Will Alex Jones Accuse Donald Trump of Being a Crisis Actor?
“The gun culture’s winning, and if we beat ’em on that, we can beat ’em on everything,” Alex Jones said about halfway through a rant about the Sandy Hook massacre.
“You know they’re going to exploit this tragedy,” he said, before getting rich off of it.
The rant was played at the Texas trial which led to a billion dollar judgment for the conspiracy theorist’s claims that the act of school shooter Adam Lanza was staged.
Of course, as Jones subsequently conceded, disturbed loner Lanza really did shoot up an elementary school. He really did kill a bunch of children.
In America, one doesn’t need to invent Deep State plots for loners to commit seemingly pointless shootings. Sometimes all it takes is an assault rifle.
And it looks increasingly likely that’s what Thomas Crooks was: someone who wanted to shoot people, not to achieve some political murder or to help Iran avenge Qassem Soleimani’s death, but because that’s how America gives some people’s lives purpose.
According to briefings given to Congress, Crooks seemed to be casing out both Trump and Joe Biden in advance of his attack.
F.B.I. officials told members of Congress on Wednesday that the gunman who tried to kill former President Donald J. Trump used his cellphone and other devices to search for images of Mr. Trump and President Biden, along with an array of public figures.
The 20-year-old gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pa., also looked up dates of Mr. Trump’s appearances and the Democratic National Convention, according to people on two conference calls held to answer lawmakers’ questions.
[snip]
F.B.I. officials, speaking on the calls, suggested that his search history indicated he was broadly interested in powerful and famous people, without any obvious ideological or partisan pattern.
Among the other prominent figures the gunman searched for using one of his phones, besides Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden, were the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray; Attorney General Merrick B. Garland; and a member of the British royal family, according to two officials with knowledge of the situation, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter publicly.
Mr. Wray, who was also on the calls, went out of his way to caution that the investigation was still in its early stages.
But the absence of “any political or ideological information” at the house Mr. Crooks shared with his mother and father was “notable” because most people who carry out acts of political violence tend to leave a discernible trail of political views, a top bureau official told lawmakers.
[Note: this story also repeats a claim that Crooks forewarned of something on Steam; that appears to be one of numerous instances of people adopting his identity after the fact.]
While accounts vary, some of his schoolmates describe that he was a loner who was bullied.
Speaking to local news outlet KDKA, some young locals who went to school with him described him as a loner, who was frequently bullied and sometimes wore “hunting outfits to school”.
Another former classmate of his, Summer Barkley, cast him differently, telling the BBC that he was “always getting good grades on tests” and was “very passionate about history”.
“Anything on government and history he seemed to know about,” she said. “But it was nothing out of the ordinary… he was always nice.”
She described him as well-liked by his teachers.
Others simply remembered him as quiet.
“He was there but I can’t think of anyone who knew him well,” one former classmate, who asked to remain nameless, told the BBC. “He’s just not a guy I really think about. But he seemed fine.”
None of this makes the shooting less important. None of this excuses the lapses in Trump’s security that allowed it to happen.
Rather, it makes it rather more ordinary — something that Americans have grown all too used to and done far too little to prevent.
Yet, even so, the shooting has still been used to heighten America’s polarization, with partisans on both sides still trying to find party as the cause of this.
It was only a matter of time before a garden variety American school shooter decided to aim at a higher profile target. And yet we’re still not taking from it the message that everyone of these random shootings are a tragedy. Corey Comperatore, the firefighter who heroically shielded his family to protect them, is the victim of this shooting, not Trump. But he’s no more important a victim than the 20 children killed in Sandy Hook. It’s not God that chose this shooting. It is not destiny.
It is, rather, something far darker about America, something that transcends party.
Update: Parkland High father Fred Guttenberg weighs in:
Update: NYT gets to the school shooter analogy too.
Investigators have uncovered what now could be seen as concerning signs: The gunman’s phone showed that he had possibly read news stories about the teenage school shooter who killed four students at Oxford High School in Michigan. Mr. Crooks received multiple packages, including several that were marked “hazardous material,” over the past several months. He looked up “major depressive disorder” on a cellphone later found at his house.
He had also searched a bipartisan roster of political figures, including Mr. Trump, President Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland, F.B.I. officials told members of Congress. He also looked up both the dates of Mr. Trump’s July 13 rally in Butler, Pa., as well as the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
But investigators have not found any evidence that Mr. Crooks had strong political beliefs or an ideological motivation.
Experts who study the histories of gunmen said the emerging picture of Mr. Crooks looked more like a 21st-century school shooter than a John Wilkes Booth.
It’s all so very grim.
ew: Yet, even so, the shooting has still been used to heighten America’s polarization, with partisans on both sides still trying to find party as the cause of this.
This THREAD from NationalSecurityCounselors makes a similar point, I think:
https://bsky.app/profile/natlseccnslrs.bsky.social/post/3kxkulgbhgi2e
Jul 18, 2024 at 10:45 AM
A previous [7/15/24] THREAD from the same person,
who has worked as an “intelligence profiler”:
Added: This is the person Marcy refers to in this post
https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/04/10/emptywheel-makes-cipa-history/
https://bsky.app/profile/natlseccnslrs.bsky.social/post/3kxdeszetr32l
Jul 15, 2024 at 11:15 AM
“He himself did things like carve chess sets for blind people,
taking care to mark them with braille.”
