Thomas Matthew Crooks, the suspectin Saturday’s shooting, was registered as a Republican voter, according to Pennsylvania records.
Already the republicans are dismissing his voter registration as meaningless. Here comes the “mental illness” angle.
Edit: apparently it’s not uncommon to register with the party you oppose in PA. This is going to be a fun ride.
The mental illness angle will be met with
“Interesting how he so easily acquired a gun.”
Funny how he chose an AR type, too.
What’s an AR type?
Edit: right answers only
Armalite Rifle, Armalite is still a maker of military rifles. The AR-15 is a rifle that was pitched to the military by armalite, then re-designated the M-16 by the military when it was adopted. The civilian version retained the -15, and is incredibly popular with gun owners because of the number of components made for it making it very customizable. It is also the one most often referred to as an “assault rifle”, though that isn’t what “AR” stands for.
So to sum up, the “AR type” means that it’s likely a variant of the -15.
“AR” refers to a pattern of rifle. Any manufacturer can produce complete rifles or various components and accessories that fit the AR pattern. Those components are interchangeable. This allows you to customize your rifle to your current and future needs simply by swapping parts, rather than needing a gunsmith to machine and fit them.
“AR” is to guns like “Pickup truck” is to cars. A pickup might be a simple, ordinary vehicle. It might be a heavily customized rock crawler. It might be a lowered and styled cruiser. It might have a ladder rack, or have the bed swapped for a maintenance truck, or flatbed. It might be converted to repossess vehicles, or fight brush fires. Likewise, an “AR pattern rifle” refers only to the most basic structure of the rifle rather than a specific gun.
A gun that’s more accurate and can shoot longer distances.
When bullet goes faster, it is more accurate and deals more damage. In the 90s, the AR-15 was banned but today its allowed and has been the gun of choice in pretty much every mass shooting of the last decade.
Than?
Go on, you started out so strong.
It IS more accurate and shoots faster than a gun that’s less accurate and shoots slower.
Beyond that, you haven’t said anything about it, and you’ve not only just clearly shown you can’t be objective when talking about them, you’ve given just… So much bullshit and called it “information”
Bullets going faster doesn’t mean more damage, or more accuracy. It can mean more penetration into things, but that’s not a given.
It has never been banned in any meaningful way country-wide
It has been the front and center firearm of every shooters arsenal on the news whether it was used in the shooting or not, specifically because it cosmetically looks like a military rifle. In fact the most common used things aren’t even rifles, but handguns.
Functionally it’s no different than several other firearms, some of which even shoot the exact same round, but nobody focuses on those because they look like a hunting rifle.
This country needs mountains of reform, including tons of changes to gun control, but what you are doing is not helping that goal in any way.
Be better.
Removed by mod
“these guns that are different than a completely different kind of gun that nobody brought up before this particular comment are completely different!”
Your grasp of the obvious amazes me.
Do you always resort to ad-hominem when called out for thoughtless comments?
It’s still not a good look, dear.
You’re talking about the fucking 1990s style Assault Weapons Ban.
And suddenly its unfair for me to bring up mass shootings that took place during that ban, and compare them to the AR-15 (aka: how mass shootings happen today).
Got it. You’re a dipshit who was hoping that I was some kind of ignorant dumbass. You guessed wrong. Learn history next time before you challenge random people online.
I resort to ad-hominem after its become clear that my debate opponent is a dumbass who couldn’t follow my earlier words. Because the discussion is over and I’m not debating anymore. You were too ignorant to follow my earlier points and are now fucking pwned.
I directly referenced 90s mass shootings. Of course I’m referencing Columbine, or are you also ignorant of the 90s or some of the most important mass shooting events of my childhood?
You try to say here you shouldn’t need to talk about specifics “because we all know…” but in other comments you backpedal and say you’re dumbing it down for others.
So which is it?
I think you just hit “reply” before your brain caught up with your fingers and heart.
Given your demeanor, I’d say you still have awhile to go before you exit “childhood” regardless of what your ID says. Keep going with the baseless personal attacks, surely you’re one more comment away from changing my mind?
Have a good one I guess. Keep being angry and responding to everyone calling you out, it’s going well for everyone involved.
It also has a shoulder thing that goes up, right? Your ignorance is on full display here.
Don’t answer questions you don’t know the answer to.
I don’t need to use technical terms like 556 or 7.62 rounds or rimfire to prove I’m a knowledgeable gun owner.
When the other guy doesn’t know what AR means, I must bring down my language and remove technicalities. What I said earlier is the gist of the argument, we all expect the shooter to have some variant of AR-15 given the range and number of shots taken.
The important tidbit, politically speaking, is that this gun was literally illegal to own in my childhood. Do you disagree with me on that?
To prove you’re a knowledgeable gun owner you should probably refrain from framing the AR-15 as a good long range weapon. It’s passable, but not what one would pick for a long range shot.
Funny how? ARs are the most common and versatile rifle in the country. How is it any surprise that’s what he was using? Any gun owner in the US will likely have at least one AR.
Funny that so many conservatives love the AR and one was used to shoot at their President. Maybe irony would be a better choice of words. Not sure where you get “any gun owner…at least one…” I know plenty who have zero and no need of such a tacticool fashion accessory.
I mean, sure? But it’s not just conservatives who own ARs. Look at leftist gun community / subreddit posts, literally everyone likes ARs, not just conservatives. Hell I’m a lefty with an AR and I have lefty friends with ARs. It’s not that far fetched of an idea dude.
What’s even better, he was already on secret service/security radar when he tried to enter the metal detectors by acting weird.
Why the fuck wasn’t he literally followed at that point?
I mean they probably get like a ton of people who enter the metal detectors and act weird. I don’t really expect that to actually be a part of their security that’s reliable or useful in really any way, it’s TSA security theater shit.
Asking this stuff will get you banned