Trump shot?

[FlyingClayDisk]

I thought about that, too. The tall pine trees that hide the ladder could have been a good hiding place for the rifle.

However, I remember reading that the rifle, belonging to the kid's father, was lent to him on the same day as the rally. Took me a bit, but found something about that here...

ABC News

Which, if true, leads me to ask if the father knew about his son's political affiliations and if he did, why hadn't he questioned his son why he wasn't going to the rally, but the shooting range, instead?

Well, in the end, it looks like the kid turned the rally into his own personal shooting range.

Yes, the pine trees could very well have been a convenient hiding place, and another possible location would have been under the bottom edge of the steel building siding down at the ground.

And yes, regarding the 'borrowing' of the rifle from the father earlier that day.  He very well might have broken the firearm down and stashed it in one or more pieces earlier in the day at the rally site location.  Clearly, the fact the shooter could have gotten away with this is yet another example in a very long list of security failures by the SS and local LEO's.

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Thanks Disk. I wrote to my retired Secret Service West Wing contact for his take as the hydraulic line is an excellent explanation. Just whose bullet did that?

Based on my analysis of the angles involved, my observation would be the bullet which ruptured the hydraulic line came from the shooter.  Given his position atop the building was to the 'left' of the stage, this would have put the boom lift in the 'backstop' area of a bullet's trajectory fired from the shooter's location.