He could be a dyed-in-the-wool GOP for six generations with no connections to any Left organization whatever.
He’ll be branded as a woke Antifa with a Black trans GF who was brain washed with peyote by a Native Shaman at a Liberal college.
Article says he was registered republican, but donated $15 to a grassroots democratic group shortly after the capitol riot, so… there you go.
deleted by creator
I doubt that will matter to the people who want it to be true. Honestly I feel so sad looking at this kid. Maybe I’m just old, but his high school yearbook pic looks like an elementary schooler to me. He looks so happy in his graduation video. As his father said: “What the hell happened?” I do wonder what will come to light when the discord is accessed.
Source?
The Act Blue entry has a Pittsburgh address (not Bethel Park, where the shooter was from).
.
15102 is the zip code for Bethel Park though. There’s no portion of that zip code that goes into Pittsburgh. But we should all probably just wait for the fbi investigation to finish, they’ll have a lot more information I’m sure.
That’s a good and interesting catch, and while I did engage in the discussion do agree that it’s probably best to reserve any sense of certainty until the FBI shares their findings.
Wrong guy. That guy was 50, not 20. He did, supposedly send $15 to a progressive group. Let’s wait for the reports. Lots of rumors and misinformation. Bat-shit conspiracies to follow.
With the same street address as the shooter on the ActBlue donation record?
There’s a political organizer with the same name a few counties over. In 2021 the shooter was 17, and not legally able to donate in PA.
I had a friend that was a die hard Bernie Sanders fan until Trump became relevant. He turned to a qanon following psycho that pushed away everyone close to him.
So a patriot?
Speaking of finances, I’d like to know how much he lost to trumps scams. I’m just impatient, that will (or won’t) be discovered in the investigation
CNN reported that he registered Rep, but made donations to Dem. Of course that was right after it happened so plenty of room for your
Discord servers are restricted ring-fenced sections of the internet. They are often used by gaming groups and communities as secure chat rooms but are also used by fringe organisations to push their ideologies and discuss wild conspiracy theories and plots.
Now THAT’S something we can regulate - politicians
Discord is so obvious, yet “oh noes china tik tok meta insta!!”
used by gaming groups and communities as secure chat rooms
Fucking lol
Who on earth thinks discord is secure? Convenient af, though
There’s nothing convenient about Discord’s UI, famously assembled by drunken idiot monkeys with a grudge against functional design.
It’s a glorified mirc client
Yep, I was just about to type this.
“One of them Discord users…”
“Who is this 4Chan?”
Yes
And often gaming groups engage in the second, ruining it
Crooks appeared to have featured in a TV advert for the BlackRock finance company filmed at Bethel Park High School and broadcast in 2023.
I just found a breadcrumb of what will undoubtedly be my favorite conspiracy theory to come out of this.
I don’t think enough people talk about what a boon the trump tax cuts for the rich were for the major asset management corps.
Who has time to worry about money and trickle-up economics when there could be trans ladies out there using the ladies’ room?!?!?
/s
you kid, but I was literally talking to somebody yesterday and this would not be far off from a summary of the discussion.
Yeah, I was being sarcastic, but the people I was impersonating absolutely operate that way. I dare say it’s a big part of the Republican strategy.
BuT, tHiNk Of ThE ChiLdReN!
The people that need to talk about it have no interest in entertaining the thought.
that is the biden campaign in a nutshell.
Lol, from one point of view, true. But if your choice is either Nazi Capitalism or Pandering Capitalism, maybe we don’t have to relegate ourselves to bigotry so quickly. I mean, if we have to live in this late stage capitalist hellscape until the boomers and xgeners die, maybe we don’t have to throw Elon musk a welcome back apartheid party.
Vance is a major stooge of Musk via Peter Thiel, and will have a direct access to sensitive information. Fuck Musk and everyone who thinks he is something special.
If you read the wiki comments there was someone questioning the relevance and thinking it should be removed before ending up a conspiracy theory lol
Is television commercial appearance notable?
