Robert Crimo

[T]he opportunistic haste with which people scour the online footprints of mass shooters for evidence of ideological affiliations is absurd. Their clothes, relationships, and even social media likes are treated like DNA at the scene of a crime.

But shooters are not all inspired by politics. Evil has a thousand sons. Elliot Rodgers was a bitter incel. James Holmes was mentally ill. Salvador Ramos appears to have been an incel and mentally ill. Their motivations were more complex than that, of course, but they were not political.

Yet as soon as the depraved mass shooter who killed six people at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois, was named, online detectives went to work locating his position on the political spectrum.

The shooter was held by posters on the right to be “Antifa” because he wore black clothing that shielded his identity. Did Antifa invent black clothes and masks? Someone ought to tell drill rappers.

Posters on the left, meanwhile, found pictures of him at a Trump rally and covering himself in a Trump flag. One has to admit that this is more substantial data. It deserves to be addressed. Still, if you’re really invested in this debate, look at a photo of the man. Look at his pink hair. Look at his face tattoos. Look at his multicolored clothes. Does he look like an alt-right terrorist to you?

Okay, perhaps I sound a bit superficial. A wacky sense of dress need not prevent someone from being far right. Indeed, the far right has a long tradition of campy elements. But this criminal does not appear to have had a history of decrying minorities and leftists. What he has is a history of posting awful Soundcloud rap songs where he drones about “skipping class” with a “cutie with a fat ass.” (Can we blame Soundcloud rappers? Can we? Can we?)

Let us grant that mass shooters can be deranged and attention-seeking and political. In the case of the Highland Park massacre, though, the smart money says that the first two characteristics were dominant — with, perhaps, a large helping of drug abuse. (A man who claims to have been an online acquaintance of the killer describes him as an “isolated stoner.”)

He does appear to have been fascinated with violence. One of his music videos (we’ll use the word “music” lightly) shows him in a classroom in tactical gear. Another shows him (in cartoon form) being shot by the police. It would not surprise me if his hideous crime was some sort of absurd performance intended to acquire him instant notoriety.

— Ben Sixsmith in The Strange Rush To Politicize the Highland Park Massacre

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

88 COMMENTS

  1. I realize this pic was available online from the alledged shooters own webpage, however, the WGN streetcam photo of him dressed in womens clothing while escaping police is much more telling.

    Basically we had a Drag Queen mass shooter using an AR15 in a town that flat outlawed them which SCOTUS refused to review firing on a largely Jewish crowd. He was known to police who had previously removed swords from his possession after stating then he would kill people, and neither they or the FBI inserted any warning in the NICS system, making his AR purchase legal, if possession locally was not.

    Sums up the entire timeline on mass shooters in America today. I fully expect to see crickets in 72 hours as the press discovers they won’t get anti gun traction out of any part of this story.

    • Add to that parent and family denial of clear mental issues.

      Since he was under 21 at the time he purchased his rifles in 2020 he needed a sponsor for the Ill Noise FOID card, and it was his father who sponsored him. His father who was presumably aware of the 2 2019 incidents in which police were called; April 2019 suicide threat, and September 2019 threat against the family during which his edged weapons and pointy objects were confiscated.

      • Hate to say it but the Father is culpable to a degree.
        I feel he should be tried.

        • Even though the Father committed no imaginable crime? So you’re okay with squandering taxpayer dollars charging and “trying” him, when you can’t even say what the crime was?

    • I recently read he was armed with a Kel-Tec 2000 .22. That would explain any ban on photos of the evil murder weapon.

  2. All mass shooters are not driven by politics, this is true. But all mass shooters are driven by mental illness of some type either with a history of it or sometimes no history of it, sometimes diagnosed and sometimes not diagnosed.

    Crimo had posted a series of videos. For example, in one video in his voice-over over instrumental music he says ”I need to just do it, … It is my destiny. Everything has led up to this. Nothing can stop me, not even myself. Is there such a thing as free will, or has this been planned out like a cosmic recipe? It is what I’ve been waiting for in the back of my head, ready to be awakened. It’s what I was sent here to do, like a sleepwalker walking steady with my head held high, like a sleepwalker walking blindly into the night.”