Harpie’s comments complete Ms. Wheeler’s post. The young man had no real romantic interests and was not developing a profession or a trade. He was surrounded by the gun culture and by guns. As Ms. Wheeler states, wouldn’t we expect him to think of the guns as his protecters? Its not clear how much right wing chaos commentary Crooks consumed. But in that media stream, murder and false flag events are spoken about as if they were recipes for cookies.
My wife and I discussed this once. The scariest human beings we see are groups of unattached young white males. One of the reasons is that they assume an entitlement to do terrible things.
Ms. Wheeler is not alone in observing, it is a repeating tragedy in the US that unattached men have to kill people as part of their suicidal downward spiral.
“unattached white males” are they the cause or a symptom of the least valued members of society. Cannon fodder. Neither women or children.
Nobody’s trying to stop “unattached white males” from crossing state lines for a medical procedure.
So far, Crooks could be Arthur Bremmer’s twin brother. Except that Bremmer kept a diary, which I think anyone commenting on this latest shooting should read.
Hear, hear! Well said.
That darker part of America is how madman Trump came to be a pivotal figure.
MAGA logic:
No guns allowed at Trump rallies
vs.
We need to arm all teachers! More guns make us safer!
Don’t forget the lesson of Uvalde: The police should be afraid of people with guns and hesitate before taking any action in order to protect themselves from harm.
Notice, though, that the Secret Service agent who got him killed him with the first shot. That’s in contrast to the local Keystone Cops, one of whom hoisted himself up to the roof only to be staring at a gun barrel. The issue is how the shooter got access to such an obvious sniper vantage spot in the first place. The excuse that local police were responsible for that area is pretty lame. Secret Service were ultimately responsible for everything. The director says she takes full responsibility, but is so far still there. She probably shouldn’t be. Such security lapses during a national election time are unacceptable. At least Congress has something substantive to hold hearings about.
Candidates don’t get the same coverage, because the USSS doesn’t have enough people for that. (It’s smaller than the regional company I worked at. Like only a little more than half the size. And we weren’t everywhere.)
Interesting that “She probably shouldn’t be.there” while Trump’s SS wiped out ALL communications “by mistake “ after J6 and I believe there’s been NO ACTION against him. Has there even been an inquiry or is it, oh oops?
Trump didn’t seem to care about guns in the crowd when he sent it to storm the Capitol on January 6th.
He knew they had guns, he sent them to the Capitol, and he refused to do anything about it for hours
Yes, by rights Jones should be claiming the whole thing was staged, even though there is no conceivable Occam’s Razor compliant way it could have been. There never is, supporting his claims.
After a few days of information trickling in about the shooter, the only thing still that may be safely concluded is that he was a very sick, disturbed individual. His political party registration and $15 contribution to a progressive cause (same as Judge Merchan’s to the Democrats, must be a BFD /s) would appear to have as little relevance as whether he had a crush on Jodi Foster, as did Reagan shooter Hinkley. Maybe he wanted to show up that gun club that rejected him. Posthumous psychoanalysis is of little value.
Yes, mental health is an issue. Nobody should ever be disturbed to the point of committing an act like that. There was no rational scenario it would advance any cause (including an Iranian cause), and no rational expectation he would survive a sniper attack on someone protected by a Secret Service detail, inept as it apparently was. But still, it strains credibility more can’t be done to separate people like this from guns, especially guns capable of firing multiple rounds in seconds. Unfortunately, if the specter of innocent children being mowed down can’t generate the political will in this country to do something, it’s going to be a long, hard struggle. Certainly an attempted assassination of someone whose political position is pride in having done nothing about it isn’t going to change many minds, at least not those of lobbyists. Long ago, Reagan’s press secretary Jim Brady, after taking a shot in the head, became a staunch advocate of gun safety. But that was a different era.
The sickening thing is, this is likely to benefit Trump politically. He is already selling tee shirts of the defiant fist pump.
Somewhere online, I saw a variant of the fist pump photo (a pure publicity action) that was Palpatine with a storm trooper wrapped around him and a guy with an Imperial banner.
Check your reference about the $15 contribution. It has been reported that it was given by a 69 year old man from Pittsburgh with the same name.
One can find all sorts of claims on the internet, and as Rayne pointed out shortly after the shooting (https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/07/12/fridays-with-nicole-sandler-22/#comment-1060401), one of On the Media’s Breaking News Handbook pointers is “Big news brings out the fakers. And photoshoppers.”
“It has been reported” doesn’t say who did the reporting. Was the person someone known to be reliable?
Here’s a source that I consider reliable, journalist Hunter Walker (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Walker), who wrote:
“A lot of progressive accounts are spreading this claim [‘that it was given by a 69 year old man from Pittsburgh with the same name’] and it is not true. I have verified the FEC records myself. They match the alleged gunman’s street address.”
https://bsky.app/profile/hunterw.bsky.social/post/3kxbqwi343d2h
Thank you for that, c-i-v-i-l.
freebird, if you’re going to rebut another commenter, bring receipts. You’ve been in this community long enough to know how this works and that it’s expected. Without supporting documentation such disputes devolve into pointless tit-for-tat spats derailing fruitful discussion.
Thanks. Harry Littman has also added to his original Youtube posting. What a colossal failure by the Secret Service.
One source of confusion about this is that ActBlue shows up on FEC for a lot of different kinds of donations and the old guy in CA did give, this year, not in 2021 cycle.
But it is the case that Crooks did give to a campaign carried by ActBlue.
“Alex Jones is a far more reputable source of information than Rachel Maddow.”
