-winger
That dude’s political leaning will turn out to be whatever the news we prefer says he was.
It’s probably not staged. Trump reacts quickly - the fuck kind of timing you think that bloated potato has?
it’s absolutely what you would expect the reaction to be. Much like burning your hand on a stove where your brain deals with the situation a lot quicker than you can logically process it, these kinds of injuries can do the same thing. It’s more than likely the people surrounding him that clued him in on it quicker than anything. That’s the one thing you would be prepared to expect.
Yeah, a 120 meter shot to graze does not exist. One inch to the right and he’s dead. With wind variables and stuff, the shooter who can reliably pull that off in one shot or volley does not exist.
With a better rifle and a spotter maybe.
Edit. Just want to say I don’t think it’s a false flag in anyway. Just speculating lol
Everyone keeps saying it can’t be staged because it was so close.
I just wanted to point out it can be both staged and a successful assassination if the end goal is to point the finger at the left and martyr a polarizing figure.
I bet there will be a retaliatory attack on his Biden
I doubt it. Something like this already happened before in 2017. A deranged Bernie supporter went to a congressional baseball game and tried to shoot as many Republicans as he could. He ended up killing 6 people. However, despite that, there were no reactionary shootings. It was an isolated incident. I think this will be the same, or at least I hope.
You do realize the Las Vegas shooting was literally like 3 months later, right?
We literally have no idea what Stephen Paddock’s motivation was. The Las Vegas shooting was not a reaction to the congressional shooting
I mean, the right is already committing violence against its enemies, the media just fails to report it as what it is. Instead it’s “lone wolves” and “mental health problems”. Rittenhouse literally shot people on camera and got away with it “because skateboard”.
Daniel Perry murdered someone after driving his car into a crowd and was pardoned because Abbott agreed with his politics.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Garrett_Foster
The right is perfectly fine with violence that supports them.
well to be fair it’s not unusual to get away scot free after murdering people with your car, that shit happens all the time