“He is featured in a 2023 advertisement for BlackRock, an investment firm, that was filmed at his high school.” [12] -> CNN “What we know page”
I can sort of see an argument for both sides
but I also pretty much guarantee its gonna be a talking point on A. Jones’ show by end of this week if it stays in the article (maybe also if it doesn’t, but yeah)
but I also pretty much guarantee its gonna be a talking point on A. Jones show
I smell wonkery afoot.
it’s time to pray
Poor bastard. At 20, mental capacity is nowhere near its peak, and how bad must your life be if you are willing to throw it away for some obese self-tanning cream using orange dipshit? This is what happens when mental illnesses aren’t taken serious, and treatment is not easily available.
Well, let’s see
Looks at everything on fire around us
Yeah I have no clue what could have caused his life to be bad enough to do something like that!
I think you misunderstood. I wasn’t saying I don’t see how people could have mental problems in this world. That was a rhetorical question, observing that the poor bastard was obviously very broken / brainwashed / ill / whatever.
Right…the problem is the very troubled young man, not the fact that he had easy access to firearms.
How is my statement in any way negating that point?
You’ve managed to identify the highly effective, yet morally reprehensible strategy for military recruitment. Get young men when they are at peak testosterone, but have limited pre-frontal cortex development.
He doesn’t have to be exploited by his boss or landed lord anymore.
Peace someday. Hope yall find yours in this life not the next.
How did they identify him using DNA? That’s a fucking red flag. Is there some database I’m not aware of? Or did he have prior arrests?
There are genealogy databases that are public and or cooperate with authorities. Perhaps I’m a privacy nihilist, but IMHO, the cat’s kind of out of the bag for a lot of this. If you didn’t submit your DNA to a genealogy DB, you probably have family members that did so could see if they were 30% Italian or something.
That’s how they caught the golden state killer. I think it was his niece submitted a DNA sample and it popped up as related to the unknown sample they had.
I once read an expert on this and it seems they only need a very low amount of DNA samples (like 0.1% of the population) in the database to be able to narrow down any search to the sibling level.
And traditional detective work can then figure out which sibling, if there are multiple.
So yeah, the cat is out of the bag with this one.
Exactly, your DNA doesn’t need to be in the DB at all, you just your relatives DNA in the DB.
It was the only reliable way to find who the biological parents of my father were, so yeah.
It was the only way I could find out if my biological father was 30% Italian so I’m with you
Yes all these rocks and minerals need to be watched closely
Lol
I think you mean genealogy maybe?
Yeah. Autocorrect
I figured I was goofing on ya
he didn’t have a criminal record according to the article, but if DNA records existed for his parents, you could still identify someone as offspring with pretty high confidence based on that IIRC
Some organizations do mass DNA collection from kids to help identify them later in life.
The school sends out a notification that the parents can sign up to have their kid swabbed so their kid’s tiny corpse can be identified. They don’t word it like that, but that is the idea.
So he may have been swabbed as a kid and they referenced that.
These days, you can opt in having your child’s dna stored after birth, in case they go missing or a natural disaster or something. We did it, but we opted to keep it physically in our own possession. It’s a little vial.
Why is it a red flag
Because it’s potentially indicative of a national database of everyone’s DNA, rather than just the criminal database, which would be (and perhaps is) a privacy nightmare
some large commercial dna testing companies share their databases with law enforcement, and additionally you really don’t need a close match to start identifying someone, 5th cousin type thing etc. heres an good video on the issue.
It’s not. Law enforcement can get a warrant on 23 & Me. Everyone turning over the DNA to random companies not required to comply with HIPAA is a terrible idea.
Some states have been collecting blood for almost 40 years and can’t even really say why. They just started doing it…
https://www.ibj.com/articles/58596-storing-babies-blood-samples-pits-privacy-versus-science
Like, they have an excuse for taking the samples that seems valid. Except I don’t think they’re actually testing them. And there’s no reason to keep after testing.
Now, I dont think it’s for a secret DNA database, I think it’s normal red state bullshit.
Just pointing out in some states the take and keep blood samples from every birth
Privacy minded people don’t like the idea of easily accessible geology databases. This was a good use of that technology, but people worry about that technology be used for evil. Health insurance companies reflagging you, or much worse.