    Although maybe not yet diagnosed, the shooter acted on impulses due to mental illness. Mental illness can exist without a diagnosis of mental illness, and mental illness is not necessarily ‘insanity’ (as in the DSM-5). Mental illness can be long term or short term, it can happen in a moment and be gone the next, it can be elusive or occasional, it can be noticed and not noticed, sometimes the person is the last one to know they have a mental illness, and it can manifest in various forms that the medical mental heath community recognize as a disorder of some type but can’t define it or treat it but they know it exists even if its not in the DSM-5 as a mental health disorder. And indeed the vast majority of individuals with such impulses to murder mostly continue to function in society (marginally) and do not typically seek out mental health treatment so their mental illness is not diagnosed or treated and society sees their marginal function in society as, basically, just them being them with no thought of they being mentally ill so overall these people are not recognized as being mentally ill until an incident happens such as violence that says something is not right if such an incident happens. Unfortunately, that violence may be murder and that murder may also come in the form of mass/school shootings.

    So we end up with basically two broad classes of mentally ill, those that have violent impulse mental illness and those that do not have violent impulse mental illness – in either class there can be diagnosed or not diagnosed. So not all people with mental illness are the violent impulse types and they should not be stigmatized as such and its theses who do not become mass/school shooters – but there are people with violent impulse mental illness in society and they mostly are not recognized until they begin to exhibit something that indicates the pressure is building for them to act on the violent impulses.

    Unfortunately, all to frequently that violent impulse mental illness person is not noticed or not stopped before they can act on the driving forces pressure of the violent impulse – and this matches the mass/school shooter profile exactly. Suddenly one day, after time dwelling on it they give in to the violent impulse and do it.

    Forensic psychiatrists James L. Knoll IV, MD, and George D. Annas, MD, MPH, of SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse New York, both leading authorities on the mental health aspects of mass/school shooters, summed it up for the mental health community various studies on various aspects in terms of mass/school shooters…. Although mass shooters may not meet DSM-5 criteria for a recognized disorder, “they do have an ill-defined trouble of the mind for which the mental health field has no immediate, quick-acting ‘treatment,’” – in other words, mass/school shooters do have mental illness but not something clearly defined and for which the mental health community has no immediate quick-acting treatment, such treatment includes diagnosis so its a mental illness that has not yet been diagnosed.

    • “Mental illness” is demonstrably impossible and therefore doesn’t even exist. While the brain is physically real and is an organ that can suffer physical defects and diseases, the same cannot be said of the human mind, which is invisible and indefinable.

  3. It’s funny to watch the partisan sides fight about which of their sides some mental patient degenerate represents.

    A whole lotta “I know you are but what am I.” The longer I live the more a fan of extinction level events I become.

  4. In the end it doesn’t matter what political affiliation, or how they dress or act, when they kill people. In the end its murder and that’s it.

    But why is it that fools think saying the killer was one affiliation or not somehow makes a difference? It doesn’t.

    The same people that start decrying the right or antifa or what ever in a ‘mass shooting’ like this event for their agenda of anti-gun ignore that ‘mass shootings’ and ‘mass killings’ and even ‘mass serious injury’ are a daily occurrence all across the country in terms of collective numbers and sometimes they are not even criminals doing the crime or not criminal as sometimes its legal killing and/or serious injury harm by corporations (e.g. big tobacco) that we call ‘commerce’. People from all political affiliations intentionally murder and injure others all across the country every day, its not confined to a specific political affiliation of belief.

  5. Regardless of the politics or motive of the shooters it is about politics. Because the fascist left will always make it so. They have an agenda to push and ignoring that is foolish.

    • jwm
      Thats so true. Even if he did it because the box of corn flakes was empty the leftists will wake it about gun control.
      .can’t let a shit show go to waste. Or something

  6. “But shooters are not all inspired by politics. Evil has a thousand sons.”

    I would argue that point.

    The political Left has gaslit their masses to the point where they have literal contempt for us, and disgust.

    That’s important, the contempt. Contempt and disgust.

    Once someone has contempt-disgust for someone or some group, it makes violence against them to be ‘righteous’, similar to how someone might deal with a rat or cockroach infestation. “They deserve it.”, in their eyes.

    It isn’t all on the Leftist Scum, we have some as well. But the fervour they inspire has a virulence to it that makes acting on those urges more likely to occur…

    • The leftists really have no self control. That’s why they think nobody should have guns. They think everybody is like that, no control over their emotions.

