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My theory is currently:
The shooter was a 20 year old disaffected youth who didn't like the idea of either Biden or Trump being our president. He wanted to do some political violence, so he found the nearest political rally, picked up some bullets, and went looking to shoot up the crowd.
When he got there, he saw a rooftop wide open and undefended, realized he had a shot at the big guy himself, and went for it.
My guess is that he wanted a civil war, and thought this would make one.
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My variation of this is that it was essentially suicide by USSS. Reports say the kid was bullied and ostracized. Sounds like a school shooter MO. Except he went after a politician/future president because while most suicidal shooters want swing a sledge hammer at the society that outcast them, this one got the opportunity.
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This is very similar to my mental model as well. The mugshots of this kid is one of being a terminally online NEET who was going out with a bang, not one of an ideologue. The failing of SS is gross incompetence of lazy risk-adverse officials quiet quitting to pull a paycheck off a political target they didn't care for.
Trump has been vilifed in media for years. Liberal media has been a painting him up as the next Hitler and all that, have been for years. Laws have been rewritten to allow prosecuting him.
There is an unprecedented failure of security DESPITE there allegedly being some known threat. Suspicious person is apparently spotted with a rangefinder! ,not apprehended, then had a chance to shoot off half a dozen rounds at the 'next Hitler'.
I believed the gun youtuber t-shirt photo had to be fake, because I could not believe cops would have photographed the guy at the rally and not stopped him, questioned him and removed him from the premises. Am pretty sure they can remove any suspicious person from a to be secured area ).
Turns out, they saw him with a rangefinder (no innocent explanation for that), they took a picture of him, he was on the roof of the building they were in.. it's all incredible in the true sense of the word.
Terminally online apolitical NEET gives a $15 donation to 'ActBlue'
That doesn't mesh together with 'apolitical', at all.
Also, his classmate was interviewed and said Crooks was very much political and hated Trump and called his classmate stupid when he said he liked Trump.
Watching that video of his classmate being interviewed just gave me the impression that Crooks hated politicians in general.
Since I myself hate Biden and Trump equally, I can very much sympathize with his viewpoint.
A very simple explanation for why Crooks targeted Trump rather than some other politician is that the two most prominent politicians in the US are Biden and Trump, and Trump is much easier to target than Biden because Trump constantly does outdoor appearances whereas Biden mostly stays hidden away.
It's entirely irrelevant. There's always some loner who hates people and would like to kill.
What's interesting is how it is, at all, possible that he was observed, photographed, looked for and yet ended up on a prime firing position, taking shots at the candidate without being stopped by security.
Or why his social media are not all over the place. Is the trans angle real or just someone playing around with genAI ? etc.
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Simple, but low prior. I got ChatGPT to list 30 notorious modern assassination attempts. Of those, all or almost all that come close to fitting the bill were by people with a history of (severe) mental illness. The only anecdote the classmate gave had Crooks calling him stupid for supporting Trump. Both the fact that he is a Trump supporter and that the target of the attempt was Trump make that fact less conspicuous, but still... maybe the simplest explanation for an assailant risking his life to assassinate one of the most hated candidates ever is that he hated that candidate in particular.
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Sounds like he hated all politicians.
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