Did you mean *biology?
Perhaps genealogy?
Could be geometry?
No no clearly they meant genieology
Blood has iron in it. Iron comes from rocks. Boom - geology.
Human flesh is weak. Stone is strong.
FROM THE MOMENT I UNDERSTOOD THE WEAKNESS OF MY FLESH…
California has been collecting dna from babies since the 80s apparantly
I wonder how many people there are aware
I didn’t realize how sketchy that all was. The form mentions genetic testing for conditions, but that was just like 2 of the spots. They did like 6 to a tiny newborn. I’d recommend other parents to object.
And I’m going to submit the destruction forms for my kids and myself.
There is so much that is unknown. Everything about his true motives will, likely, be speculation forever. But it’s best to let the FBI be the one that does the information reveal.
This kid was 20 though. He might have had psychosis. Last presidential assassination attempt was Hinkley. This is around the age things like schizophrenia start to present themselves IIRC. This might have been a suicide by cop type situation and he wanted to be famous in the process? Who the hell knows.
What if we had a law that you had to be 21 to buy guns though? That’s in line with “common sense” gun control. I’ve heard Obama say that phrase countless times since Sandy Hook. It could have made this a little different, maybe? It almost certainly would have prevented Uvalde. This is political violence, it’s horrible, I think this will help Trump win. Any left leaning person with half a brain can see that imo. This is also gun violence though. Gun control has to part of the answer to this. Remember who the Brady Bill was named after.
I understand the sentiment but I’d be a fan of having an adult age across the board.
If you can be drafted, you should be able to drink, buy guns, rent cars, vote, etc. That should all be at the same age, whatever that age is.
Couldn’t agree more. Let’s make the adult age a nice even 20 and call it a day.
(Or ideally 25 if you want to be more realistic about it, given the rate that people mature at, but I have a feeling that would be extremely unpopular.)
I think 25 is far too old. We already have a problem of not letting teenagers learn to become an adult. Yes you’re going to make stupid decisions in your early 20s, you’re better off making a variety of stupid decisions while you’re still maturing rather than waiting until you’ve finished before taking actions that have consequences.
Also imagine being a 24 year old who either is expected to live with your parents or get an adult to cosign your lease. Or can’t vote. Or can’t decide to have certain medical procedures like an abortion without parental permission. We’ve become far too comfortable with the idea we need to legally disenfranchise young people further.
Ya the military would go bonkers
So would someone over 25 dating someone younger than 25 be legislated?
I think Romeo and Juliet laws cover instances like this already. If I’m not mistaken its like a 3 year window.
I’m 21, my partner is 27. Now what?
You call your partner a pedo and and break up.
no, but I think that was a joke(i hope)
Unironically lol
You can legally rent a car at 18, it’s just that no company wants to rent to you.
Yeah, and I generally think it should be 18. Some rights should come sooner such as medical autonomy and Romeo and Juliet style consent, but once you hit the age of adulthood you’re legally an adult
And be president. How about 35 for the adulthood age?
Hell yeah, and very strong anti-child-labor laws.
The gun wasn’t his. He stole it from his dad. In a country with more guns than people it’s simply impossible to disarm the bad guys.
Instead maybe we should tackle things like mental illness, lack of critical thinking skills, cognitive dissonance, and the destruction of family values. Also people should have to go through training and be licensed to be allowed on the internet.
Why not both? Tackle guns with more control and better mental health care and education.
Disarming bad guys shouldn’t be the goal. Much like smoking in the UK. You wont stop all the older generationa from smoking but you can make it illegal for all the younger generations and over a longer peeiod of time theres no kne left that smokes.
If you tackle guns now and provide greater control over ownership whilst simultaneously educating younger people you will effectively prevent this sort of crim in the future.
At least thats my view.
Last presidential assassination attempt was Hinkley.
That may just be the last one you were aware of, there have been a number of attempts since, several involving guns being fired at the president (or fired at a position the shooter thought he was)
Dudes just ignoring the shoes thrown at Bush
Props to the guy for getting shoe #2 off even if W did dodge
who throes a shoe, honestly?
