I am a shooter of some 50 years. It is very simple. The bullet meant for his head missed. It hit his ear. I feel assured that he had Trumps center head in his cross hairs when he fired. As mentioned I am a shooter. When you acquire the target in your scope and fire there is a millisecond of time from decision to fire until firing. Oddly the shooter has this last image as they fire. You know instantly if you know it is a good shot. Trump turned his head thus is alive. Otherwise the back of Trumps head would have been taken off.
It was an easy shot at that distance. I could have done it with open sights not even needing a scope. The shooter was thankfully not skilled. I wonder if he even sighted in his scope properly. A skilled sniper would have had a different weapon with superior optics.
We and Trump got lucky no thanks to his protection from the secret service.
The only way I see the bullet fragmenting and a fragment hitting Trump would be if one of the shooters shots was so bad it hit the grandstand well in front of Trump, where fragments could have come off, for example, a piece of a jacket. I’ve been hit by jacket spall coming back from a steel target at a pistol range.
I don’t think that follows some of the ballistic models of the event I’ve seen, but it is possible.
Today I had a well informed owner of a rifle blog tell me it was a Red Dot sight.
Red dot sights can be good or bad. Somewhat depending on what you pay for it.
Here is one of the men doing forensics from the audio of the shots recorded from Trump's microphone.
He says it was a red dot sight too.
Post-Congressional Assassination Attempt ANALYSIS with Chris Martenson! 2 Shooters? Viva Frei Live! (Jul 25, 2024)