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.

14 points

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.

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16 points

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?

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15 points

Pretty much expected. His precise reasons are what have me curious though

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18 points

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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16 points

Maybe the creation of a martyr and just accelerationism. Or the shooter was just a patsy

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2 points

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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-1 points

Follow the money. Who paid him to do the shooting is what we should be asking.

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56 points

The mental illness angle will be met with

“Interesting how he so easily acquired a gun.”

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29 points
*

Funny how he chose an AR type, too.

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3 points
*

What’s an AR type?

Edit: right answers only

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20 points
*

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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-20 points
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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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7 points
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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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1 point

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.

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4 points

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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11 points

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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11 points

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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-3 points

Asking this stuff will get you banned

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230 points

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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181 points

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.

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98 points

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 😢

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36 points

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…

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5 points

It’s those damn FEMA reeducation camps

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12 points

Then he got the covid vaxx and the 5g nano microchips got implanted in his brain and made him a deep state sleeper agent.

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27 points

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.

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31 points

Up until 2016 I could pretend to myself that, when the chips were down, most Americans could tell chicken salad from chicken shit.

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16 points

Anyone independent at this point is a moron.

Facts won’t matter. Facebook posts about deep state false flag operations will.

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11 points

Holy shit AND tried to assassinate a fascist? Why do they keep making up such fucking cool people

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7 points

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.

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4 points

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.

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3 points

I didn’t know Rittenhouse had attacked a child; I’m not in the least surprised.

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30 points

He was a responsible gun owner. They’re all responsible gun owners.

Until they’re not.

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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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76 points

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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10 points

Once he has secured power the gun confiscations will begin. Classic power grab move.

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2 points

Close, got it from his dad.

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53 points

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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15 points

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.

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23 points

… it would been a whole lot easier if he hadn’t been shot dead.

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25 points
*

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.

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6 points

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

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29 points

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

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2 points
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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

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5 points

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

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