The man fired twice, I can’t help but respect that
Valid, I’m sure. Hinkley was the last that made anytype of major news, unless I’m mistaken.
It was reported that the weapon was his father’s.
Sometimes not even a safe will keep everything locked up. With enough time you can saw through most of the commercially available ones.
There are insurance/registration issues that can address that. Of course there endless possible hypotheticals. I’m personally in favor of some sort of “drivers license” equivalent for guns.
But a 21 year old age limit almost certainly would have prevented Uvalde.
I am highly skeptical of registration because there is a 99.99% certainty that it will be the GOP to use it and strip away weapons from anyone who is not a registered Republican.
Aside from the rather extreme criticisms (genocide stuff), universal registration is a bad idea for everyone because these things keep getting hacked/leaked:
If you are on the registry, it’s an invitation to descrimination or careful/skilled burglary.
If you aren’t on the registry, it’s an invitation for violent crime with little/no resistance.
disagree. if people want to do something, terrible or not, they will find a way illegally.
I’m going to go very basic here and say look at piracy.
Piracy bro lol there’s apples and oranges but that’s skateboards and dinosaurs.
Even with your point being valid there’s tremendous value for society for making somethings as hard as possible.
sure, but people will find a way.
With enough time you can saw through most of the commercially available ones.
This is technically true but with the amount of time and effort it takes to get through a good portion of the safes I’ve seen, it would honestly be easier to go and steal one from some schmuck with a truck gun or whatever that’s insecurely, uhhh, secured.
Do we know in this case whether or not the gun was even kept in a safe?
By all reports, his father bought the gun. While I agree with them, your suggestions would have done literally nothing in this situation.
But it’s best to let the FBI be the one that does the information reveal.
Sirhan Sirhan would vehemently disagree.
This kid was 20 though. He might have had psychosis. Last presidential assassination attempt was Hinkley. This is around the age things like schizophrenia start to present themselves IIRC.
This is highly true and not something I’ve seen anyone bring up until now. It’s a good point and I think it actually might be pretty likely. Good job.
I’m actually incredibly excited to hear how the Conspiracy peddlers spin this, we’ll study this level of crazy forever.
I was told “he’s from Pennsylvania, he’s registered as a republican, but he’s a democrat. You see, the democrats have been voting as republican so they can vote on the republican ticket for Trumps enemies”
I just can’t. I’m not looking forward to work this week.
“Oh, so there are even less Republicans than reported?”
I have heard some internet talking head turn their “democracts say fascist, make democrats shoot trump” into “democrats say fascist, even make republicans shoot trump”.
“Their rhetoric is convincing even Republicans! They’re clearly evil!”
Ah, a very selective recognition of stochastic terrorism. Except it doesn’t quite fit because calling Repubs fascist isn’t a lie.
It sure is easier to convince Repubs to shoot since they are already brainwashed. Too bad it is hard to direct them at people who deserve it instead of shoppers and nightclub attendees.
No one deserves it.
There are plenty of people who deserve it. Oil barons lying about climate so that they can continue to profit at the expense of millions of lives. Insurance barons lying about healthcare so that they can continue to profit at the expense of everyone’s wellbeing.
Pass better laws. Get better lawyers. Elect better politicians. You only think murder is an option because you suck at all of the sane ways to handle things.
That brings up a good point. Murdoch and everyone brainwashing people with propaganda to the point that they allow Repubs to obstruct all progress so they can profit also deserve it as much as the Repubs obstructing all progress.
This has got to be the dumbest thing I have seen all day. Murdering people should not be an option. Enjoy your visit with the feds.
Wait, this person shot Trump? How weird, he has the same name as the kid from yesterday who shot a teleprompter.
There’s been conflicting information. Trump’s right ear was bleeding, but the teleprompter was to his left (in front of him, but his head was currently turned right). If it was glass shrapnel, it should be the left of his face that was hit.
Is it possible there was a second shooter on the grassy knoll?
I mean, shrapnel can also ricochet, but I’m not sure what would’ve caused that in the immediate area around him really since there wasn’t really much behind him. The world may never know.
John Wilkes Booth. Three names. Succeeded.