      • Most of them don’t even realize they have a mental problem. They think it’s normal.

      • In the case of this shooter what you see is clearly what you get.

        The father signing off on the perp/twerp purchasing a firearm needs to have his head examined. Whoever was behind the counter at the Gun store should have engaged in a question session before letting dumb and dumber walk out the door.

        • Interview on the “news” of a uncle “never notice anything wrong with him”. REALLY? then your entire family tree needs pruned.

      • I watched this play out around the campfire one night as I tried to explain human rights and ‘gun control’ to a pair of recent acquaintances (city folk now playing country bumpkins on their retirement property). The woman was adamantly anti gun because in her words she was positive that if she had a gun she would lose her shit and start shooting people she got mad at (as if 🙄). The mentalizing of these people is truly something to behold.

  7. All of this is very true. Many people in our country and others are apolitical – they are too busy trying to make a place in life, raising a family(or not), they feel that no matter who is in charge, they will not be able to change things(and they are right). We can try, but the choices of personality types that will run for office(to better society?)make them the enemy, and we try all over again. Once a century comes a man who can actually fight for Americans, Teddy Roosevelt, Donald Trump, and others in politics do their best to vilify him. They can’t stand someone who will not toe the party line.
    These writers look at the people that are being lead around by politicians(on the right or left) and claim this is the problem, when it is only a symptom of society. We have had mad dog killers in the past, they were hunted down and disposed of – even folk heroes like Bonnie and Clyde, and society went along with it. Maybe that is what it is going to take.

    • The leftist media is trying to tie “him” to DJT. To quote a line in a song “I knew what they said because I was a freak”. This boy is a freak. Period. It appears daddy helped.

        • So the whole Republican thing Miner was spamming this site with was more of his misinformation straight from the hive.

        • What?

          I fibbed.

          And you are surprised?

          And hive? I like to think of it more as Borg.

          You know, resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.

        • @ Dude

          You are taken aback by the revelation, from quite literally a one trick pony in modus operandi?

          I know, you know. Falsehood, half-truth and logical fallacies and illogical fantasies galore. That all he do.

      • Dude — exactly correct.

        I called him a liar yesterday and he became huffy.

        He only cites sources that he thinks back up his argument and exaggerates the information to support his concoctions. Then he impugns any site that an opponent uses as “unreliable.” He’s dishonest and a liar.

  8. Something seldom brought up, but still visible if anyone cares to look. Permissive, or absent parents. Many of these kids/young men going out on these shooting sprees had minimal adult supervision, were allowed unfettered access to anything on the internet, in many cases were known for unacceptable behaviors, with parents claiming their little monster was just misunderstood, or had problems.
    Remember how the boys in Columbine were building pipe bombs in the basement of 1 of the kids home? Sorry, but when my kids were teens, I knew what they were doing around the house. Which pissed them off to no end, but prevented potential problems by catching bad behavior early and dealing with the issue before anything got out of hand.
    As has been demonstrated every time we see another mass shooting, anti gun laws will never prevent anyone from committing an act of violence. No more than they prevent the thugs, gangsta’s, dope dealers, and other miscreants from getting weapons in the crime ridden, crap hole cities.
    No, most of these kids are not actually motivated by politics. But many are influenced by political/social beliefs. Including something increasingly promoted by the more left leaning, socialist, Marxist, Fascist everything is permitted so long as it follows our agenda, narrative end of the political spectrum. That being the cancelling, demonizing, and eliminating of the other, opposition, or enemy. By any means necessary.

    • We had an anti-gun person here once that walked into a gun store, rented a gun, fired it on the range, then tried to run out the door with it to show how easy it was to steal a gun. Never mind that he violently assaulted two employees and one police officer who happened to be in the store at the time, collectively they did stop him. And never mind there were laws against such, and never mind he is going to be a known as a violent felon for the rest of his life. He was arrested, convicted and went to jail. He got out about a year later, showed up at a local anti-gun rally and related the incident leaving out the parts of his violence and getting caught then claimed it was extremely easy for him to steal the gun from the gun store – the crowd cheered him.

      People do things for all sorts of reasons.

