Katie Mack: I keep remembering that the official Republican solution to gun violence is just... more gun violence. "The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun" means the plan -- the only plan -- is that AFTER the shooting starts, there's more shooting. Prevention isn't even considered.

I keep remembering that the official Republican solution to gun violence is just... more gun violence. "The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun" means the plan -- the only plan -- is that AFTER the shooting starts, there's more shooting. Prevention isn't even considered.

...which is how you end up with stuff like this bsky.app/profile/josh...

Fact-check: True! www.jsonline.com/story/news/p...

Yesterday when I posted about how people at the rally started shouting at and blaming the press for the shooting (!!), someone replied that the time had come for the members of the press to start carrying guns. This is not what journalists are asking for!

Teachers, journalists, Uber drivers It’s always the same horrible solution that doesn’t address the actual problem.

bsky.app/profile/jimi...

I am a teacher in a public school. If the police are afraid of AR-15's how am I supposed to protect my students? With the same gun they have? Because that's what some people expect of me. These guns need to be banned, every last one of them. As soon as humanly possible.

It's like guns are a virus and they want a pandemic.

Herd immunity thinking

I expect they’ve been suggesting that since the Capital Gazette shooting, if not before. More guns is not the answer.

the good guy with a gun retreated according to the sheriff www.cnn.com/2024/07/14/p... I’m so tired of this.

Local officer tried to stop gunman on rooftop, but was unable to engage him, Butler County sheriff says | CNN Politicswww.cnn.com A local police officer saw the gunman on the rooftop during former President Donald Trump’s Pennsylvania rally on Saturday but was unable to engage him, Butler County Sheriff Michael T. Slupe told CNN...

Those USSS snipers are a different breed, and I don't think we want to create more of that breed. Yes they would go into the schools during school shootings (mutatis mutandis, you don't need a sniper inside a school) but I'd guess it's not good for mental health.

I had a very good friend who was one of this special breed. You’re 100% right it’s not good for their mental health. He’s now gone after committing suicide with a firearm.

I'm so sorry you lost your friend in such a way. As a survivor of a loved one's suicide, myself, my heart goes out to you, and to him.

🫂🫂

Classic Republican, not addressing the problem until it's his own ass on the line.

There was a good guy with a gun there. He ran away. bsky.app/profile/benc...

of COURSE

Yeah, I saw that. (There was also a Secret Service sniper, who really should have been the first call if those guys knew at all what they were doing, but anyway.)

really odd that the roof was not locked down given the elevated security enforced by Secret Service and other LEO agencies for Presidential Candidates' events/rallies. plus the Secret Service snipers seemed to be sleep walking last night as the reports imply they knew alrdy a person was on that roof

Diagram showing the roof where Crooks was located

This image annotated by the New York Times graphically demonstrates how badly the Secret Service fucked up. The shooter was on the roof of a building right next to the rally area with a perfect view of the stage. An absolutely stunning fuck-up.

Between this and him rising pumping his fists in glee, it becomes VERY HARD to accept that this was not a complete set-up.

You’re delusional to believe that Trump would sign up for it if it were, that an amateur marksman could reliably hit his ear without killing him, or that this type of gun violence is in anyway abnormal for this country. It’s far more believable that law enforcement fucked up and Trump capitalized.

No, it’s just the inevitable result when you insist on surrounding yourself exclusively with the most yessiest of Yes Men instead of prioritizing actually being qualified. Trump is not that good of an actor; he was scared. He poked his stupid head out only after being told the shooter was down.

And no one is mentioning that water tower either, the highest object with a line-of-sight and also not secured. This whole thing was a clusterfuque.

Secret Service agents are permanently assigned to protectees. Trump picks people for loyalty, not competence. Think VP Pence when unknown Secret Service agents wanted to bundle him away from the Capitol. He refused to go, and stayed with his detail.

There's this bit of information, also - Secret Service relied heavily on Butler PA local LEOs

NEW: WaPo reports that Secret Service relied heavily on local police at the Trump rally to fill out significant parts of its typical array of specialized protective units (gift link) wapo.st/3WjPF5w

The secret service is making a big deal about the composition of the security force, which is not an important issue. The questions are about the person in charge, the planning: why wasn't the roof guarded? When did reports come in about an armed man on the roof, and how were those reports handled?

I cannot see what you posted. That person has me blocked.

Is the Secret Service so short on budget that they can't afford $40 drones for continuous scenery surveying? That money would have stopped the shooter by dissuasion. And I'm not talking about a fully fledged helo with traffic cameras that can cover the area undetected by both human eyes and ears.

This 'incident' is becoming more a more a head scratcher for me along the lines of a book depository and a grassy knoll > what sort of stage craft would it take to set this up? Especially, as it works to tfg's advantage with his deep state nonsense / Biden is out to get me by any means necessary

A simple thermal imaging drone should be used to sweep high points where you can easily spot a body that shouldn't be there.

Task & Purpose on youtube had a pretty interesting take on this - the Secret Service sniper would have been looking for threats at a much longer range than 150 meters, which is absolutely assumed to have been already checked and then further locked down.

On that I'm not going to blame a cop. He's climbing a ladder (both hands occupied) and pokes his head up to see a shooter point a rifle at him. There would be no time to try to stabilise himself to pull a gun and fire.

By disturbing the gunman and causing him to rush, the cop may have saved Trump’s life

Per the narrative I've seen, an officer on the ground was alerted by attendees that there was a guy on a roof with a rifle. He climbed up to check it out, the guy pointed the rifle at him, he climbed back down. He could hardly have attempted a quickdraw already at gunpoint holding on to the ladder.

The most important issue remains that the roof should have been secured the whole time. What this cop did once he was told about the guy with the gun is a secondary issue - and even there, the important questions are about what he radioed in, when, to whom, and how they responded.

I'm just wondering if he had time to radio anyone, and if so why he didn't.

He absolutely should have! The power the cops have isn't individual heroics, it's communication. But I keep seeing people asking why he didn't attack the shooter, which is placing the blame in the wrong place. Even if he handled the situation wrongly, his error was not his failure to attack the guy.

Right. The question is whether he had the chance or if the shooter took his shot too quickly for that while the cop was dropping to the ground.

It will be important whether he radioed it in before going up the ladder. But the main thing will remain the incredibly bad planning. A rooftop unoccupied that was literally within throwing distance of the stage, in an area with very few rooftops!

Thomas Crooks does get the trophy for "The Never Trumper with the most Conviction".

I have seen various people say “Of course the cop didn’t shoot at him. He wasn’t an unarmed Black man with his back turned.”

I can’t. I just can’t.

Seems to be a recurring theme

nra: 'if theres anything that makes people safer in a shooting its crossfire'

I knew that any gun control would never happen when the Congressional Softball game got shot up with multiple Congress people hurt and nothing was done. They won't even do it to protect their lives.

I have such a hard time hearing "the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun" because it's admission that guns are the problem, but no one saying it sees it that way.

I don't remember who said it, but the fact that nothing happened after Sandy Hook means it is vanishingly unlikely anything will ever be done. Enough Americans are fine with it that change is almost impossible. So when someone shoots at a person with a long gun? Just another day in the USA

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