Lee Harvey Oswald. Three names. Succeeded.
John Hinkley Jr. Only two names. Failed.
Thomas Matthew Crooks. Three names. Failed.
Proof that we are living in a joke of a timeline. Can I go back and get on the right one please?
After reading the article he only donated to the other group after 2021. Maybe he was a Trump fan until he tried to steal an election then changed his political views.
But either way we have no clue yet of why he did what he did.
Paywalled so can’t see what they say, but didn’t he donate in Jan 2021? He would have been 17, and thus prior to his registration to vote as a Republican.
The timeline’s not incompatible with him being a never trump Republican.
Don’t most Americans have a middle name? Doubt this kid went around being called three names in day to day life…
This isn’t as easy as it seems. Apparently it’s not uncommon to register to vote in a closed primary like PA for the opposite party you prefer in order to dilute the vote for the candidate you don’t like by voting for the person running against them in the party. So he may be a “registered republican voter”, but that may be as a minor act of sabotage rather than his real politics.
E: what’s up with the rebuttals? “Yeah it happens but not really”? So it happens, but it couldn’t with this guy? If I’m wrong and he’s actually a Republican, great! But downvoting the possibility he registered the opposite of his beliefs isn’t gonna make it disappear.
Apparently it’s not uncommon
You know what’s incredibly more common? Being an actual Republican and voting in a Republican Primary.
Everyone loves a harmless conspiracy theory, but this theory is anything but. Unless the shooter specifically admitted to this conspiracy theory, peddling this bullshit is reckless. About as stupid as child molesters in pizza place basements that don’t exist.
Is it even more common to being a republican and assassinating the leader of the party? He “said” he was republican, but the shooting at republicans say otherwise. And i trust actions more than words. And the actions don’t get any more louder than that. Besides it does not matter one iota what Party he is affiliated with. The only thing that matters is the disappointment that he missed
The dislike for Trump crosses party affiliation and traditional right/left dichotomies. That is to say that there are A LOT of Republicans that dislike Trump and don’t see him as an ally, or see him as quite the opposite, in fact.
Possibly. But no one knows anything really, so this whole “he’s not with us! Our side would never do such a thing!” Is ridiculous. I have said it somewhere else, but i was thinking about changing my registration so i could vote for some other challenger in the republicans primary, but keeping Joe Biden from being the democrat nominee was too important to risk doing that.
I’d point you to the assassin of John Lennon - he is/was a big Beatles fan but murdered John anyway because of who John became. That still doesn’t have anything to do with the parallel argument, in this case, of the likelihood that Mark was pretending to be a Beatles fan or not.
Actions do speak louder than words - this would-be assassin registered as a Republican. The conspiracy theory that he was trying to affect a Primary makes no sense based on timing alone, let alone there not being an iota of evidence indicating he wasn’t a Republican. Republicans created the environment for this kid to do what he attempted to do and they should own up to their culpability rather than rely on bots and useful idiots to blame everyone but themselves for this problem.
Why is EVERYONE blaming someone else. jfc, both sides without any real information is jumping in trying to blame the other with weak sauce evidence. You are doing the exact same just like a redditor. Why would you care if it turned out he was democrat ? You afraid that the republicans would blame the left? Big whoop.
Bro, you inserted yourself into a conversation where someone claimed that the shooter was cosplaying a Republican and, inexplicably, defended them. The only person you should be getting butthurt with is yourself instead of dropping the inevitable “both sides” shit 🤣
I would agree with the theory (as I’ve personally witnessed people registering for opposing party to wreck havoc there internally), BUT: I rarely came across hardcore gun-loving Democrat, watching NRA-related content.
The last two points are very valid. It’s definitely something I considered, but this is such an F’d up timeline that I can’t help but be very pessimistic.
This definitely happens, though it’s not remotely as common as just voting for your preferred party in the primary.
A friend and I both voted Republican in a primary a couple years ago. The Democratic lineup wasn’t interesting and it was obvious who was going to win on it. Quite frankly our votes didn’t matter much there. But the GOP contenders were a mixed bag of semi-moderates and MAGA bootlickers. We felt it was most important to keep the Trumpy psychos out of the general election, so we voted against them.