–J.D. Vance
As his critics have been saying for some time, Vance will literally say and do anything to get ahead. Billionaires will play him as easily as they play Donald Trump.
It’s almost a routine example that, despite formal protests to the contrary, violence is a fundamental characteristic of the American experience, and, therefore, its politics.
Henry Ford owned a subsidiary, the Ford Service Department, to house his professional goon strikebreakers. One of America’s most virulent racists, he put a copy of the violent propaganda sheet, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, into every new Ford car. Hitler regarded Ford as a model for his anti-Jewish campaigns and ultimately, his Final Solution. He hung a picture of Ford in his personal office. Corporate violence against unions, supported by the state, famously included the Homestead Strike and the Ludlow Massacre.
Homeless people are still violently attacked by police, and their homelessness is allowed to be made a crime by the current Supreme Court. Being destitute is treated similarly, especially during the Great Depression. Sunset laws and redlining are examples of economic violence against people of color, icing on the cake compared to more obvious and frequent physical violence that was an everyday occurrence.
Racism pervades the law, from different sentences for the use of crack vs. powdered cocaine, to differential enforcement of criminal laws, which populated Southern prisons with free labor, owing to a constitutional exception to the prohibition against slavery. Those few examples don’t touch the violence of America’s westward expansion, and it’s official and unofficial racism.
On topic? Violence is a broad thing. Sniping with an Assault Rifle is specific. The kid was not homeless, nor noted as an anti-Jewish person, from what I saw online. No prior record, HS grad.
You’re being more than a tad over-literal. The topic included the origins of the ubiquity of violence in America. Gun violence is an example, seemingly a peculiarly American one, that comes out of a larger, peculiarly American context. Donald Trump has shown an extraordinary skill in manipulating that context, for personal game. Your narrow focus ignores it.
So far it appears there was no left behind manifesto. A warped kid, but not one with noted symptoms, with access to an Assault Rifle his dad bought. The focus has to be on handguns, for shooting people close to you, and semiautomatic long guns. Bolt action hunting rifles seem to not be weapons of choice for killing people. So we know what should be regulated.
Remember Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony from behind the scenes at the Jan 6, Elipse Rally. Trump wanted more of his fans let in, he knew they had guns and knives, and wouldn’t get past the Mags, metal detectors.He said to the effect they weren’t going to use them on him. Then he sent all those folks to the Capitol. When you promote violence and lawlessness like he does…
The weapon used was reported to be AR-15 – like. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/07/trump-shooter-gun-thomas-crooks-ar-15-expertise-military.html – That means semiautomatic, one shot per trigger pull, explaining the multiple shots fired before the Secret Service sniper killed Crooks. Apparently Crooks was spotted on the ground and using a rangefinder before the shooting. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sniper-picture-trump-rally-shooter-rangefinder-assassination-attempt/ An MSN carry of a NYPost item noted a time gap between Crooks first being officially spotted as suspicious, and his first shot.
Wapo – https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/07/14/secret-service-trump-rally-shooting/ – looks at the other part of things, the Secret Service and local police measures whereby an open 140 yard shot happened. That story indicates that the shooter might have been spotted in a way that he got off multiple rounds but might not have been able to take a more careful first shot aim. Yes, the post is about the nature of the gunman, but the nature of the weapon and the protective environment is on topic.
It is most unfortunate it came so close to Trump being shot dead, and the rapid multiple shot capability is why a death and two serious injuries in the crowd happened.
The father buying the gun is responsible for the gun. He failed. He was negligent. Should he be charged with negligent homicide? If it was a purchase specifically for the kid, is that a prosecutable straw purchase?
He failed, but he may or may not have been negligent. Depends on if the precautions he took were reasonable.
I don’t mind going after truly negligent parents (like the recent Michigan case) but there should be a reasonably high bar. Especially given that the shooter wasn’t a minor.
In Pennsylvania, I don’t think so. There are currently no access prevention laws to encourage safe storage or to educate gun owners to take steps to keep guns secure from children or others who are prohibited from possessing firearms. There is no requirement to report to law enforcement that a gun has been lost or stolen. At age 18, you are legal to purchase and/or possess a semi-automatic long-rifle, in Pennsylvania. Must be 21 to purchase/carry a handgun.
Pennsylvania is an open carry state (except for the city of Philadelphia). So you can carry it openly (on your hip, or across your shoulder) without any additional license. Private sales (by unlicensed dealers) of long guns (bolt-action rifles, shotguns, semi-automatic rifles) do not require background checks.
Shooter was 20. Young, but legally adult. Nice try on your part, though.
If he bought it in 2013, then the son was 8 or 9 at the time.
Given Crooks’ alleged disdain for and interest in targeting politicians in both parties (despite being a registered Republican for less than 36 months), I think it’s accurate to describe him as the first “both sides” shooter, rather than just a “garden variety American school shooter.” The disdain for and indifference to how American politics (and politicians) actually work is definitely a result of the mainstreaming of political cynicism via the news media’s insistence and pretension at being “objective.”
In other words, one political party continues to uphold the legal, political, and societal reasons why America has, at this point, “garden variety school shooters.” The other political party does not — yet we the American public are spoonfed the former position as if our own violent murders are inevitable, because “both sides.”
Btw the idea of even using the phrase “garden variety American school shooter” makes me nauseous, though I respect the reasons for using such rhetoric. We are far too inured to gun violence of any kind in this country.
