Yeah. His family was conservative and pro-2A. Whatever the narrative is here, it isn’t a left-wing thing. The way the right has a fetish for guns, no one is surprised.
I’m not saying this guy is definitely a lefty, I don’t think they have enough information to say anything with a lot of confidence yet.
He had a one time donation to Act Blue,which doesn’t mean a lot, and he was a registered Republican, which also doesn’t mean a ton either.There are plenty of 2A lefties that own guns too, a couple of my friends are darn near progressive (US progressive, not EU progressive) and own a decent number of rifles, shotguns, and pistols. Owning a gun or multiple guns does not automatically make you a right winger, at least not in America.
I don’t pretend to know what this guy was thinking though. Just saying it’s still early and we don’t know a ton.
Yeah so what if he registered Republican and his classmates talk at length about how conservative he was? He’s probably a communist because he supposedly gave $15 once to act blue /s
If anything, making a donation in his name to a left leaning organisation seems like a middle finger pointed at him.
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I haven’t read any reports on what his classmates are saying. I’m not jumping to conclusions. I’m just saying it’s early and there is a ton of misinformation and owning a gun or multiple guns doesn’t automatically make him a right winger, it’s just one data point.
They are all over the news being interviewed. Especially here in PA
What ton of misinformation are you reading? Other than dipshits trying to spin it as a conspiracy to raise his polling numbers.
You know the fun thing about using nuance? It doesn’t matter one red penny if Republicans aren’t doing it too.
The pursuit of truth is righteous. Other people being willfully ignorant does nothing to diminish that.
This is an election. Being snobby about “ignorant people” helps lose them.
Has nothing to do with being snobby toward other people. It has everything to do with holding yourself to a standard.
If Adlai Stevenson had a marketing problem that’s something else entirely. Learning lessons from his faults itself seems like a pursuit of truth.
Good luck winning elections by holding yourself to a standard. I’ve yet to see that work, but I’m sure this time…
We’re talking past each other here. I presume I’m no less invested in keeping fascists out of office than you are. That doesn’t provide any excuse not to fully inform myself, or to pretend that something is anything other than what it really is.
You’re talking in context of the upcoming election. I’m talking in context of not abandoning reality. Discarding nuance because other people are irrational doesn’t serve you well in the broader scheme. Let them be confidently wrong. They aren’t going to care what your argument is regardless of what you say, so serve yourself better by giving things their due consideration.
He had a one time donation to Act Blue
That wasn’t him. That was a 70 year old guy from a different suburb with the same name. Stop spreading this misinformation.
Apparently there’s also information that the donation address matches the shooter’s, so it’s not misinformation.
Owning a gun or multiple guns does not automatically make you a right winger, at least not in America.
Louder for those in the back.
Shrug… I always assume gun enthusiasts have a dozen or more. If you’re going to have one or two, you may as well have a dozen. You can only pop one at a time anyway.
I know many folks don’t like guns but since guns are allowed, it’s worth understanding that collecting them and learning about them is a hobby just like any other.
All gun enthusiasts I know have many. And if I could be arsed going through the necessary paperwork of getting ownership permits (Not murican), I would as well.
Guns are like tattoos. If you’re into them, you probably have a bunch.
I’m not what you’d call an “enthusiast”, I just hunt. And between friends and relatives, you just kinda end up with extra shotguns and rifles. I give some to new hunters but it seems like the old relatives all get out of it and if they know you hunt, you end up with them
I read these stories about “lunatic gunman had a dozen firearms” and cue up look-away-meme.
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I dunno, a friend of mine has a couple mp5s and you can definitely akimbo them. It’s absurdly fun too
Worth keeping in mind the dude is 20 and lives with his parents. The vast majority of them probably aren’t his. The economy isn’t that good.
This is super, SUPER normal for this area. Seriously. This is like announcing the shooter had a dog and propane grill in the back yard.
This is super, SUPER normal for this area.
I mean, “more than a dozen” covers a lot of ground. Does that mean 15? Sure, that’s probably normal. 50? That’s weird.
Oh but you know NBC would say DOZENS! if there were 50.
Does that mean 15? Sure, that’s probably normal.
…
Americans are weird.
To this American, yes, 15 is a weird number of guns to have. But some types of folk, especially in rural areas, are just different.
13-23 guns. If there were 24 or more they’d have said a couple dozen or dozens
50 is not weird, it’s just like any other hobby, and you can’t shoot really more than 1 at a time accurately anyways.
No, it’s weird.
I mean it’s really not. The is nothing wrong with liking mechanical things. Is it weird to have a collection of anything?
Propane?! Clearly they are a terrorist of some flavor
/s
Probably has a spare high capacity propane tank, too
A clear and present danger if I ever heard one
Taste the meat not the heat.
“Bomb-making materials”
In 2016 the Trump campaign built a database profiling millions of voters in key battleground states – including the family of Trump’s would-be assassin Thomas Crooks.
It found that both the parents of Thomas Crooks were very likely to be gun owners and shared other gun-related lifestyle indicators.
They left out the part where his classmates used to refer to him as “the school shooter.”
From the details that have come out about him already I would be surprised if he wasn’t referred as that before. It is actually a pretty common “nickname” for kids that don’t fit in even when they don’t have hunting as a main personality trait already.
I used to get called the Columbine kid all the time for being goth back in my day, among other bullying
His classmates said he was a loner, but because he was a bully, not because he was the quiet kid.
As part of their investigation into what could have motivated Thomas Crooks to carry out the shooting, the FBI accessed his cellphone — but a preliminary analysis found the information was not helpful for investigators, a senior U.S. law enforcement official said.
