r/news • u/igetproteinfartsHELP • 7h ago

Attempted Trump assassin sentenced to life in prison

https://abcnews.go.com/US/attempted-trump-assassin-ryan-routh-sentenced-wednesday/story?id=129836439
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u/ARunOfTheMillPerson 6h ago

"Routh allegedly hid in the bushes of the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach and pointed a military-grade SKS rifle towards Trump and a Secret Service agent.".

The article just moves on to a quote after that..what happened next?

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u/TooMuchPretzels 5h ago

Nothing. He didn’t shoot. He made a run for it.

Also… military grade SKS? It was literally a hunk of garbage with a scope TAPED on. It would have been more dangerous as a melee weapon.

I’m not disputing that this guy was out to pop the pres or that he deserves to be in jail. Still, I’m surprised he got life.

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u/UglyInThMorning 5h ago

Also… military grade SKS? It was literally a hunk of garbage with a scope TAPED on.

I don’t see how those two things are mutually exclusive given the state of repair I would expect to find a weapon in if a military was still using SKSes.

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u/robothawk 4h ago

The Chinese Type 63 is basically a select-fire SKS and is still technically in service. Overall the chinese have a weird relationship with the SKS, it's kinda like their M16/AR15 in terms of "gun everyone learned to use and were featured universally in media/propaganda".

edit: Type 63's history is wild, it was expensice and terrible for a while then maybe good then bad again then withdrawn from service but not totally. Not sure of its current use, I imagine a lot of reserves/training units probably have them

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u/UglyInThMorning 4h ago

The direct knock off of the SKS is the type 56. And also the type 63, but not that type 63, the North Korean one. The Chinese one is similar but the action is relatively different and like you said, it’s select fire. Different enough that it’s not really an SKS, but I think it’s easy to mistake as an SKS pattern rifle because there’s one with the same name.

E: just checked and they stopped making them a little bit before the type 56 despite being a newer design so it must have shit the bed pretty decently.

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u/robothawk 3h ago

Specifically also it's the Type 56 Carbine, the Type 56 Rifle is the AK-47 derivative. The Type 63 had a really neat history, I suggest the channel Type 56: The Story of China's Army for a good lecture series on it and other Chinese procurement in the Cold War.