Let's get a couple things out of the way. I have never voted for Donald Trump, and I never plan to. I oppose all political violence, whether it is against Trump or caused by Trump. Those are my opinions, and I know that not everyone reading this agrees with them. We live in an era where cold hard facts are treated like opinions. On July 13, 2024, Thomas Matthew Crooks shot Trump with a rifle before being killed by the Secret Service. The FBI and the Secret Service agree on that, and yet people think I'm an idiot for believing them.
Right-wing conspiracy theorists claimed that Biden was trying to have Trump killed. They seemed to have stopped saying this now that Trump is President and presumably has access to all the relevant files.
Left-wing conspiracy theorists claim that Trump staged the whole thing. There is a picture of the bullet passing by Trump's head. Whatever else you or I think about Trump, I do think that he likes being alive and would NOT attend the rally if he knew his supporters were going to stage a shootout with live ammunition just to help him win Pennsylvania's 19 electoral votes.
One common argument is that an AR-15 round would have obliterated Trump's ear. This thinking is likely the result of a generation raised on first person shooter games where every shot that even touches a character's head results in a kill. Real life is a bit more complicated and unpredictable. The bullet grazed Trump's ear: it rubbed against the skin and removed enough tissue to cause the ear to bleed.
"How did his ear heal so fast?" It may have had stitches or it may have been cauterized for all I know. His hair and his hat tend to block the view of any possible scar tissue. I'm not a doctor and neither are most people reading this. Trump could provide us with answers by releasing his medical records. But why would he do that? We're wasting all this energy and bandwidth arguing about it, so it's smart of him to let us bicker.
It's understandable that people might have lots and lots of questions about an incident like this. But we can apply Occam's Razor here and come up with the simplest explanation: one lone nutjob tried to kill a Presidential candidate. It's always one lone nutjob, because normal people tend to like being alive and dislike killing. Normal people also talk too much to be an effective part of a conspiracy.
I do think that the Secret Service should have removed Trump from the stage as soon as Crooks was detected. That is an easy thing to say in hindsight, but the Secret Service tries very hard to avoid the appearance of interfering with presidential politics. Removing Trump from the stage before Crooks had the chance to fire off a shot might have been construed as trying to cause Trump to lose the election.
I also think that Presidents and candidates should avoid having rallies at open air venues. But I'm a safety first kind of guy.
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