The thing is, we legitimately can’t believe them.
It may just be after the Vegas shooter they stopped saying they found motive if they’re not gonna release the motive.
My guess is that the motive is the same as every school shooting, except that shooting at schools became too normie now.
And if there has to be shootings, I personally wouldn’t mind replacing the usual targets to politicians instead of school kids.
Thoughts and prayers?..nah, this was a poohLahteetian! We need legislation pronto!
Yeah, that Vegas shooting dropped out of the news quickly. So did that theater shooting in Colorado.
I feel like my worry is that they have some valid salient arguments and then put something like: this is the only way to get on the news/protest anymore or I have no idea what, something that doesn’t sound bad shit insane.
If someone wants a race war or something the news is all over it.
What were they expecting to find? A pile of Blåhaj? The Communist Manifesto?
*hoping to find, yes.
The headline is about the guns but the article section on Data is really interesting, especially if you don’t know how they score potential voters for targeted messages.
Why are they still saying “suspected” shooter?
How much evidence does one need before they can definitely say something?
He was never convicted in a court of law. They are always “suspected ______” until they are “convicted _____”. Since we don’t try people posthumously (yet), they will never be convicted.
Colloquially, people will just stop saying that detail. But it’s still there.
Yeah, I imagine once the investigation is closed, they’ll stop using “suspected”.
Fair point, makes sense. Thanks!
Breaking News: Man who used gun owns more than one gun.
Oh imagine the surprise! People with an unhealthy gun fetish have other mental issues, too!
What other kinds of guns were found? I mean specifics. Handguns? Shotguns? Rifles?
Nerf guns
Wasn’t what I had in mind. Why did the Crooks choose the AR15?
My Googlefu says you can get a cheap rifle for $500, maybe because it’s the cheapest rifle with a magazine?
I don’t know I’m in the UK
It’s a very cheap rifle to build and cheap to buy as well. Poverty ponies is a thing.
Poverty ponies
I just tried googling this and found nothing useful. I did find some gatekeeping on ar15.com though.
It’s not an actual rifle brand or anything, its just a nickname for cheap ass ARs. Basically like a PSA lower kit and a cheap upper. I’ve built a few with couch change.
Is that a lot? Kind of sounds like a lot.
Not really, a collection of 1 isn’t really a collection is it?
Little bit of hunting experience here. Let’s say I’m hunting a deer.
If I miss no big deal. The problems begin when the shot hits the deer but doesn’t kill it. Their adrenaline sours the meat. And, one needs to chase it down to humanely kill it. No matter how hard I try I’ll eventually miss and maim a deer.
I do two things preventatively: First, I don’t take a shots without good chance of a one shot kill. Second, I’m always prepared ASAP to send the second round, and a third. My accuracy drops severely for the fourth in practice. So, I don’t shoot a fourth outside of practice.
This shooter couldn’t close the range for a better shot. He also wasn’t prepared for a miss. The second round should be down range almost immediately, even on a bolt action and especially on a wisely chosen bolt action. He was a smidgeon of humility away from a greatly increased chance of success.
And, one needs to chase it down to humanely kill it.
I hate to be the one to point this out buuut there’s an even more humane thing you could do. Y’know. Just saying.
If it’s anything like where I grew up, the deer population is massive and actually benefits from controlled culling. Also venison is delicious, and I know some hunters will literally give the extra meat away since a single deer has a lot of it, oftentimes to food pantries.
Obligatory disclaimer: I’m leftist as fuck and actually prefer a low meat diet. But deer hunting does have benefits.
Exactly. They feed on the local crops and we can’t magically make wolves and coyotes appear. There’s many negative impacts of not hunting, including many car accidents. And, it’s meat raised on crops stolen from mega-corporations that are artificially inflating the cost of food.
Once we take back the means of production and begin to heal the environmental cause of too much deer, I’ll stop hunting and eating them. Fair?
They actually hire professionals to shoot deer in some urban areas in Pennsylvania where they cause problems. Farmers hire professionals because of the massive crop damage they do. Hunters are free deer harvesters, in fact they pay to hunt them.
Deer are out of control because we hunted all the predators because meat farms needed to protect their product.
You’ve slotted yourself into the place of natural predators, but that does not actually fix anything!
I think you’re underplaying the historical significance of wool and how agricultural lands for growing plants also played a massive role in destroying the habitat of those predators (toss in timber in there too).
Yes and now it’s on the citizens to take the place of those missing natural predators - the meat farms sure aren’t going to do it, especially by your logic.
You kind of just talked yourself into a circle.
Beats industrial farming
When you mow your grass does it try to run away because it’s scared of dying?
Let me clarify because apparently it wasn’t obvious. My stance is that industrial raised livestock often experience poor quality living conditions. Hunting offers a death far less insufferable than most deer would see otherwise, and a regulated harvest is critical in areas that deer’s natural predators have been extirpated like much of the populated US. Without this populations would bloom past the carrying capacity of the ecosystem leading to disease, famine, and increased death on both parties in auto accidents.
The people eating venison are swapping it in for a steak not a salad. People make jokes about vegans because of individuals who don’t acknowledge that animal welfare isn’t a binary matter but one on a spectrum. Painting it as a binary simply dissuades non vegans from taking any incremental step to increasing their welfare.
Better than starvation or jumping in front of cars.
That’s the guy’s house? Wow! Man I love my life in this tiny 2000sqft house. Like how do you end up doing dumb shit when you’re living the dream in a big ass garage shed like that?
He lived with his parents
My parents had a two bedroom for 6 people!
I’d be happy living with whoever if they let me have a big ass garage like that.