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How about discussing "take the guns first, go through due process second"?

The secret service director did something amazing yesterday...she united the two party leaders on the most partisan, made for TV sparing committee in Congress with calls for her resignation. You can probably count on one hand the number of times these two had co-signed a letter as Chairman and Ranking Member for something related to actual government oversight and accountability, and this being an election year no-less. https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/2024-07-22.Comer-Raskin-to-Director-Cheatle-re.-Cheatle-Resignation-Letter.pdf Seriously, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability is functionally nothing more than a political debate show if Fox News and MSNBC had to co-produce one. Look at the members on each side and tell me I'm wrong. For them to actually come together and issue a statement like this is wild, but well needed given all that happened.

I can see the "used in most mass shootings" part as irksome, but it didn't tint the tone of the question in any kind of gun grabbing way. She straight up acknowledged the popularity of ARs and asked why the secret service isn't pushing their security perimeter to account for the range of the weapon. The secret service should have to answer to that.

Things have gotten so weird...AOC had a coherent and logical question in relation to ARs and the Trump assassination attempt for the Secret Service director this morning.

Unless the company is fully owner funded, I can't imagine they showed the concept of product when talking to whoever floated them capital.

For sure. An unarmored target where over penetration isn't a concern (sorry, one last weight joke), a .223/5.56 round is just fine. In a comfy position, maybe a rest of bipod, distance to target known exact to set your aiming point, and someone who knows a lot about shooting and does it multiple times a week could put a first shot is exactly where you want to put it. Yeah, you get that chip shot. But this wasn't Chris Kyle, it was a 20yr old weirdo who had never shot something that wasn't a paper target, and had who knows what level of adrenaline flowing as he pulled the trigger for his first shot of the day.

The shot wasn't bad. A target as small as a head moving around at 130yds is not easy. Trump turning his head as the bullet came in was the completely uncontrollable part. If the shooter aimed for the body, different story. Trump was more or less in the same area with his body mass, and a shot that goes in through the ribs could have changed history. I doubt candidate Trump is traveling with the same level of trauma support he did while President. But for a 20yr old, I'm guessing a head shot was something he thought was what all the good snipers do.

Well, we're onto other social issues and conspiracy theories alone rather than the main thread. Seems this thread has cemented itself in our politics forum.

GlockSpock has expanded well on my initial thoughts along how I was going with it. Most qualified is a bit of a misnomer. Qualified is often a binary yes/no condition. Within those qualifications, there can be those with abundance of dubious relevance. Example being someone with 9yrs experience vs. another with 6yrs when the requirement is 5yrs. Both candidates clear the experience hurdle as a pass/fail check, so what makes the time above that useful as a qualification? That not a failure to acknowledge the difference in varying levels of experience, but unless it can be quantified in some way, the difference isn't useful as a standalone item. The candidate with the longer experience might be the wrong one if their getting the job enacts the Peter Principle that was otherwise being guarded against where they're coming from. It's admittedly subjective, and not something you can write a manual around. But most people don't make it past HR screening unless they meet the stated qualifications. So from there, you want to get the best candidate for the role.

Organic DEI works great when correctly harnessed. Look at any army unit and you'll see what DEI is and should be. Different backgrounds, experiences, and processes of thought working for a common goal tends to bring out innovative and adaptive solutions. Forced DEI for metrics or optics is where we have problems. I'm all for striving to achieve it, making sure it's not prevented, even if you select diversity as a deal breaker between two or more candidates who clear the requirements. But when you force it as an absolute requirement over standards, it's a liability, not a positive.

I'm fine with her getting fired because of this stupid statement, and in general because she hasn't shown the urgency needed to address the shortcoming. Improper response is worse than the mistake in my book. She's not making me think there is a basic understanding of the gravity in this situation, just some wagon circling. But let's not pretend it was her job to do site security that day. The levels of failure start at whoever left a wide open rooftop like they did and up a few more levels.

Some folks might see me making comments on this as knocking on Trump, it's not. I admittedly think he's nowhere near someone I want to be President, but that's not relevant to any of what happened here. He's a politician, image matters as you say. Two things came to mind when I saw the images of him with the blood smears. 1) He has a political advantage from it. Even if it's going to make Democrats less aggressive in how they go after him and his policies, that's something. I think it'll bring his supporters out even more than anything else, which is the opposite of how Biden is losing enthusiasm in his base. 2) The response he had was very human and indicative of his character. He has always been a defiant type, and with the adrenaline flooding his system, he wanted to stand up and be seen as such. Part of that is maybe it's hard to get a 6'3" guy who I assume can't bend over that well to keep his head down, but he very clearly saw the moment, even if it was a spontaneous reflex.

He'll know how to turn the assassination attempt to his advantage. Was already starting when he realized the shooter missed by the images we saw. He's very attuned to image presentation. The timing of it with the convention is something I think he'll make use of as well.

Are we talking about the same Donald Trump? Subdued isn't in his style...especially after he experiences some kind of massive and turbulent event and comes out in a better position.

Still deciding.