With such easy access to military style weapons in America I’m surprised it took so long for an assassination attempt to be made. Concerning gun ownership responsibility, it is the owners responsibility to secure the weapon from others. Period. If you don’t give out your phone access code you shouldn’t let anyone use your gun without you being present. Failure to do so should have severe repercussions, especially when used in committing an act of violence.
We too easily allow young men to become socially isolated. Bringing them in to some group can be tricky, and it’s hard work. It’s work for men – I’ve done my part by participating in martial arts leadership and teaching. We very definitely turned one young man around and had a good impact on several others. Women tend to connect more readily, so they are less of a concern.
I definitely think older men are called to this, but it isn’t exclusive. We live in a time where women can have an impact on this kind of thing, too. I would like to see more discussion of how to do this. I do not in any way deny the existence of male privilege, but let’s remember that it doesn’t necessarily apply to every male in every situation. Lots of these lone gunmen are young men who have fallen through the cracks. They are chock full of resentments, which I know can put you off, but the work of getting them on a better path is long, hard, and well worth it.
I’ve had a theory for some time that the end of the draft presaged the rise of lonely angry disaffected American men with no outlet. As long as the majority of US men entered a shared national experience which molded their identities while they were still mutable, they were less likely to treat other Americans as disposable “other” — at least American men like themselves who were veterans.
Now we have 2-4 generations of men who don’t have that shared experience. They weren’t obligated to give a shit about others.
That shared experience also helped erase some of the prejudice against members of other races. They were all in it together: rich, poor, educated, non-educated. It was Community, in the greatest sense of the word. We are splintered as a society now, I believe, because of the lack of shared experiences.
A critical flaw in the draft system was that it allowed certain persons to avoid service through deferments, ex. Trump and his bone spurs. It doesn’t surprise me he attracts so many right-wing incel types including the Big Tech bros who were once the PayPal mafia. The only thing they have in common is their privilege and their ability to avoid accountability and responsibility for the damages they’ve wreaked on society.
Ditto Cheney, who had other priorities during the Vietnam war, who was instrumental in sending off so many Americans to serve in Afghanistan and Iraq to make others wealthy. How much of today’s polarization was created by the othering of a disposable meat-grinder class?
The right has been busily dismantling a cornerstone of democracy that promotes community and provides interactions across the entire spectrum of the population: the public school system. The boutiquing of education into splinter groups via charter subsidies, vouchers and other “ed choice” mechanisms that take public money from education funding and redirect it to homeschooling, on-line, private, and religious schools limits the natural interactions children and young adults can have with their peers who may have different beliefs and experiences than their own. Kids who aren’t in regular contact with professionals with expertise in child development and adolescent psychology can fly under the radar when exhibiting behaviors that don’t fall within the norm. In many states, those non-public alternatives lack any requirement to hire certified personnel and can simply discharge students who present challenges.
Atomizing, isolating, and dividing young people from a sense of community and shared responsibility is an autocratic means to disruption. It’s part of why we see the attacks on public schooling from groups like the Koch-funded Moms for Liberty.
That’s a good start, but Crooks’ isolation seems deeper than that. He seems to have no romantic interest, either gay or hetero. He doesn’t seem to have applied for college, or entered a program to learn a trade. There were no notable sports in his background. Nor was working at someplace like an auto service garage, or even a diner, where he might have been part of a crew. It doesn’t seem he had much to live for, which was a situation that could have been fixed. Instead the end was the tragedy we witnessed. I feel sorry for him, There were two fatal victims, not just one.
“He graduated from the Community College of Allegheny County in May with an associate in science degree in engineering science, a spokesperson for the college confirmed to CBS News. He was expected to enroll in Robert Morris University in the fall…”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-rally-gunman-identified/
I would make no assumptions about the lack of a romantic interest if he has left no other information about his inclinations like the Isla Vista killer who was extremely angry with women. Crooks may have been ace/aro (asexual or aromantic). The one thing both Crooks and the Isla Vista killer share in common was a history of being bullied.
Ditto sports. We have no information about his family’s background; if his parents weren’t into sports themselves, Crooks may not have grown up with it.
What likely didn’t help his development was the pandemic and its necessary foreshortening of socialization.
The comment below hints at someone on the autism scale. That would be someone intelligent but missing something that allows social interaction.
Right now there appear to be gaps in his social connections. I am willing to learn more as it becomes public.
The attachment to guns reminds me of the successful army sniper that was killed by one of the people he was trying to rehabilitate.
Crooks had an associate degree in engineering science from the Community College of Allegheny County and was accepted to both the University of Pittsburg and Robert Morris University, planning to attend the latter. He also was employed at a nursing home as a dietary technician.
Don’t try to figure out a motive, you won’t find one. It’s possible he was in the very early stages of expressing Schizophrenia. There is still a lot that we don’t know how the human brain works (that’s why the DSM is on the fifth revision, nor will it be last).
I think that goes along with the atomization and isolation fostered by the wide availability of inexpensive, high-quality individualized entertainment, etc. created by technology, really starting with television, and blossoming with the Internet. The whole “Bowling Alone” idea. Also, air-conditioning helped a lot.
People used to go out and mingle with others, partly because it was too dark to do much indoors before electric lights, and there weren’t distractions like the radio, before radio. Now, it’s easiest to stay in and watch movies, etc. to one’s heart’s content. Or. like me, poke around on the Internet.
Modern life also might not be giving people, especially young men, enough opportunities to swash-and-buckle, and have adventures, and they act out with cosplay with real guns. I got all my swashing-and-buckling out as a kid with cap guns (I had quite an arsenal).
Looking for rational explanations for irrational behavior can be a futile exercise.
