• sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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    13 hours ago

    Does it really matter?

    The 30-06 casing is pretty big, and has about 2"/50mm of space before it tapers down to where the bullet is. There’s plenty of space for a short message, and you could probably engrave it with a nail. I’m guessing it would take a couple hours to engrave four bullets, which is totally feasible.

    We have specific messages, and the benefit to lying about it is incredibly low, so why bother?

    • ileftreddit@piefed.social
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      6 hours ago

      I disagree, the benefit to lying about it was huge at the moment of the lie, and I definitely don’t put it past the fascists at the WSJ to fabricate this

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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      11 hours ago

      The benefit is really low?

      Those “engravings” have been used in the last 48 hours to call for a civil war. I’m unsure what you mean with “benefits” to one side being “low” here

      • Ceedoestrees@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        It means the messages aren’t specific to any one movement. It seems like wasted effort if they were going to slot him in to any category, since they’re open to interpretation as either ultra right wing memes or antifacist memelord quotes. Depending on the news source, they are being interpreted differently.

        Or, maybe “they” made it intentionally occlusive to avoid a civil war. Because let’s face it, the right were calling for a violence before the casings even came out. Hell, they were calling for violence before the shooting, too.

        • ileftreddit@piefed.social
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          6 hours ago

          My take is that since the public just wholesale bought the story about the UHC CEOs murderer engraving 9mm bullets, someone at WSJ (owned by Rupert/Lachlan Murdock, known Nazis and accelerationists) decided “hey let’s tell everyone these bullets had engravings too” and intentionally left the “messages” on the bullets vague enough to go either way. Once it was out there, people ran with it cause it sounded plausible.

          • Ceedoestrees@lemmy.world
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            6 hours ago

            Oh, I agree. I’m not sold on them even existing, either. But I’m debating available reported evidence.

            My new personal, not totally serious, conspiracy theory is: They are real, Tyler is an edgy memelord with no affiliation, and someone at one of these organizations shoehorned the Groyper connection because they own Groyper Coin.

            Is it plausible? Maybe. But we’re in a platos’ cave of media lies just trying to figure out what the shapes mean.

            • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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              2 hours ago

              We have specific messages though, they were reported yesterday IIRC, after they arrested their primary suspect. It would be pretty incredible for them to completely fabricate the messages as well as have Utah’s governor believe them.

            • ileftreddit@piefed.social
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              5 hours ago

              “A Plato’s cave of media lies” LOL too fucking true, they’ve figured out how to propagate lies everywhere simultaneously

    • pleaseletmein@lemmy.zip
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      5 hours ago

      They falsely claimed the “engravings” were something to do with “trans ideology,” so the benefit is whipping up more hatred.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        2 hours ago

        I think there’s a good chance it’s a misunderstanding of the evidence early on.

        Notices Bulge. OwO What is this?

        I think this can be taken either as supporting or not supporting trans people. It could also be a furry thing. If you combine with the other engravings, esp the “Bella ciao” one, it definitely seems like leftist messaging.

        I personally think he’s on the right wing. The far right also opposes Trump, and targeting Kirk seems like a natural thing in that case. I don’t think a leftist radical would though, because they care less about individual action and more about collective action. If anything there is leftist, it’s ironically leftist just to spite Kirk even more. That tracks with the “if you’re reading this you’re gay” message, the engravings seemed to be intended to amuse the shooter, not send a message.

        Using Hanlon’s razor, “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”, I think it’s likely they misinterpreted the evidence, not that they intentionally misdirected the public.

        Trump is obviously motivated to point the finger at the left because his party isn’t looking so hot for the next election. That makes sense to me. But the FBI doesn’t seem to have that same motivation, they want to catch the suspect, and providing information early is important for that in a case like this. Utah is very conservative, so if the shooter is a leftist, that dramatically reduces the search pool.

        Anyway, that’s my guess here. I guess we’ll see as more information is reported whether he’s likely a leftist or far right extremist.