On Saturday, 14 July 2024, as Donald Trump addressed his supporters at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a volley of shots rang out in a ‘crack-pop’ sequence. A gunman, who stood on the roof of a building about 390 feet away from the podium, fired shots from a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle.
One bullet, moving at an average speed of 800 to 1000 metres per second, pierced Trump’s right ear, leaving his face dripping with blood. However, it was a lucky escape for Trump. A second before the gunman fired the shots, Trump, who never looks away from the crowd, turned his head aside, and the bullet narrowly missed his head.
Moments later, the Secret Service escorted Trump off the podium. Before leaving, a defiant Trump looked up, clenched his fist and told his supporters to ‘fight, fight, fight.’ Soon, a Secret Service sniper identified and killed the gunman. But by then, the damage was done; one person in the crowd was killed, and two others were wounded.
Several Democrats and Republicans issued statements condemning the attack. President Biden expressed relief that Trump was safe and urged ‘everybody’ to condemn the ‘sick’ attack.
However, Republican senators and right-wing commentators claimed that the Biden campaign’s rhetoric ‘led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.’ For instance, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina said:
Let’s be clear. This was an assassination attempt aided and abetted by the radical left and corporate media incessantly calling Trump a threat to democracy, fascists, or worse.
Trump has also received support from all over the world. The Slovakian President, who survived a similar assassination attempt, blamed Trump’s political opponents for conspiring to take him out.
Trump, on his part, asked Americans to stay united. Ascribing divine intervention for his ‘near miss into martyrdom,’ Trump said, ‘God alone’ saved him. Making a plea to ‘reunite,’ Donald Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, issued a statement asking Americans to ‘ascend above the hate, the vitriol, and the simple-minded ideas that ignite violence.’
As this great American political pot-boiler unfolded, one crucial point of great importance is conspicuous by its absence: the need for gun control in America.
The assassination attempt on Trump is a classic case of what the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) calls an ‘active shooter incident,’ where ‘one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.’ The FBI identified the gunman as Thomas Matthew Crooks, a twenty-year-old kitchen worker from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. The weapon he had used was an AR-15-style rifle, a military-grade semi-automatic weapon, which his father had purchased several months ago.
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees Americans the right to bear arms. This legislation has created a significant market for American weapons; anyone can walk into a shop and buy a military-grade assault weapon just as if they were buying a watch or a t-shirt. Crooks’ father is one among the twenty million Americans who purchase military-grade assault weapon, AR-15; about one in 20 adults in America own at least one AR-15-style-rifle, according to The Washington Post.
The AR-15 was initially developed as a military weapon to counter the soviet AK-47. In the 1990s, AR-15-style rifles accounted for only 1.2 per cent of all manufactured firearms. But thirty years later, 23.4 per cent of Americans use AR-15 style rifles; it is the most popular gun in America. Since 2012, it has been used in at least ten of the seventeen deadliest mass shootings.
The House Oversight Committee found that five gun manufacturers—Daniel Defense, Bushmaster, Sig Sawer, Smith and Wesson Brands Inc., and Sturm, Ruger & Co.—have collectively earned $1 Billion in revenue over a decade. Such was the popularity that the Republican Congressman Barry Moore of Alabama sought to make the AR-15 the ‘National Gun of America.’
Consequently, gun crime in America has significantly increased. In 2021 alone, 48,830 people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S. About eight in ten murders (20,958, a whopping 80 per cent) involved a firearm. More than half of all suicides in 2021 (26,328, 50 per cent) involved a gun. On a per-capita basis, there were 14.6 gun deaths per 100,000 in the United States in 2021. Gun deaths and teens have risen more than 50 per cent since 2021. The FBI has also recorded a significant increase in ‘active shooter incidents’ between 2000 and 2021.
Yet, America’s lawmakers are not prioritising gun control in America. Instead, they are promoting the sale and purchase of guns. For instance, when The Public Safety and Recreational Fire Arms Use Protection Act — which imposed the assault weapon ban in 1994 — expired in 2004, Congress decided not to renew it.
‘Time and again, our communities are shaken by acts of gun violence that have invaded what should be our spaces, and that includes the violence that we saw…But they are a consequence of our country’s weak gun laws and guns everywhere culture — laws that allow hate to be armed with a gun to easily take someone else’s life,’ said Angela Ferrell-Zavala, Executive Director of gun reform group Moms Demand Action.
Donald Trump must ask himself one question: If Thomas Matthew Crooks did not have access to the AR-15-style rifle, would he have shot him? If Crooks’ father did not have the option to walk into a shop and buy a military-grade assault weapon, could he have prevented his son from taking such a drastic step? Would his son still be alive today? Would so many other children, who were victims of gun crime in America, be still alive if America did not allow the sale of guns as if they were play toys?
Unfortunately, most Americans don’t seem to be interested in asking such questions. But one thing is certain: if America does not find a way to control the gun violence, the ‘land of liberty’ will soon witness a bloody civil war.
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