      • No doubt. When invariably the recidivism statistic catches up, his family will sue. Being found all over the media saying he was a nice boy “just trying to help”, in the aftermath of LEO smoking his ass due to his known penchant for violence, when he fakes drawing a gun on them.

        Only postulating, but very consistent with this sorts behavior.

  9. Did anyone notice perhaps this is the first shooter who cared whether he was caught or not? Tried to hide his appearance?

    • I noticed.

      I also noticed that he left his rifle behind on the roof, the serial number of which led authorities right to his doorstep. And he drove away in a vehicle that would be immediately identified and searched for the moment the cops knew their suspect, but did not drive very far from the scene or run very far once discovered.

      He may have had intentions of dying, which may yet come true in ten years or so, but it seems that in the event he decided what he actually wanted was to bask in his infamy and notoriety and realized that killers who go down at the end of their spree cannot enjoy that portion of the plan.

  10. For quite somewhile, a question has been gnawing on me: is proving/illustrating that gun control laws don’t prevent “the wrong people” from obtaining firearms, are we building a foundation for complete gun confiscation? If we continue to point to how the gun-grabbers want more and more gun laws that don’t work, are we building a foundation for complete gun confiscation? (and variations on that theme)

    • The gun-grabbers working in incremental steps, have always had this as their ultimate goal, whether we assist in “building a foundation” or not.

      • “They can always try…”

        Try what, using our words against us?

        I am also surprised that they aren’t using our claims that gun ownership somehow reduces overall crime data. The argument can easily be made that our own words prove there is no real threat to repel, thus adding to the discussion that even 2A activists boast that crime is so low, it is unnecessary to go about armed. The anti-2A mob will never give up the attack on “need” for private ownership of firearms. Even the SC has not dared walk into the “need/don’t need” dispute over 2A.

        And it will be no easier persuading the “swing vote/undecided vote” that “need” is of no bearing, when our own words come back to us.

    • Sam
      I’ve thought that for a long time. Every time I hear “shooter got it legally” I kinda cringe. Just seems like it gives the grabbers a bigger platform to scream from. And the sheep are asleep and fall for it.

    • Sam, I have zero doubts that up here this will be the next decree of the idiot manchild king.

      • “Sam, I have zero doubts that up here this will be the next decree of the idiot manchild king.”

        Wouldn’t that be simply following Queen and Crown, the Mother Country?

        • Sam, not real sure on the queens part. I recall reading years ago that she was a little ticked at the gun grabbing, for whatever that’s worth.

  11. “The gun-grabbers working in incremental steps, have always had this as their ultimate goal, whether we assist in “building a foundation” or not.”

    True, but they haven’t yet used our words against us. Why is it taking so long? Once they use 2A defenders to prove that only gun confiscation can free the nation of crime, where do we then go?

    Once the gun-grabbers show that 2A defenders AND gun-grabbers agree that complete confiscation is the only option, they could use what can be described as bi-party consensus to repeal 2A.

    • I have seen, and argued, this point on another site.

      They are already working this angle and have for some time: So long as ANY State has firearms the bad guys in “gun-free” States will have a source for illegal firearms to commit their crimes.

      Ignoring that people in gun-free COUNTRIES still manage somehow to obtain firearms when and if they really want them and that there is a tidal wave of illegal drugs already getting past our borders.

      As for complete confiscation the counter-argument is that FIRST you have to entirely repeal the Second Amendment through the Article V process which means Congrescritters will be on record as to their votes on the matter. It then goes to the States for ratification and it takes only 13 States to ignore it or say “NO!” to defeat that amendment since a super-majority of 38 is required to ratify.

      Even if you pass that hurdle you must now get Congress and the president to sign the confiscation legislation and find people stupid enough to start going house to house to find and collect and destroy 400 million firearms from people who do not want to give them up and firearms which, for the most part, are not traceable to a specific person or address since there is no registry or database suitable to that purpose.

      The death and destruction and inevitable slide to fascistic authoritarianism required to accomplish such a task would make this country unrecognizable, and more importantly, nonviable under the Constitution that created it.

      These points and the resulting disintegration of the United States cannot be argued against nor ignored, nor could the massive numbers of people who would die by “gun violence” should their confiscation plans ever actually come to fruition. We are not Australia, or Canada, or Great Britain.

