Yeah I imagine whatever your reasons it's probably a pretty stressful to carry out a suicide attack.

I read somewhere he only had iron sights

Idk, I live in a place where guns that look scary are banned and my interest is blackpowder and old timey low calibre target shooting /shrug

The AR-15 is nominally chambered in .223 Remington or 5.56×45mm NATO according to Wikipedia. Although some are chambered at 0.22. But typically gun makes targeted at children are not semi-automatic which is a feature of AR-15 style rifles.

While this is partially a safety concern, I remember target shooting alternatively with a pump-action and a semi-auto and my cousin and I would be tempted to lose our temper with an evasive target and mag-dump. With the pump action I didn't have the option but to aim every time.

You mean the party known for lying and falsification didn't have an assassin plant meant to take the fall for the planned assassination attempt against the fascist presidential candidate in order to further bolster the support from his allies and voters?

There's no way this wasn't staged. And quite frankly, if the repubs are allowed to make up stuff, so is everyone else.

Just like the 2020 election

I wouldn’t say 0% chance, but I agree that it is unhealthy to jump straight to conspiratorial thinking. Especially given just how little we know at this point.

Look, I'm all about avoiding unnecessary speculation, but being registered as a Republican is a very strong indicator of where they stand on the political spectrum. I don't know why we are pretending that this isn't fairly conclusive. It's not like he changed party affiliation as a psyop, he's been registered as a Republican for nearly three years.

I don't know why he tried to kill Trump, but let's not pretend that these details don't matter.

* intents and purposes

If he was older I'd say he was trying to save the republican party from trump. I remember their disgust with him before he started winning, and even after by a few who have brand points in respectability.

I guess the sarcasm was not obvious.

I was mocking what will presumably be a Republican talking point as a 15 dollar donation is immensely inconsequential.

I agree with you that party registration is basically meaningless for a 20 year old who seems to have not even ever voted, nor has any as of yet evidenced strong political beliefs voiced privately or publicly.

As of right now, the shooter does not seem to have been very politically involved either way and is being portrayed as basically socially awkward and picked on in high school.

If the person had a long history of political involvement either way or had published a manifesto or something like that, that may be worth discussing, but so far there is nothing to indicate any kind of strong ideological motive, more along the lines of 'troubled young adult has nothing to live for, decides to try and become famous and/or die trying.'

The guys neighbors were all talking about how they were planning on going to the rally if it wasn't so hot out. I'm guessing there's deeper issues going on than just political. Trump supporters are insufferable and I'm guessing his dad and everyone else around him is a POS.

I've commented about this elsewhere, but the experiences, beliefs and opinions that radicalize ad hoc shooters typically are very removed from their choice of target. Though, heck, he might have written or recorded a manifesto somewhere. Otherwise he was sick and tired of living a life that sucks and just wanted to express pure rage.

Political operatives look for guys like this to turn into assassins and terrorists. Militant groups of the transnational white power movement looke for guys like this at earlier stages for recruits for counterprotests, harassing marginalized groups and liberal voters and other violence to serve their cause.