I have had limited higher education but I have learned to be sensitive to nuance. In community college in NJ in the 70s I learned about the rise of marketing & I realized then that so-called marketing was seriously fragmenting society which I tend to believe was its purpose. I have always believed that that fragmentation, whether it was done intentionally or not has enabled further social destruction. I could visibly see the destruction being caused by breaking things down to appeal to a certain age group/mindset & constantly marvelled that no one else warned about it. But then I tend to be obsessive/compulsive so there’s that.
But a majority of us young men of that time did not share a national experience, unless you mean being subject to the draft.
Fewer than 2 million were drafted during the 9 years of the Vietnam war, and even if you double that to account for those who enlisted in the navy to escape the army (as a number of my college friends did), that’s still far from a majority.
The most prevalent experience of young men of my age was ducking the draft.
In the second sentence of the summary (“It was only a matter of time before a garden variety American school shooter decided to aim at a higher profile target. And yet we’re still not taking from it the message that everyone of these random shootings are a tragedy.”) “are” should be “is”—and “everyone” should be “every one”.
RIP, Bob Newhart, 94.
The Stratford Inn was never the same, after Emily woke up from that dream about living in Vermont. She much preferred Chicago.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/article/2024/jul/18/bob-newhart-dead-comedian-sitcom-star
RIP. But they’re laughing in the next world.
My dad, 90, used to frequent the Chicago theater scene in the 50s/60s, perhaps in large part for the air conditioning. He saw Newhart doing stand up. So about 8 years ago when Newhart played at the Chicago Theater, I bought tickets, dragged out my reluctant father, and forked out for some expensive parking and watered down theater drinks.
Newhart said of all the theaters he’d worked, he never got to work Chicago Theater until that night. A bit of Newhart history intersected with dad having a late-in-life revisit to the Chicago theater scene.
EoH, you’re off topic. I need you as one of the most senior commenters in the community to be a bit more disciplined about staying on topic because it’s become a problem potentially used to sow and foment dissension. Thanks.
ADDER: the post, America’s Hitler/JD 2024, is an open thread and still accepting new comments.
This young man was apparently bright enough to win an award for math and science in high school but was stuck in his home town and still living with family. Not exactly on the path for success as defined by the broader society. He had aspirations for infamy rather than fame – taking out a high profile official or member of a royal family. Maybe part of the darkness is that such young men have ready access to the means of accomplishing their goal. And that there are on-line communities that nurture these young men.
I watched the HBO documentary about Alex Jones and Sandy Hook. He cared only about making money. That too is part of the darkness.
We have a problem in this country with young men seeking violence as a way to express frustration with loneliness(?), inability to “fit in” to mass culture “norms,” etc. Gun violence is ubiquitous in movies; our film heroes are killers. Too many guns are available.
For some time, I have thought about the effect the lack of a Draft has had. From my observations from my youth, young men who came from dis-functional families, perhaps, without a father at home upon whom they could model their behavior, or maybe, the wrong kind of father; when required to serve in the Military for a certain period of time, gained some sense of Family Order: father figures in the form of higher ranking men; a program of building a sense of purpose and comradeship, with rewards (promotions) commiserate with effort and excellence. It changed the trajectory of many lives which might have been lost to senseless acts by such as the intellectually-gifted young man who tried to assassinate Trump. I have known men in the military from my generation who were literally saved by the structure and order gained from Service. The Military gave them time to mature; to grow up and become men, men of value when they left Service.
I don’t see how having the Army teach a lone gunman how to shoot leads to anything but a better prepared lone gunman .
How many of the recent mass shootings were carried out by former military personnel? This study says ex-military are over-represented as mass shooters given that the US population is 7% ex-military and mass shooters are 25% ex-military.
However, 72% of mass shooters are not former military. Military experience also didn’t make mass shooters more deadly; it did make them more likely to leak information ahead of the shooting which might tip off law enforcement.
If anything the study suggests an opportunity to do better by our military personnel with counseling during and after service to reduce the likelihood they’d become lone gunmen — an opportunity I know with certainty we failed our personnel who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I’d be interested to know, of the shooters who were ex military, how many were ever in combat? And where… Iraq in particular. GWB admin ran out of soldiers, was extending tour duties far beyond breaking point and very creative in getting new recruits. A whole lot of ’em got a quick 6 weeks of basic training then off to war. And it didn’t take long for a whole lot of those kids to figure out something was really wrong, that what they were seeing on the ground was not the evil enemy they were told.
People come in all kinds of different mindsets. Some can deal with this stuff, but a whole lot can’t. I took at as a given through that episode the US had thrown away a whole lot of kids in that generation.
I was coming of age during Vietnam war. My draft # came up, I was prepared to report then Nixon did his thing and that was that. I had a lot of friends who went and fought in jungle warfare that came back severely disturbed, all normal teenagers before they were deployed.
The longer I live, the clearer I get wrt evils of war. WWII (and maybe Korea, I’m not sure) I think had to be fought. But the others in my life, many that did not involve the US, certainly did not.
Current Gaza mess, for example.
Presumably, they didn’t become “lone gunmen” until after they left the service. I also imagine a lot of former service men and women were able to do things afterwards they could not have done before.
Charles Whitman and Lee Harvey Oswald were both former Marines.
I have a problem with just equating military service to character development. As a draft bait Navy enlistee I found myself in the company of many individuals that escaped incarceration by enlisting. I resent having to have lived with these criminals.