      I am reminded of the legal jargon: “Fruit of the poison tree.” They would not care for the taste of the fruits of the tree they had planted.

      • “I am reminded of the legal jargon: “Fruit of the poison tree.” They would not care for the taste of the fruits of the tree they had planted.”

        The 16th and 18th amendments mustered the votes. Political winds are always changing. Thinking there will always be 13 states that will oppose a firearm banning amendment to the Constitution is a bit risky.

        And, as mentioned, making ownership of firearms useless is indirect confiscation. And defying the Constitution on gun ownership, but demanding the Constitution be honored otherwise is a very tough sell.

        There ain’t gonna be no boo, Lou.

        • “Once they use 2A defenders to PROVE that only gun confiscation can free the nation of crime”

          Sam there is your logical fallacy.

          Gun confiscation will only lead to more crime, not less.

          All those new gun owners bought because the thin vail of society is being pierced. That has not changed and it not getting better.

          This is doubly true if food shortages hit, then all bets are off.

      • @Cliff H

        During hurricane Katrina they did it without any of that. The cops and military simply went door to door and searched for firearms if they were not immediately surrendered when the occupant was asked. Did that in homes if they had firearms or not.

        The mitary was national guard but some used were actually national guard federalized under title 10 which meant they acted on behalf if the US government.

        The confiscated over 1,000 fire arms before it was stopped by the state senate stepping in.

        A police agency, NOPD, and literally state AND federal military, without warrant and with suprise and deadly force available confiscated firearms with no authority at all to do so.

    • “complete confiscation is the only option”

      Remember when they said we couldn’t deport illegal immigrants because there are too many of them? How many firearms do we have in this country? What’s easier to hide, a gun or a person?

  12. NO prog could look at this twits’ photos and be able to profile the POS. What clues?

  13. Serious questions because I haven’t heard.

    Did this young guy have a job? A girlfriend? Did he have responsibilities? Did anyone on this planet have to depend on him for something? I feel like these are important questions. Men can’t be aimless.

    • Calling this person a man is really pushing the definition of a man. He probably didn’t live with any men either.

  14. I agree with the author of this article. The problem here is NOT politics or guns. It’s mental illness.

  15. I can’t call the evidence ‘credible’ yet, but there is quite a lot of stuff saying that THIS shooter is a leftist. The appearance at a Trump rally? He was wearing a costume, and apparently making fun of Trump. Multiple sources are saying he is affiliated with various left organizations, including Antifa.

    I’m not committing to either side of that issue, but if I had to call it, I would say he’s leftist.

    • The one thing these shooters have in common, is contempt for the rest of us. They reject what we think, what we feel and what we believe in. And they show it by trying to shock us with violence.

    • He only wanted a few humans dead. You said you want them all gone as a sacrifice for Mother Earth.

  17. Has the shooter attended any “Pride” parades??? Being they happened just last month. Since so many people, are so concerned about him attending a trump rally. By the way there’s nothing wrong with a gay person attending a trump rally.

  18. @Additionally
    “Gun confiscation will only lead to more crime, not less.”

    Precisely, but in politics “true” is largely irrelevant.

    The “logical fallacy” is not mine, but that of the gun-grabbers; who do not consider what they believe to be illogical at all.

  19. IT does NOT MATTER a Cat’s Cojones what the bloody motiivation of a MASS shooter is the relevant FACT is that is has happened at all. THe overriding factor is the the ‘mass shooter’ has easy availability and access to firearms and the usual is a SEMI-AUTOMATIC RIFLE with handgun backup and serious, [mostly UNKNOWN until hindsight kicks in, that is, when everybody and their bloody dog knows about them,] MENTAL PROBLEMS. THen every bugger knows. Then the POlice are blaimed for not knowing. The fact is that in a democracy Policing is only possible by public consent and unless the public is preapared to provide information the police are ineffective.
    It is YOU, the GUN OWNING citizen, that has the ultimate responsibility to ensure that those unsuitable to possess unnessessary firearms and that includes ANY SEMI-Auto Assault types Rifles and any bloody handgun over 9mm or .38 calibre.
    NObody actually needs anthing more than a decent 9mm or .38 calibre for any self defence application and nobody needs anything othewr than a FIVE SHOT bolt action Rifle for any legitimate purpose.
    In fact I’d go as far as to say that if anybody think’s that they DO need an assault or semi-auto rifle or large calibre handgun they are ALREADY displaying a mental ,aberration that should bar them from owning any bloody firearm. Such weaponry is, for all intent and purposes, unnessessary for anything remotely connected with normal life requirments. Their ONLY realistic use is to kill other human beings. THe banning of such weaponry wouod NOT in my opinion go against the supposedd provisions of the American Constitution either

    • Well Al, your opinion is not based on fact. In fact your pedigree does not seem factual either.

