A spray of bullets may have only grazed Donald Trump in Pennsylvania on Saturday night, but they killed one rally attendee and critically wounded two others.

They have also torn through the 2024 presidential campaign, damaging the social and cultural fabric of the nation. The illusion of security and safety in American politics – built over decades - has

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31 points

Did the secret service allow this? In the TMZ video of the return fire, it looks like the sniper on the roof was already aiming at the shooter well before he shot. And only after he shot did the sniper take him out.

Maybe coincidence…but seeing this level of incompetence from the secret service makes this whole thing seem very very fishy.

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9 points

Did anyone even scatter when the gunfire went off? Thats a lot of shots. From the clips I’ve seen they stare.

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14 points

I noticed that, too, but I just chalk that up to people freezing (fight, flight, freeze).

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6 points

One interviewee said they thought it was fireworks.

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3 points

Another attendee thought it was a prank.

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4 points

I can’t see where they would exit/move

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24 points

The easy explanation is that literally zero of the people on video have ever been shot at before. So you can see the crowd not react, trump himself barely reacts. Then the crowd panics once they realize but most of them are older and have no where to go. The security also makes a big show of tackling Trump and they all fixate on watching that instead of running.

So yeah it’s just everyday panic

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4 points

The secret service are cops and ACAB holds as true as it always does.

But if the secret service had shot first it would be a VERY different news story. And while all the youtubes about how amazing the secret service are from former SS officers who now run private security firms talk about their training and planning… politics is their first priority. An SS officer who pulls out an uzi to protect a fallen president is one thing. An SS officer who pulls out an uzi to unload on someone who “might have a gun” is a very different story.

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5 points

Yeah, but that guy definitely had a gun. It’s not as if one could easily conceal an A.R. 15 while sprawled on a rooftop.

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4 points

It was kind of a perfect storm that is going to change how basically every protective force maintains security.

The shooter was (allegedly?) 130 something meters away.

Snipers are generally focused on distances greater than 150 meters. So it would be the guys with assault rifles who are responsible for targets within that radius. Their optics are going to heavily favor closer ranges and people (who play call of duty) very much overestimate just how good of a view you get through those optics. You have more than enough clarity to aim for a center mass shot or even a headshot but you aren’t making out fine grain details.

So you have someone who has a large “something”. Maybe you are hearing “it is a gun” from eyewitnesses but eyewitnesses are morons. So you have people squinting and trying to get a clear picture through fairly close range optics and trying to figure out if that is a rifle or a camera on a tripod or what. Because the people with “sniper scopes”? If they pivot to look at the shooter then they are now ignoring what they are ACTUALLY supposed to be watching and… that is a known tactic.

So you have secret service squinting while people are sprinting to go storm the building. Because even if it is a gunman, the best case scenario is to capture them alive so that the speech is not disrupted and you have zero risk of executing a civillian.

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