Did we say it developed character? No, I don’t think we did. It did bring you in contact with people you might not otherwise have had exposure to before being drafted — and if you learned nothing from them, what a loss.
Years later you should at least have recognized Trump’s avoidance of the draft made him an individual who has not only escaped incarceration to date.
Well said, but you also need to aware that draftees really don’t want to be there in the service, and it will show in all sorts of resentment. It’s one big reason why the draft is not used these days (although one still registers for any future big wars) because the military got tired of managing people they could never fully reach.
In my time motivation could still be a problem but everyone understood they were not alone. Shared torments can sometimes build camaraderie (i.e. ‘A bitching sailor is a happy sailor’ and the honor of being a shellback, etc.) but there is usually some pretty good satisfaction for a job well done. Together.
Twaspaw… didn’t mention what he did in the USN but understand as a draftee he would have been shanghaied out of his then-current life to be shipped off to somewhere he didn’t want to go. Please cut him some slack.
To EoH’s note, even the relative peacetime during the Cold War was not completely safe. On an average deployment, a carrier battle group would lose four or so sailors because of the nature of the job. In my last one we met that number when a helo rolled off the desk in glassy seas on a destroyer, no warning or sea state to explain it.
I have family members who served in the Navy during the draft and after. They rarely got to go where they wanted because they were “owned” by the government. They learned to deal with it.
And they were brown people.
Give my regards to the fellow sailors in your family. The ‘needs of the service’ always outweighed any promises recruiters made or any plans one might have. Later there were ‘stop-loss’ and other nasty ways the Shrub administration in particular left troops hanging out there in harm’s way. At least if one volunteers, it’s not as rotten (but only slightly).
One thing I have seen, especially from the RWNJ crowd is an unhealthy jingoism. What’s interesting about that is how many of these twerps never served or were rear echelon (there are exceptions, i.e. Cotton and Crenshaw). Convict-1, Bolton, Cheney, etc. are all gung-ho when someone else has to pay the price.
To Rugger 9, yes, carrier service is risky. The flight deck is dangerous. Heat, jet blast, wind, moving aircraft, equipment, and ordnance on deck. The deck not only rolls, pitches, and yaws, it pivots and moves up and down. A friend from school came was nearly cut in half when an arresting cable snapped. A shipmate wasn’t so lucky.
If that’s all you remember about the Navy, I’m sorry for you. I imagine that, like you, they learned whatever job the Navy assigned them, and some of them died doing it.
I was a snipe on CVN-70, which we nicknamed the ‘Mobile Chernobyl’ after ‘Chuckboat’ fell out of fashion. It’s not just the flight deck that is dangerous, for example a blown gasket on a steam system can cut someone in two as well . As for the flight deck we only lost one during my time there, it was a kid who was bounced off the jet blast deflector 40 feet or so down into the drink. The PA tried to tell us he made it but we knew better. There were near misses like the one nearly pulled into an A-7’s engine. His buddy grabbed his legs and held on until the pilot cut power. They know to look out for this but it still happened.
Even though nonskid is put down frequently, it’s gone the first time jets kick in full military power and the planes leaked fluid (especially the 14s) so it was smooth and slick until the nonskid was replaced.
Speculative post: the kid was 20 years old, barely out of his adolescence. Reports claimed his dad is a 20 gun owning libertarian. I’m imagining a young boy whose dad issues fell somewhere between “I’d do anything to make you proud of me,” and “I’d do anything to piss you off.” He acted out. Now dad still has his politics and 20 guns. But his son is dead. Family dynamics.
FYI, Alex Jones has walked back his statements accepting Sandy Hook happened on his show this week.
[Welcome to emptywheel. Please choose and use a unique username with a minimum of 8 letters. We’ve adopted this minimum standard to support community security. Because your username is too short and common it will be temporarily changed to match the date/time of your first known comment until you have a new compliant username. Thanks. /~Rayne]
Interesting that Jones picked this week in what is essentially a news dump zone while so much attention is on the RNC.
Alex Jones says a lot of things. I don’t believe for one second MAGA trash like him is remorseful. I’d ask what he actually said but I don’t want to waste any more time giving him attention.
One thing that is missing is how did this inexperienced amateur find the rooftop perch? And why was it unprotected? I think local law enforcement challenged him, but then backed off to avoid a lethal incident.
Re: exploitation, lots of Republicans are trying to exploit the shooting. The most common way seems to be blaming Democrats for voicing accurate concerns about Trump’s authoritarianism, aimed at preventing continued criticism (e.g., Vance’s false claim that “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination,” Rep. Mike Lawler’s insistence that “the rhetoric about Donald Trump being a fascist and a threat to democracy needs to stop”). And now Trump is selling $299 sneakers with an image of Trump with his fist in the air on Saturday (https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-is-cashing-in-on-his-assassination-attempt-sneakers-2024-7). There seems to be nothing he won’t monetize, and nothing his supporters won’t buy.
Trump’s fist pumping seconds after a round nicks his ear is a feral carny, conman’s absolutely bizarre behavior. I doubt he has expressed any concern or condolences for the fellow who died or the injured.
The new widow accepted Trump’s call and said he was “very kind,” whatever that means to a MAGA. We know Trump was annoying to a Gold Star widow after her spouse was killed while on active duty in Niger.
The widow refused Biden’s call made three days before Trump got around to calling her.
I haven’t closely followed this, and I remembered reading somewhere that shards of glass from a teleprompter were what cut Trump’s ear.
