Quincy

Let’s see how they come out at the RNC over the next few days after this event. Trump has apparently said he’s going to change his tone to more of a unity message. I’m very skeptical. Like him or not, it would be better to use this to bring the country together, than to use it to scare people into voting for Trump. There are already many on the right trying to spin this as divine intervention. Or that he’s immortal and can’t even be taken down by bullets

They still sell other types of guns and rifles. They stopped selling handguns and high capacity ammunition. I believe most of what they sell now is geared toward hunting.

I live Oklahoma and as I travel around through here and nearby states, you often see convenience type stores that do sell guns. Huge signs up on the road and in strip malls. It’s crazy to me.

Even just the key takeaways would be appreciated. In the past I’d go to Twitter or something, but social media is so toxic and vile in this moment that I can’t handle it. We all have our disagreements on here, but I appreciate that we can have a civilized discussion

I would if I wasn’t at work. I hope I can get the play-by-play on here

Mental health is likely a factor. Something that we don’t talk about enough when it comes to gun violence and mass shootings.

Yeah, I don’t even like guns, but I don’t think they should be fully banned. At least ban high capacity automatic and possibly semi automatic weapons that are capable of killing mass numbers of people in a short period of time. Why should any everyday citizen be able to get their hands on weapons of war? I think a rational case can be made for guns for hunting and self-defense.

Maybe some good can come out of this horrific event if it initiates meaningful gun control conversations. Can you imagine if Trump came out even lukewarm for some modest gun control? He’d win in a landslide. I always thought from the beginning that if he played off as a moderate populist, he could have been insanely popular. Instead, he went down the far right rabbit hole and appealed to what, 30-35% of Americans? I’m genuinely curious to see how he responds to this in the coming days. Does he become more unhinged? Does he shock republicans and come out for some gun control? Either way, I sincerely hope that he does not encourage violence or indirectly lead to more of it.

If that image is accurate, the trajectory looks like it would take it near the bottom of his right ear, except images show blood at the top of the right ear. Three possibilities: 1. This bullet missed him and glass shards later resulted in a cut later on. 2. This is a doctored image 3. Maybe this bullet grazed him and he was still hit by glass shards later on. The angle seems oddly low if it were coming from a roof top. Also, sources say the gunman shot off as many as eight rounds before being taken out. It’s possible that numerous bullets flew by Trump and somehow he was only hit by one, and/or by other airborne objects. Maybe the photo caught a bullet that missed him. I still think either the gunman had bad aim, or there was gunfire in multiple directions in the chaos at the same time. How you shoot eight rounds with such inaccuracy is strange, unless it was truly some amateur operation. (Which is possible) Social media is chattering about law enforcement “ignoring” reports that a suspect with a gun was creeping onto a nearby roof. Secret service was probably aware and taking quick action. It’s such a fluid situation, it could take a minute to both relay information and take action. What do you want them to do, scream and cause mass panic/stampede and probably more injury and death? The conspiracy theories will run rampant no matter what.

Not totally ruling this out, but based on images and forensic suggestions, glass shards still makes more sense than a bullet hitting his ear. I don’t know for a fact what happened, but I think it’s completely rational to think that even if his injuries were caused by glass, that he would spin it as taking a direct hit by a bullet. Just because he says something on his social media platform does not make it a confirmed fact.

News is going to continue to break and evolve in a situation like this. I stopped listening about a half hour ago because it was too much. This is definitely possible. A bystander was interviewed from outside the rally and claims that he saw a person with a rifle sneaking up a rooftop. This is obviously not confirmed, but the bystander said he was “100%” sure that the first several shots came from the individual on the roof. Maybe he was getting shot at first and returned fire. I don’t know. That’s why it’s sometimes good to step back from situations like this until facts can be confirmed.

It’s scary for a number of reasons, but the update that I’m hearing is Trump may have not been directly hit by the gunfire. Reporting is that glass from the teleprompter hit his face and is what caused the injury. It sounds like the sniper, who was on a nearby roof, didn’t have good aim. At least one innocent bystander was killed and another is reported to be in serious condition. I do also agree that the conspiracy theories and such are really unhinged right now. I tried to peek on Twitter and watch some livestreams, but the chatter is very toxic. No matter who you support or don’t support, no one should condone violence on anyone. As far as the Trump campaign goes, this is undoubtedly going to help him. I’ll be curious to see how the mood goes in the coming days, but I really hope we don’t see more violence.

No disputing that, but the post I was replying to was citing university as a proxy for intelligence. Which is not even necessarily accurate for a number of reasons. For example, Trump might be “smart” with running businesses (that’s debatable), but just because he went to an ivy league school or made a lot of money does not make him intelligent. Likewise, I barely passed some difficult courses in my field of study, but I’d argue that those grades and some of those courses have virtually zero real world relevance. I graduated with people who had a higher GPA, but were objectively less knowledgeable in the field. So, we’re mostly in agreement. Going to college doesn’t automatically make you smart. Getting a bad grade doesn’t make you dumb. Skipping college doesn’t make you unintelligent. There’s much more to it than that. With that said, maybe people can and have learned a wealth of information from advancing their education.

I think there might be a misunderstanding of what my point was. The U.S. has some great educational institutions, but a lot of the people who vote in this country: 1. Have no college degree 2. Lack critical thinking skills 3. Don’t vote on actual issues The states with the worse education systems tend to vote against their self interests, i.e. for right wing politicians who run on fear tactics, rather than supporting affordable healthcare, better education, etc. There’s a reason why the U.S. popular vote and the electoral college often yield two different results. Population density is greater where education is better, but the electoral college gives lopsided weighting to states where education is poorer. Does that make sense? Maybe my first post was over generalizing a bit, but it partially explains how Trump got elected in the first place and how he might actually get reelected.