  20. “IT does NOT MATTER a Cat’s Cojones what the bloody motiivation [sic] of a MASS shooter is …”

    Actually, qualified psychologists studying cause-and-effect helps to formulate solutions to the problem, and we need to get these people the help they need to battle their mental illness. That’s the compassionate thing that we want to do. focusing o

    “THe overriding factor is the the ‘mass shooter’ has easy availability and access to firearms and the usual is a SEMI-AUTOMATIC RIFLE with handgun backup …”

    No, that’s incorrect. We have already established that most mass shooters are suffering from mental illness and that is the central point that we need to address.

    “It is YOU, the GUN OWNING citizen, that has the ultimate responsibility to ensure that those unsuitable to possess unnessessary [sic] firearms …”

    No, it’s not the responsibility of regular citizens. That’s why we empower police to enforce laws and arrest lawbreakers. We’re a civilized nation, not a bunch of vigilantes.

    “THe banning of such weaponry wouod [sic] NOT in my opinion go against the supposedd [sic] provisions of the American Constitution either”

    As for the rest of your post … no, no, and hell no! Your opinion is invalid.

  21. I dont think Crimo is going to like the penitentiary very well.
    And in the world of reality he should only be there long enough to be executed.

    • The ODCs will indicate their displeasure. I would imagine spree killers are considered slightly above child molesters in the prison rankings.

    • Would… not should. It’s a difference with a distinction, at least in context. Or latex. Or something.

  22. @Rider/Shooter
    “Sam, not real sure on the queens part.”

    The Queen presided over the disarmament of her subjects, and parliament’s laws that make self-defense in UK all but illegal. Thinking Canadia is simply following the monarch.

    • Well, she may have helplessly and ineffectually presided over it but I’m sure I recall her commenting unfavorably on it. Up here it has nothing to do with anything but the virtue signalling of the idiot manchild and even more so his opportunity to stick his thumb in the eyes of all the other kids whom he knows have always hated his guts. He’s about as bad as it gets that way and he has always been exactly like that: a spoiled, petulant rich kid.

      • “Up here it has nothing to do with anything but the virtue signalling of the idiot manchild and even more so his opportunity to stick his thumb in the eyes of all the other kids whom he knows have always hated his guts.”

        Have to defer to you regarding internal politics. Gotta admit, I have never understood Canadia (except when I could get stuff cheaper there).

        • It also has nothing to do with Canada, or even politics. It’s just him being what he is. An insufferable little prick. He was the same all throughout his university days. I remember watching him in debates etc, knowing who he was and it took all of a few minutes listening to him to understand what he was. No wonder Klaus took an interest…

  23. I disagree, the mass shootings are political and this is engineered by the deep state to take our guns away.

  24. Years ago I use to work with young men taken away from their families and sponsored by the Catholic Church. These young men lived in housing provided and they were all on Ritalin, used to control their hyper activity. These young men and others have been used by the deep state as Manchurian candidates who are programmed though counseling and later activated to perform activities which they young men, now older do not even remember doing . This is the activity of the deep state and this is political.

    • People naively assume this to be conspiracy nonsense but I think this is exactly what’s going on. These repeated instances are just too bizarre at their core along with all the unanswered questions/actions/lack of actions surrounding the events. As I’ve said elsewhere, Occams razor applies… in spades.

  25. @Rider
    “It also has nothing to do with Canada, or even politics. It’s just him being what he is.”

    Now, if I understand parliamentarianism….

    The PM is elected by MPs. The PM is an MP. An MP gets to be one because of some misty, cloudy, impenetrable process known only to a cabal of Wiccans, or some such.

    Oh, wait….

    MPs are elected through elections, where votes are cast by, uh, uh, uh….the voters.

    The PM is the symptom, not the problem.

    Just like in the US.

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