Inside GunTube, the YouTube Subculture Linked to the Trump Shooter
The former president’s would-be assassin was wearing a T-shirt from a popular firearms-focused YouTube channel, but the world of gun influencers has no coherent political ideology.
When Thomas Michael Crooks climbed onto the roof of a building near Butler, Pennsylvania, and tried to kill Donald Trump, he had a distinctive, gunmetal-gray T-shirt. On the back there was an angular gray eagle, stylized like the crest of a futuristic army. The front featured one word: “DEMOLITIA.”
The shirt comes from a YouTube channel called Demolition Ranch, which over the past 13 years has published thousands of videos featuring an almost uncountable arsenal of firearms. Crooks didn’t leave many digital breadcrumbs, and his choice of the shirt, which retailed for about $30 from the channel’s online store, is one of a few clues about his interests or ideology.