I finally gave it a listen. Her parts are fine, but it definitely seems very chopped together. Kinda doesn’t flow for me. Not sure if I will give it another listen. Just not my type of song, even if she salvages parts of it.

I’ll literally die the day she follows me. It was crazy enough when she liked one of my posts. I was channeling her so hard that night she was storm chasing from her hotel, the day after her show in Arkansas

Basically, if you are a reality TV star or have a ton of money (or both), then you’re in the running to be President the U.S. electorate is not exactly the most educated

Well, one is a convicted felon, a pathological liar, incited a riotous insurrection, a civilly liable rapist, a twice impeached former president and an egomaniacal narcissist. And if you look at his past comments, he’s at the very least clueless and uninformed, if not downright stupid. As feeble and weak as Biden is, he’s the far lesser of two evils. There isn’t even a debate about it. You can say he sucks with the Middle East conflict, but foreign policy is almost always a lose-lose situation, especially given the mess over there. Aside from his handling of that, what bad things has he done? Trump seems to do and say horrible things on a daily basis. If you care about women’s rights and free speech, Trump has done and vows to do more things to strip you of those rights. He admits to wanting to be a dictator “on day one” and his track record speaks for itself. I’m a registered independent. I have been for 12 years. I’d like to say I keep an open mind and don’t pledge my support behind any political party. I genuinely think the two party system sucks. Very little gets done in government. Americans are turning on each other, just because of what “team” they’re on. I’ve been fighting for third party candidates for most of my adult life, but in the short term, we’re stuck with two realistic choices. Trump may be bringing down the Republican Party in flames. The party could literally die if he loses, but if he wins another term, the prospects are ugly for our country and the world. Win or lose, the Democratic Party has to do something to get younger blood involved. Enough of these 60+ (often 70-80+) year old white men running things. We need term limits. Campaign finance reform. Etc. If it’s Trump vs. Biden, I’m still going with Biden, but I hope people fight like hell to give reasonable third parties more of a voice in the future. In 2000, the third party vote likely swung the election for Bush. Jill Stein arguably pulled enough votes away in swing states to give Trump the election in 2016. You can either vote for the lesser of two evils or throw your vote away in this election. I’m sorry. The stakes are too high, in my opinion. The democratic party is tone deaf on the economy. I’ll give you that. Most everyday people are really struggling. Income and wage inequality is skyrocketing. Climate change is a serious threat to our near future. The U.S. Supreme Court has turned into a right wing political court. If you care about any of those things in the above paragraph, Trump will objectively make them all worse if he’s re-elected. So, with all of that said, I think Trump is objectively, far worse. Sorry for the long rant.

I don’t dislike her, but public opinion about her is not great. VPs rarely get much attention, they’re usually greatly overshadowed by the President. For some on the left, her history as a prosecutor is problematic. As Vice President, she’s mostly been out of the spotlight. In some administrations, the VP is out there with a specific role, but in this case, people often ask, what exactly is she doing? One of the conspiracy theories is that she’s really running things while Biden is hiding in the basement. I think it’s wonderful that we finally have a female VP and she’s also a person of color, but I think that plays into the reason why her approval numbers are so low. It’s sad, but true. When she was selected as VP, I thought her background as a prosecutor would help her be tough against Trump and portray strength. Instead, the perception from many is that she’s weak. Often, the VP is de facto next in line for the presidency, but the general consensus is that she’s not cut out for it. It’s a shame, if she had been given more responsibility earlier on in the administration, maybe she could have won more Americans over. Now, she’s one of the most disliked politicians in the country. Anyway, after processing last night, I’m still concerned. Very concerned. It will be interesting to see how public opinion about Biden evolves over the next week. There seem to be two vocal camps, the one that thinks he went down in flames and needs to be replaced immediately and the camp that is in denial and thinks he did great. I obviously sway more toward the former, as I think the vast majority of us do. In the snap polls and on social media, it’s almost unanimous that he bombed the debate and lost some independents. Did many people change their minds? Maybe not, but in a close race, Biden can’t support to lose any support. The focus groups that I saw seemed to lean toward Trump winning the debate, but that due to the dangers of Donny getting re-elected, Democrats are mostly still supporting Biden. It’s early, Biden could bounce back, but this is a testament to why we need younger politicians.

I didn’t vote for her either in the primary, but of the female options… Who do you like for women? AOC is probably too far left to be a serious contender. Who else is there out there? I’m not even sure.

It’s too bad Elizabeth Warren didn’t get much traction in the 2016 primaries. We’re long overdue for a female president.

She said it was a slow start with a strong finish lol She could have said he had a cold or something. I don’t know. Maybe she should have said, “one night doesn’t overshadow 3.5 years of accomplishments.” Instead, she’s pretending like he had a great performance tonight.

Harris is getting interviewed now and she’s in total denial about this. It’s scary. Wow. She definitely can’t be the nominee at the top of the ticket, no offense.

I don’t think he’s going to step down on his own. He’s in denial or something. He’s going to have to be convinced, kind of like when in the 70s, Nixon had to be told to resign from the presidency with the whole Watergate thing. But who is going to step up and convince him to step down? They need to figure out something quick because you don’t want this mess lingering into the DNC.

The way it works is the process for replacement, assuming it happens, is going to take some time. We won’t be hearing about Biden stepping down tomorrow, but some people close to him HAVE to give him the honest, hard truth. You know that Trump is going to refuse to participate in any future debates, so this is probably the one and only shot Joe had to ease concerns. Joe has to step down. There’s no rebounding from this.