However, Snopes has debunked the claim that I recalled, and it sounds like Trump’s ear really was hit by a bullet. He is super lucky the shooter didn’t manage a better shot.
I don’t know what will happen in November, but I hope the citizens of the U.S. come out to vote against Republicans. The world does not need another four years of Trump as president. It would be great for billionaires and Putin and Xi, and bad for almost everyone else.
FWIW, Snopes isn’t what it used to be.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90901113/inside-snopes-the-rise-fall-and-rebirth-of-an-internet-icon
With no official medical reports, it’s impossible to know, given that Trump is well versed in creating his own reality. According to Josh Marshall, four police officers were injured by flying debris. See Talking Points Memo.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/one-other-detail
Excellent post and comments, thank you. I have two small points to add.
First, this July 17 article in Slate has the author Myke Cole noting that an AR-15 clone can be quite accurate; there’s no need to be a good shot with it, even at 400 feet. Interesting if true; makes that weapon quite versatile.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/07/trump-shooter-gun-thomas-crooks-ar-15-expertise-military.html
Second, I wonder if the current malaise of young American men who shoot others with guns, finds any precursor in history, here or elsewhere; or is it unique to us these last 60 years, say. That is, were there a lot of such people in the first half of the Twentieth Century? How about 1800’s America? Europe? Guns have been around for quite a while now, after all. I could never remember all that History I learned in school, so apologies if this is a dumb question.
My father had a pre-Civil-War Kentucky rifle (from Kentucky; we know who owned it). He said it was accurate to about 120 yards. About ,50-caliber, ball and black powder, double-set trigger. Used for deer hunting, I suspect.
This is the first time I’ve read the name and the circumstances of the victim that was killed, thank you for giving him some attention as well.
As you rightly point out, there’s still too much here we don’t know, but there are some points that stick out like a sore thumb: The two security lapses around the shoting (not securing the roof, and letting him get up for the fist-pump), and the actual injury itself. I’ve yet to see any after-images, and the images from the shooting did imply it was an injury that could as easily have been inflicted by something else. (Leading theory being shrapnel from teleprompter)
It’s sad but not shicking that there’s not a much of transparency here, which will do nothing but feed conspiracy theories, almost as if that’s part of the point.
As I mentioned in another comment above, Snopes has a fact-check article debunking the rumor that Trump’s ear injury was from glass from a shattered teleprompter.
Thanks, I hadn’t seen that one. I still find it weird that he wouldn’t share gruesome closeups of the injury, but I guess the bandage did the job well enough.
(Not a conspiracy nut, so completely open to being proven wrong)
Snopes debunked that the teleprompters shattered.
It relies on Trump’s own claim, though, which is never a good idea. And neither Trump or unbiased medical professionals have given a report on what happened. So I’d say the full details remain uncertain.
I still haven’t seen a real medical report from the campaign either, it’s always filtered and tweaked as needed (see Eric’s evolving story as an example) so I have to wonder what would really be in it. Perhaps I missed something.
I have read a few comments about how low-energy and still unhinged the speech was. Convict-1 looked old and not all there, to the point where some of the punditry commented that this was the best news for the Ds in three weeks.
Funny about transparency and Republican Spector about Kennedy assassination report or maybe the whereabouts of Hoffa. As one creep once said “It’s not that I’m afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”
I believe that “creep” was Woody Allen.
‘Creep’ fits.
re-Badger Robert
July 18, 2024 at 8:13 pm, but as I wrote above, “colossal failure by the SS” in somehow losing all communication about J6 and it’s just an oops or as Harry would say https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/bupkis !
Trump cares so much about his hair and orange and of course that beautiful patch on his ear. I’m surprised it isn’t red with the maga quote. People are supposedly wearing the patch and diapers in his honor.
Guns, violence and generalized reckless behavior is a big part of young men’s culture – black and white – in America today. Go to any downtown metro area at night and you will see and hear it. The easy availability of weapons of war is what has made it so dangerous! Thomas Crooks apparently failed at his gun club trials but was still able to spray five high powered rounds that killed one and wounded three, in a matter of seconds. It is coming out he had diagnosed mental illness and may not have been taking medication he needed. Demagogues like Alex Jones and Trump himself exploit damaged, vulnerable people like this with their violent rhetoric. The lesson is Biblical, from Matthew 26 – he who takes up the sword, shall perish by the sword.
What’s the evidence for “he had diagnosed mental illness and may not have been taking medication he needed”?
That he’d looked up “major depressive disorder” does not imply that he’d been diagnosed, much less that he’d been prescribed anything (or, for that matter, that there was effective medication for him).
I’ve long been suspicious of a lot of these diagnoses. Not that (especially for young) people are troubled, but the diagnoses. I’ve known a lot of people over the years who were having some trouble, got diagnosed and put on meds, and just got worse.
This kid, I am sure, knew he was troubled. If you’re thinking about killing people at age 20, especially in what appeared to be what most folks would consider good neighborhoods and schools, he (and I think anyone else in similar straights) knew something was wrong inside. From what I’ve seen, good chance he had a belly full of anger built up over years. And no ability to resolve it.
There are other avenues, resources that have been around a while and work w/out meds if someone is able or willing to own their troubled reality.
12 step programs work, if people that go there can be honest with themselves. Other organizations have really good track records with non medical interventions. My business was writing software, our office was in Oakland Ca. We did pro-bono software for 1/2 dozen local rehab orgs, and those folks were dedicated to really troubled kids… many coming out of crack infested neighborhoods and saw their sisters and Mom’s become crack whores when they were really young. Made this kid look like an angel.
