Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/07/15/trump-shooter-rejected-from-school-rifle-club-because-he-had-such-bad-aim-dangerous.html
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Looks like he either got over that, or got incredibly lucky. Given that it sounds like the shot was rushed by a cop shpwing up, I’m going with the latter. However it was, he has changed the complexion (and risk) of the next few months.
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Good thing he didn’t have a bump stock and a large magazine.
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I can’t think of anyone in this situation who I would consider to be “lucky,” with the possible exception of Trump since his injury was minor and this may end up helping him electorally. But generally I agree with the philosophy of George Orwell who was repeatedly told by nurses and doctors how incredibly lucky he was to survive being shot through the neck, but mused that it would have been far luckier to have not been shot at all.
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I guess we can all look forward to conspiracy theories citing this factoid as proof that the shooting couldn’t have possibly happened as reported, just as 9/11 Truthers cited the hijackers’ poor marks in flight training as proof that they couldn’t possibly have the skills to successfully crash some airplanes into buildings.
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One bit i kept seeing referenced was he once gave $15 to some Democrat organization. But no source for this tidbit was given. Also this would have been when he was 15, the organization supposedly has said they dont accept donations from anyone under 18, so that begs the question if it was somone else with the same first and last name, or that whole tidbit was nonsense deflection from those who want to dismiss “he was a registered Republican.”
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This might shed some light:
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… as in “demolition militia” 
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As more about this kid comes out it’s clear that he fits the profile for the (sadly) now-standard school shooter: young, male, fixated on guns, maybe bullied, definitely a loner, etc.
Whatever political motive there may have been is wrapped up in that.
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I assume the eventual revelation is on the way that he was vocal in his hatred of women. Seems like every weirdo mass shooter hates women…
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It’s all subjective.
I am lucky that my NF is a weird mosaic form and only affects 1/4th of my body.
But I am unlucky I got a random mutation after conception. 
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About 999/1000 of these shooters are “young, male, fixated on guns, etc…” or “middle-aged, male, fixated on guns, etc…”
I’m about ready to give up on America by now, but I won’t because I know there’s a lot of good in the country, it’s just being obscured by media coverage of so many bad things.
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So given what we know about this guy so far - hard core republican, gun fan, considered by schoolmates to probably be a big Trump supporter, etc - deciding to shoot Trump seems out of character. But also given that his aim was considered so bad he was banned from his school’s shooting club due to being a danger to anyone in the room, the fact that a bullet went anywhere near Trump kind of suggests that’s not where he was aiming.
As a wild-ass guess way out there unlikely theory, what if he wasn’t there to shoot Trump? What if he was so convinced by all of the current Qpublican retoric that the evil Libruls were coming to kill his emperor that he decided it was his personal duty to guard his king, and when he saw a cop coming at him (due to being a lone nut with a gun in a sniping position at a political rally) he tried to shoot that cop (clearly a Deep State Operative!), and just missed in exactly as badly a manner as would get a person banned from a shooting club for being a danger to everyone in the room? With every shot he fired going in a random direction, one of which just coincidentally happened to be Trump’s ear.
What if, rather than being some deep conspiracy, or convoluted plot, it’s just one gigantic pile-up of stupid and incompetence?
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“high school rifle team”
Can anything be as sadly American as this?
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Most have switched to using air rifles. Not unlike Olympic and ISSF 10 meter air rifle. The schools that run programs with actual competitive interests tend to turn off the ammosexuals because it’s about safety, following the rules, and practicing with regulation firearms (22LR typically) and airrifles.
Is it necessary for teenagers, most of them minors, to participate in a shooting sport? of course not.
But I’d argue it probably isn’t the source of our gun problems in America.
My own personal theory is that unregulated markets and capitalism created our sick gun “culture”. A lot of our problems wouldn’t exist if the profit motive of making and selling guns was never in place. I don’t know if removing it now will reverse our course, but I’m confident we can’t make it any worse by making sure there are fewer guns manufactured.
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It was also rapidly disproven, as the donation in question was made by a 69-year-old in another city who had a similar name (they keep records of these things, some kind of legal requirement thing). The problem is, most of the media are owned by republican interests who have zero interest in retracting a good sting against The Great Enemy, so a retraction or even stopping using the “everyone else is saying it!” false statement is not going to happen.
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I’m not sure that has been disproven. The FEC filing for the $15 donation lists “Pittsburgh” as the address, but Bethel Park is a suburb of Pittsburgh. If you check the listed zip code, it is in Bethel Park.
Potentially the 69 year old fellow with the same name could have lived in Bethel Park too? CNN claimed they verified that the listed address is the shooter’s address…
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I think stupidity and incompetence is more likely than conspiracy any day. We like to think that there is a plan, or at least sense to events, but life seems to be more of a series of fortunate/unfortunate events more than anything else.
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We all know what created our sick gun culture: the politicization of a twisted interpretation of the second amendment, corrupt legislators and judiciary, gun manufacturers pumping nearly unlimited money into front organizations who do the actual bribing of the politicians, and various fascist and hate groups.
It’s all a cesspool of the worst of humanity, and I have little desire to filter out “but good guys with guns” from the bigger chunks floating in it.
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