A single shot throw-away rifle. That doesn’t seem amateur, but I’m not an expert.
The page “A Mighty Girl” on Facebook had this to say:
Today’s fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University comes just three months after Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman was assassinated in her home – two leaders from different parties and opposing ideological perspectives, both silenced by acts of political violence.
Edit: snipped for length - Miller
What rifle do you think an amateur would use?
And to add on my previous post (the edit window expired): any half-decent hunter, or anyone who’s been through basic training would never try a headshot unless they really had to. That shit is for COD warriors. A torso shot would be an 8 on our 200 m target. At 130-ish meters, prone with support (which any half-competent shooter would choose if at all possible), that’s very doable if you’re a half-competent shooter.
Maybe we know different weekend warriors. Most of the ones I know don’t practice from distance at all. Most of them I wouldn’t trust to carry a handgun safely or be able to hit a target even close up.
I don’t practice often but I could consistently hit from that range but my grouping is shit. There are definitely folks at the range who consistently hit from 300 yards out
This will neither lessen or increase the chance of that happening, and it ignores the fact that it has already happened.
Let’s say you zero-in your rifle at 200 yards at a gun range. If you later shoot at 200 yards, but the target is downhill or uphill, you will no longer be zeroed - you will shoot high. So if you were to aim at someone’s center of mass while shooting uphill or downhill, you will shoot high (e.g. neck).
A competent amateur would use something like what they are claiming is the murder weapon. An incompetent one would use an AR-15 they picked up last week at the store and didn’t even bother adjusting, hoping that it would somehow magically hit.
None of us know right now who is responsible for this killing, but it’s indisputable who benefits from it (and it isn’t Kirk’s enemies).
What? lol. Trump would never say that in a million years. It’s too coherent, too high minded, and absolutely against his beliefs. So one of his social media goons wrote it. But what an absurd message coming from him, the most fucking powerfully guilty person in the world of doing this.
AR-15?
Edit, ninja’d
All we still know at this point is: college-age (ish) and blended in with students; and they have his image.
Oh, and the rifle was bolt-action.
Charlie Kirk shooting latest: FBI say weapon found but killer still at large - BBC News
Which they are not releasing. Which may mean they are not certain that’s the actual shooter.
According to the NYT, what has been recovered is a bolt action Mauser 30-06. Definitely somebody taking a shot with a hunting rifle.
Why am I not surprised?
President Donald Trump, at a memorial event at the Pentagon on Thursday on the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, announced he will posthumously award Charlie Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Kirk, a prominent conservative activist, was shot during an event at Utah Valley University on Wednesday. Trump later that day announced his death.
I’m not sad that Charlie Kirk is dead because he was despicable. I don’t approve of any politically-motivated violence because it makes things worse. I will be glad when Trump is dead. People are posting photos of their champagne bottles, ready to celebrate, and I don’t have a problem with that at all, because of what Trump has done and continues to do to this country.
I have thought for a while that Charlie Kirk is one of the most dangerous people in political punditry, or whatever you call what it is that he did. If you don’t know, try looking up some of his past statements, and whatever you find, it got even worse than that.
I agree that he was supremely dangerous, and I’m glad that you included the caveat after “punditry.” Too much of the news coverage is taking at face value the whitewashing from right-wing spin doctors, including Kirk’s own Turning Point organization, describing him as a political commentator or observer or free speech advocate or otherwise providing wildly misleading labels as to the scope of his activities. He was not a pundit. He was a Christofascist radical activist, period.
Edit to add: I meant to expand on “supremely dangerous” but forgot. The key point there is that Kirk was only 31, quite young by political standards, and had already accumulated a meaningful following. As I mentioned above, if he hadn’t been killed, he had another forty or fifty fucking years of destructive potential ahead of him.
WSJ reporting that the ammo had anti-fascist and pro-trans engravings. Actual messaging or an accelerationist trying to kick things off? Both bad, one would be worse.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting “Ammunition in Kirk Shooting Engraved With Transgender, Antifascist Ideology”.
I don’t have a WSJ subscription but I smell bullshit here. How much “ideology” can one engrave on a bullet? What exactly is “transgender ideology”?
Can anyone read the article and confirm whether any details are provided?
ETA: Ninja’d!
Thanks NYT, that really tells us exactly what rifle was found. I mean it’s not like Paul Mauser’s action was used in many (hundreds?) different rifles made over an entire century.