We only followed up with 2 of those orgs, but we remained marginally involved for some years. They had almost 2/3 success rate with those kids. All unsung heroes nobody outside of those spheres ever hears about. But their successes and dedication was something I’ve been grateful I didn’t miss. The lesson is, there are possibilities for troubled youth that most people who’ve never tried to do anything about it have no idea exists.
One of the AA Traditions states: We shall forever remain non-professional. Incredible wisdom in that insight AFAIC.
Be wary of letting Fox news rhetoric drive your thinking. It is an incontrovertible fact that metro areas are far safer than more rural areas.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/map-gun-death-rates-lower-cities-than-rural-counties-rcna81462 cf. numerous other studies
I admit to holding myself back about the metro crack. It’s thinly-veiled racism, another label for “inner city” and “urban centers.”
I keep wishing a news correspondant would take a jab at the pro-gun culture by asking Trump about his near death experience, “But isn’t this the price of freedom?” or “Shouldn’t we celebrate the fact that this 20 year-old well-regulated militia was exercising his full constitutional rights?”
Perhaps someone could question the right wing Supreme Court justices as well: “Well, were you more relieved or exasperated that Trump’s shooter did not use a bump stock after all the effort you expended making it Constitutional to have one?”
^^^ This. This. This. ^^^
ditto!
Amazing how many rights the MAGAs give up to attend a Trump rally. Do they still have to sign a covid waiver, too?
That’s MAGA freedom for ya.
Spot on.
OT
1. Sean O’Brien was amazing at RNC. He put bigwigs, wealthy, etc. in their place. Watch if you missed it.
With commentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBdQKW0biz0 .
2. Another creep, Menendez’ attorneys threw his wife under the bus during his trial. Wonder if that’s to save his hide, their marriage is done and/or she’s in bad shape with her cancer bout that it makes no difference.
There’s still an open thread. Use it.
Which?
This one may still be open:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/07/10/wapos-manufactured-landslide/
FFS. Click on the last several posts and find it.
I guess I don’t understand. What is an open thread?
An open thread is one where people can post comments about diverse topics instead of limiting comments to the topic of the column. It’s always identified as an open thread at the top. Here’s the most recent open thread, which is still open to comments: https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/07/15/american-hitler-jd-2024/
Some people are never happy unless what they want is handed to them on a silver platter while wearing white gloves — and for free, no less.
So how about in the future title of post include the words “open thread”.
How about you do a better job of paying attention to what is written?
How about you don’t police what contributors publish here for free?
re- P J Evans
July 19, 2024 at 1:53 pm
“COMMENTS ARE CLOSED.”
Really? I just checked and they’re still open on that open thread. Wide open Reply fields, and I checked from an alternative browser through which I am not logged into the site.
We do not spoon feed here. If you can’t bother to find the open thread and you can’t wait to post something, GO TO A MICROBLOG SITE LIKE BLUESKY. This is NOT a microblog for your urgent emotional dumps.
Stop cluttering this thread.
re-Rayne
July 19, 2024 at 4:53 pm
noted, thank you.
There’s a lot of finger pointing wrt failure of security at this event. Everyone’s angry with the Secret Service, but I’ve also heard the local police were supposed to be responsible for that perimeter. I have no idea what the truth is.
I have no experience or expertise in security. But I’m very surprised having drones with appropriate surveillance cameras aren’t standard fare now for events like this. I haven’t heard any of the talking heads mention it, at all.
Not only that, but remember their main “client” in this case often has his own ideas and tries to direct them around, against their best interests (remember the grabbing the steering wheel from the back seat of a moving vehicle incident?).
X-box babies I call them.
They’ve been raised immersed in those stupid electronic games and it becomes natural to their brain to aim and pull the trigger.
Actual reality of killing becomes a short step from virtual reality.
We haven’t seen one female mass murderer.
X box culture cultivates murderous inclinations
Actual murder becomes the next step up in the thrill chain.
Yet parents trip all over themselves to buy the next game for their kid because then the kid becomes less of a pain to deal with when they have their face and mind buried in that world.
Yes, courageous survivors of the horrific mass shooting in Sandy Hook Elementary School (Newtown, Connecticut) prevailed in their lawsuit versus Alex Jones; plus they won in court against Remington Arms, which is now defunct.
The good people of the United States can and do work very hard to successfully reduce tragic gun deaths and catastrophic gun injuries across the country. For example, research shows states that responsibly regulate dangerous guns have lower firearm mortality rates than those sadly without such gun safety measures.
For effective evidence-based strategies, highly recommend this book published by the prestigious University of Michigan Press: “Private Guns, Public Health” (2017).
A few points perhaps of interest to those reading this post and/or commenting about it. People with mental illness are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators of violence. Past violent behavior is the best predictor of future violence, regardless of diagnosed mental illness. The alleged shooter in Butler (PA) was in fact neither a shooter in a school nor a student, but about 75% of school shooters acquire the firearm(s) used from the home of a parent or close relative. Butler the town, and the county in which it is situated (also named Butler), plus the State of Pennsylvania all have had their share of tragic gun deaths over the years (see GVPedia’s powerful data visualization tool, the Gun Violence Archive, and/or CDC WISQARS data).
One more point to clarify – Americans are not more violent than people in our peer nations Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and Australia. For example, boys get into fights in the United States at similar rates to boys in the other countries. Note that violence in the US is much more lethal than it is in peer nations. The wide disparity in lethality is attributable to the incredible difference in access to deadly firearms.