I'm no conspiracist, but I look forward to learning who trained him, and where

no deadeye dick, he

Would-be Trump assassin tried to join high school shooting club, was rejected for being ‘comically bad’ shot

The Pennsylvania man who attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump during a rally on Saturday  tried out for his high school’s rifle team, but he was rejected for being a “terrible” shot and making “off-color” jokes.

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A few years before the assassination attempt, Crooks tried out for the rifle team at Bethel Park High School, two former classmates told The Post.

The team at Bethel Park shoots Anschutz single-shot rifles with peep sights and .22-caliber ammunition, Jameson Murphy and another former student explained.

The shooting range at the school is 50 feet long by 21 feet wide, with seven ranges.

Crooks once fired from the seventh lane — the closest lane to the right wall — and hit the left wall, completely missing every target on the back wall. He missed his target by close to 20 feet, Murphy recalled.

“He tried out…and was such a comically bad shot he was unable to make the team and left after the first day,” Murphy said.

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Crooks – who has been described as a loner who wore hunting outfits to class – ”couldn’t shoot at all. He was a terrible shot,” the second classmate added.

Even the coach, they continued, had concerns about Crooks.

“Our old coach was a stickler, he trained Navy marksmen, so he knew people. He knew when someone’s not the greatest person,” the ex-classmate explained.

All this was “ few years ago”, and you can train almost anyone to be a marksman in less than three years — the military does, and even I have helped complete novices from a local Maine high school rifle team hit bullseyes in a single fall semester, but it does take practice: a lot of it, at a range, and almost certainly with an instructor — self-instruction, while certainly possible, is rare.

So this is a curious story.