In a way I think it was the right call at the time. On the other hand, I get a lot of SMS spam to my number now from scammy pro-Trump sources. Of course I report those to the FTC every time, but it’s still gross.
Indeed. Party affiliation only indicates which party’s primary you wanted to participate in.
“When people tell you who they are, believe them.”
Also, Occam’s razor.
Just letting people know what a PA resident told me. Too bad people don’t want to hear it. If the guy was left leaning and registered as a Republican downvotes aren’t going to make it better.
That is almost entirely a myth. Yes, there are ‘cross over votes’ in states that don’t have open primaries but facilitate party enrollment, but those cross over voters are almost always ‘independent’ voters who enroll and then unenroll and are not doing anything other than voting for the candidate of their choice in the primary that candidate is running in. So called ‘strategic voting’, as far as I know, has never made any difference in any presidential primary, but go ahead and bring up the bodies.
It’s not for presidential races.
Its for state level races where you’re in one of the 40+ states where it’s a forgone conclusion what party wins the general.
So some people give up their presidential primary vote, to vote in the state level primaries for the party virtually guaranteed to win their state, then vote for their preferred party in the general even if their candidate won the primary for the other party
You might not think it’s common, but it’s the only way a lot of people’s votes have any actual effect, so lots of people do it
He would have had to think to do that 3 years ahead of time.
Can you not change party affiliation at any time?
You can but he didn’t. He set his affiliation 3 years ago.
Sigh… Heard about this from my partner last night. I had forgot until just a few minutes ago (special thanks to alcohol for making life bearable). Looks like I have to stay off the internet for the rest of the year.
That’s what I’m starting to think, too… Minus the alcohol bit.
Well, when the tone police pipe up with their “but tha both sides [democratic] rhetoric!” - Democrats need to tell them that: yeah, the Republicans need to stop whipping up so much violence.
Dude was just taking out a felon sex offender, GOP dream. It just so happen this one was an ex-president.
I can only imagine how disenfranchised this young man had to feel to be able to do this
Archive: https://archive.is/OKkIi
Some articles (like this one from USA Today have mentioned that in '21 he made a small donation to the Progressive Turnout Project, and it’s interesting that that’s missing from this article. Did it turn out to not be true or did they purposefully omit that?
I’m from Yurop so I don’t even pretend to understand the election system in the US let alone PA, but I’ve seen some comments that led me to understand that he could well be a Democrat even though he was a “registered Republican” because there might not even be good D candidates for him to vote for in PA, and many D voters tactically vote for the least bad R candidate.
Not sure him being a “gun lover” really necessarily paints him as a Republican either; Americans regardless of party affiliation can be pretty… uh, enthusiastic about guns, although yeah it does seem to be more common on the right but I’m not sure it’s enough to draw any conclusions from it.
And just so there’s no misunderstandings, I really don’t have a dog in this hunt so I’m not looking to blame Democrats for the shooting, I’m just trying to digest the news I’ve been reading.
NY Times article interviewed a classmate who indicated he had right leaning views.
Nothing here is controversial in the slightest, why the down votes?
And yes, there are plenty of liberal gun nuts, like me.
Turns out that was a different person with the same name.
I definitely think it’s possible he could be either. The bit about guns is mainly because guns is one of their things. Some Republicans love guns more than anything.
Either way, I’m mostly impressed at how quickly those facts became the most important bits of information. I guess it makes sense though. I’m just glad he’s white and not brown. lol
Some articles (like this one from USA Today have mentioned that in '21 he made a small donation to the Progressive Turnout Project, and it’s interesting that that’s missing from this article. Did it turn out to not be true or did they purposefully omit that?
It was a donation to a get out the vote project. On inauguration day. About as useful as tits on a tractor.
I don’t know if he made the donation to make it seem like he was a Democrat or for no good reason, but he didn’t donate $15 on January 20th to help Democratic turnout.
They probably left it out because getting into it would only muddy the waters or even lend false credence to the cult’s conspiracy theories about him being “deep state antifa” or whatever.
