Trump in the Crosshairs of History
In a surreal and nightmarish spectacle straight out of a dystopian novel, former President Donald Trump found himself in the crosshairs of an assassin during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. This violent drama left Trump wounded and a hapless spectator dead, painting a gruesome tableau of American political chaos.
Let’s dive in headfirst and examine the madness, realizing fully that this is an evolving story, and at this early hour, we only know a fraction of it. I’ll do my best to sift through a haze of hearsay and misinformation to get to the heart of the matter. I’ll also do my best to avoid “Monday morning quarterbacking.” I wasn’t there, you weren’t there; all we know is what has been reported to this point.
The Shooter and His Weapon
Enter the villain of our piece: One Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. The disturbed and now deceased young man was reportedly armed with a semi-automatic AR-15-style rifle. Crooks chose his instrument of chaos with the precision of a seasoned lunatic, as the AR platform was never intended for use as a sniper rifle. Granted, it has a maximum effective range (the farthest distance a round can travel while still being accurate while achieving its desired effect) of about 600 meters, and Crooks was only about 120 meters from his target.
From that short distance, an average marksman should have no trouble landing repeated rounds on a torso-sized target. Thank God it appears that Crooks was a sub-standard shooter. As it is, President Trump is extraordinarily lucky to emerge from the shooting bloodied but relatively unscathed. If the round had impacted an inch or two more toward the center of the former President’s head, the outcome would have been devastating even with the relatively impotent 5.56 round.
While talking about Crooks, let’s not forget that he murdered one innocent rallygoer and gravely wounded two others. There was no precision here and no regard for human life.
Former Navy SEAL Sniper Course Head Instructor, Brandon Webb’s Video Analysis
Path of the Bullet
Ballistics tell a tale of calculated malevolence. The bullet’s trajectory is a grim testament to the shooter’s vantage point; he was perched atop a one-story building belonging to AGR International. This vantage point offered him a clear line of sight to the former President of the United States. How a man with a gun made it on top of that roof and managed to squeeze off multiple shots is a question that will be asked many times by many people in the near future. Counter snipers were perched on barn roofs several feet behind Mr. Trump. They quickly determined where the shots were coming from and eliminated the threat.
The Fatal Shot
And then, the inevitable twist of fate. The bullet, now a harbinger of death, continued its cruel journey. After tearing through Trump’s ear, it found its mark in the body of an unfortunate soul in the crowd, standing a mere 30 feet from the stage. The impact was catastrophic, the kind of damage that turns human flesh and bone into a macabre canvas of mortality. Despite frantic efforts to save the victim, the damage was too great, and they succumbed to their wounds. Two other victims of the shooting are currently hospitalized and fighting for their lives.
In the video below, we see the exact moment when Donald Trump was shot. His hand reflexively raises to his affected ear; this immediately reminded me of JFK raising his hands to his throat when he was shot in Dallas. Believe it or not, the shooter was caught on video as he fired on the President. It has widely been reported that people on the ground saw a man with a gun climb up on the roof of the AGR building. Those people reportedly passed on this information to police in the area. Did this actually occur? I don’t know one way or another. This is one of the many questions to be answered in the upcoming weeks and months.
If police did know, why did they not pass on this information to the Secret Service? If the Secret Service knew, why did they not have the counter-sniper team immediately eliminate the threat before shots were fired? These kinds of questions breed the types of conspiracy theories that I won’t even begin to touch on here.
Investigation and Aftermath
As the dust settles and the blood is cleaned up, the hunt for answers begins. Authorities sift through the chaos, piecing together the sequence of events that led Crooks to his murderous perch. Eyewitness accounts and shaky video footage – are all scrutinized in a desperate bid to unravel the plot. The FBI, now knee-deep in the investigation, faces a chorus of demands for a thorough inquiry from political heavyweights like Senator Rick Scott. The calls for action echo through the halls of power, a cacophony of outrage and fear.
Below, we see President Trump exiting his plane in Newark, New Jersey, and, in all likelihood, en route to his home in Bedminster, New Jersey. This was mere hours after he was treated and released by a Pennsylvania hospital.
In the wake of the assassination attempt, the national conversation spirals into familiar territory: political violence and the tenuous security at public events. President Biden has suspended all political re-election ads for the time being. Former President Trump, narrowly avoiding death, ironically perhaps had his finest hour. In the adrenaline-filled minutes after the shooting, he made it a point, multiple times, to let the people know he had not been defeated, raising a defiant fist high in the air as he sounded out, “Fight, fight!”
It puts one in mind of another great American President running for re-election when a would-be assassin shot him in the chest at close range. Theodore Roosevelt, a Bull-Moose of a man, survived being shot as well. During his time, Roosevelt was being lambasted by his political opponents as being what many called a “power-hungry traitor.” When asked about the motivation for the attempt on a life, a philosophical-sounding TR said the following:
“It is a very natural thing that weak and vicious minds should be inflamed to acts of violence by the kind of awful mendacity and abuse that have been heaped upon me for the last three months by the papers.”
And who says history doesn’t repeat itself? Unfortunately, America, once again, finds itself teetering on the edge of violent upheaval.
This latest incident, drenched in blood and chaos, is a stark reminder of the perils that stalk high-profile political figures. The investigation trudges on, a somber march towards understanding and, hopefully, prevention of such grim spectacles in the future. In the meantime, the American psyche reels, and the social media talking heads spin fantastic tales while grappling with yet another chapter in our nation’s ongoing saga of turmoil and bloodshed.
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Disclaimer: SOFREP utilizes AI for image generation and article research. Occasionally, it’s like handing a chimpanzee the keys to your liquor cabinet. It’s not always perfect and if a mistake is made, we own up to it full stop. In a world where information comes at us in tidal waves, it is an important tool that helps us sift through the brass for live rounds.
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