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Another Word on Saturday’s Assassination Attempt

Another Word on Saturday’s Assassination Attempt

Last updated on: July 16, 2024 at 2:59 am by Mary Pezzulo

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Another Word on Saturday’s Assassination Attempt 2024-07-16T02:59:41-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

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The news is moving at a breakneck pace, so I just want to quickly write out a few more thoughts on the horrific events that took place in Pennsylvania on Saturday.

First of all, my condolences go out to Mr. Comperatore’s family, and I will pray for the repose of his soul. I can’t imagine what they must be feeling right now. I’m also praying for the recovery of the other two injured persons and glad that, last I heard, they were improving.I’m glad that Mr. Trump is recovering so quickly. I also pray for the shooter and his family.

Secondly: everyone needs to stop saying it’s a sign of a conspiracy that Trump stopped to gather his shoes, then pumped his fist and mouthed “Fight fight fight!” before being escorted from the stage just after the shooting.

It’s a terrible failure of the Secret Service that they didn’t forcibly drag him away, but there is NO EVIDENCE that the former president knew that the shooting was going to happen ahead of time. That’s a ridiculous jump to conclusions. In the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event, people start going through familiar motions as if nothing shocking just happened. Michael’s brother was once hit by a car while riding his bicycle to work, and his first thought was to stand up and walk the ruined bicycle to the curb before sitting down to wait for the ambulance. Twice I’ve been in car accidents where the force of impact knocked my shoes off my feet, and both times my very first thought, before I fled the totaled car, was to yell “my SHOES!” and find them and put them on. That’s normal. It’s normal to go through the motions of something you’re used to and familiar with in an emergency, and Trump is very used to playing to an audience. His whole career is playing to an audience. So of course, when the bullet grazed him or the piece of glass hit him, his first response was to find those shoes with lifts in them that he always wears, and then to put on a show of bravado. That’s what Trump does. There’s no vast right wing conspiracy here. What you saw was the normal response of a TV personality getting shot at. Everybody take a few cleansing breaths. Conspiracy theories aren’t going to help.

Furthermore: yes, it turns out that the would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was a Republican and a gun enthusiast from Bethel Park, PA. He also made a $15 donation to ActBlue before he was old enough to vote, and no, I can’t explain that. He seems to have voted in 2022 but not in the 2024 primary. It is said that he was a loner with staunchly conservative views in high school, and that he had Trump signs in his yard. Nobody at this moment knows what his motives were. I’m not going to speculate about them, because that would only add to the confusion. What I have an issue with is that some commentators who don’t know this part of the country are acting like Crooks is a hillbilly from Deliverance. I saw Bethel Park described as “a deep red small town” and I nearly spit out my gum. Bethel Park, Pennsylvania is a relatively affluent suburb of Pittsburgh. It’s not a village in the middle of nowhere; it’s about ten minutes away from the crowded part of the city where I bought my car two years ago. People from Bethel Park tend to be materially comfortable. Politically, Bethel Park is purple, split rather evenly between Democrats and Republicans. If you’re going to post things online about Crooks’s motive, stop talking about his hometown as if it’s something out of a Faulkner novel. It’s just Pittsburgh.

Finally: to all you pearl clutchers exclaiming about a high school rifle club: yes. We have those around here.

They are normal. Pittsburgh is in western Pennsylvania. An enormous number of people in the tri-state area of western Pennsylvania, northern West Virginia and Eastern Ohio have rifles because they hunt. They hunt white tailed deer and stuff they freezers with venison, which we call “deer meat.” My very first apartment in Steubenville was above where my landlord processed his deer; the grinder and the big table were beside the washer and dryer. It’s quite a thing to see when you come downstairs to do your laundry in your pajamas if you’re not used to it, but it’s perfectly normal around here. A rifle club for teenagers is a run-of-the-mill thing to have in western Pennsylvania. All other things being equal, if the rifles the teenagers are using are very carefully locked up when not in use and if the teenagers are being carefully taught gun safety as they go along, a school rifle club can be a good thing. I’d support Adrienne if Adrienne wanted to join a school rifle club. That’s not something to be shocked about.

There are plenty of things to be shocked about right now. We all need to be careful to share good information and not let our imaginations run away with us.

Let’s all keep our minds on things we actually can change, to help our country going forward.

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross, The Sorrows an d Joys of Mary, and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.

Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, visit our donate page.

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Thomas Matthew Crooks

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