[bigyabai]

> everyone needs to take a step back regardless of which side you’re on and say “Why?”

It's easy to get sucked into a learned helplessness doing this, though. We know exactly why it happens - Charlie Kirk explained it himself:

  "You will never live in a society when you have an armed citizenry and you won’t have a single gun death. That is nonsense, [...] But I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational."

America means guns. It's written in our constitution, reinforced through our history, reflected in our multimedia franchises and sold to American citizens as a product. The only way out of this situation is through it - we can't declare a firearms ban in-media-res without inciting even more violence and dividing people further. At the same time, America cannot continue to sustain this loss of our politicians, schoolchildren and minority populations. The threat to democracy is real, exacerbated by the potential for further "emergency powers" abuse we're familiar with from both parties.

When people push for firearms control in America, this is the polemic they argue along. You can say they're justified or completely bonkers, but denying that these scenarios exist is the blueprint for erasing causality.

[agensaequivocum]

No it's not because of the guns. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Shinzo_Abe

[bigyabai]

Shinzo Abe's killer was captured immediately, he had to walk right in front of him to get a shot off.

Charlie Kirk's assassin is still at-large and fired from a standoff distance, with a conventional long-barrel firearm.

Make of that what you will.

[johnisgood]

You added the term "conventional", except nothing about this is conventional.

You said it yourself that the shooter is still at large... despite the involvement of the FBI and other agencies.

[bigyabai]

The firearm certainly seems conventional. Early reports suggest it was a bolt-action Mauser: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/what-we-know-about-weapon-u...

Is there something I'm missing here?

> despite the involvement of the FBI and other agencies.

Many such cases. We're still looking for D. B. Cooper, aren't we? Did the FBI ever dig up Hoffa's body? The feds are hardly a panacea with these things.

[johnisgood]

Not everything is about the firearm itself and not even the shot, that many people focus on.

And you need more context and the training required to take such a shot and then evade the local cops and FBI, with a solid escape plan from a fuckton of witnesses and so forth. And I did not mention that most people would probably panic and mess up, let alone take the shot and escape. It is much more complex than that. When you look at the pattern fit, it no longer looks like a spur-of-the-moment act by a "typical gun owner".

They gave us some 22 years old kid as the person who pulled this whole operation, allegedly, and acted alone. Even if someone had been shooting since childhood, the rooftop selection, escape route, and casing inscriptions suggest deliberate operational planning and situational awareness, not just trigger skill. Shooting skill alone doesn't cover the logistics and environmental awareness. Plus a 22-year-old who "trained since childhood" might have technical skill, but most young adults still lack the composure and foresight to execute a high-stakes assassination with minimal mistakes, especially under the psychological pressure of killing a person in a public setting.

FWIW, some cases remain unsolved for decades because of scarce evidence, degraded scenes, or lack of witnesses, which does not come into play here at all. Modern investigations, by contrast, often benefit from immediate CCTV, cell-data, social media, and so forth.

...thus I remain skeptical.

[bigyabai]

What is irregular about the firearm? The only details I've seen are the engraving, everything else is reportedly COTS. Please give me links to the information you're looking at if I'm missing anything.

> but most young adults still lack the composure and foresight to execute a high-stakes assassination with minimal mistakes

This is conjecture, unless you can back it up with a source. The history books are filled with 22-year-old kids shooting politicians and getting away with it, famously the Red Guard uninstalled an entire government with this strategy. With a bunch of riled-up students.

I spent a lot of time at the range when I was a kid - hitting a 200yd shot from an elevated platform is not difficult with a M1903. A modern 63mm loading can easily push 3,000fps in a long-barrel rifle and if you reloaded the cartridge for a single-use assassination, I see no reason you couldn't push 5,000fps if the barrel doesn't explode from overpressure. With those kinds of ballistics its not a very tough shot unless you're shooting into a hurricane. All you need then is a hunting scope, and that can be bought for $170 in cash at Cabelas.

> Modern investigations, by contrast, often benefit from immediate CCTV, cell-data, social media, and so forth.

This I absolutely agree with. It sounds like the only reason they found him is because his friend turned in his Discord DMs, he might still be on the loose if not for the digital breadcrumb trail he left behind.

Bit of a harrowing precedent for online privacy, but I presume that will fall on deaf ears.

[alsetmusic]

Just because you can cite an example of a killing without a gun says nothing about the reality about gun violence and gun culture in the USA.

[fawkesalbus]

Which example are you referencing here?