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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024

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Exactly, they watch too much TV instead of looking at the actual data. The reason assassinations like Kennedy and Lincoln were unsuccessful were because the assassin went for the head, whereas in successful attempts like Roosevelt and Reagan, they aimed for the body.

I am inclined to believe that a modern combat rifle round would have gone straight through Roosevelt, assuming he were not equipped with tougher armor than his speech and glasses case.

why? late 19-20th early century rifles (e.g. Mosin) used more powerful cartridges than later assault rifles ("intermediate cartridge")

Roosevelt was shot with a .38 Special, which is like 250J when shot from a short barrel, almost half the energy of a 9mm Luger cartridge, another handgun round, or about the same energy as a high-powered .22 LR cartridge.

You are right that any rifle round would've gone straight through Roosevelt, though.

I thought it was a .32-20. basically the same really

He's just comparing the 32-20 black powder carbine/pistol round with a modern smokeless rifle cartridge, which is <300 joules to 1800 joules.
(I know Roosevelt wasn't shot with a blackpowder version, but the original loading still limited chamber pressures, and the non-expanding semi-wadcutter bullet is much less lethal than modern hollow points, let alone engineered-fragmentation rifle bullets)

Too early for irony, only one cup of coffee in this a.m.

before the advent of modern medical care and decent body armor , aiming for the torso would have been better . infection would have been lethal if initial bleeding/trauma wasn't

From what I’m seeing a direct torso hit only had a 62% death rate in the civil war era. If you have a better than 62% odds of hitting their head, you would have been better off aiming for the head. Doubly so if the person is particularly healthy and hardy, given it was usually days or weeks till they actually died, and those with robust immune systems had much better odds.

On the other hand Trump is in his late 70's and if the objective was 'Trump can't be President' that'd likely be accomplished by even moderately wounding him considering recovery timelines at his age and needing to campaign.

Ah yes, point blank and multiple shooters. Really, it's all the same thing.

Multiple shooters?

Referring to Kennedy. I don’t know if I like the grassy knoll theory, but several of the alternatives still have a second shooter (including my personal favorite, accidental discharge by adjacent Secret Service officer).

Mary Todd double-tapped Abe while Booth was distracting everyone by jumping on stage.

and shouting "sick simping trannies"?