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      Swat team says it had no contact with Secret Service before Trump rally shooting

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      Local police officers on a special tactical team who were assigned to help protect Donald Trump on the day the former president was wounded during a 13 July assassination attempt in Butler county, Pennsylvania, have said they had no contact with Secret Service agents before the gunman opened fire.“We were supposed to get a face-to-face briefing with the Secret Service members whenever they arrived, and that never happened,” Jason Woods, lead sharpshooter on the Swat team in nearby Beaver county, Pennsylvania, told ABC News.Woods said that initial failure in planning and communications was likely the start of errors that would lead to the 20-year-old gunman killing one spectator, injuring two others and – according to the FBI – striking the tip of one of Trump’s ears.“I think that was probably a pivotal point, where I started thinking things were wrong because it never happened,” Woods told the outlet. “We had no communication.”Separately, members of Trump’s Secret Service detail and his top advisers have questioned why they were not told that local police assigned to guard the outer perimeter of the fairgrounds on 13 July had spotted a suspicious person who turned out to be the would-be assassin.According to the Washington Post, Trump’s top advisers were in a large white tent behind the stage where the former president was speaking at the time of the shooting. They thought the sounds of shots were fireworks and later could not understand why they had not been alerted of the suspicious person before Trump took the stage.“Nobody mentioned it. Nobody said there was a problem,” Trump told Fox News recently. “They could’ve said, ‘Let’s wait for 15 minutes, 20 minutes, five minutes,’ something. Nobody said – I think that was a mistake.”According to Woods, the first communication between the Beaver Swat team and the Secret Service was “not until after the shooting”.By then, Woods added, “it was too late”.Local counter-snipers had seen Thomas Matthew Crooks loitering near the buildings that would later become his perch 20 to 25 minutes before he opened fire. They had sent a photograph to a command center staffed by state troopers and Secret Service agents, according to testimony by the head of the Pennsylvania state police.Apparent failures in communication between different law enforcement agencies are now the subject of three separate investigations. After Secret Service director Kimberley Cheatle resigned from her post on 23 July, the FBI confirmed that Trump had been struck by a bullet – whether whole or fragmented.The FBI director Christopher Wray has also said that would-be assassin Crooks, who does not appear to have any overriding ideological motive for the attempt on Trump’s life, had searched online for the distance that Lee Harvey Oswald was from John F Kennedy when shot the president to death in November 1963.As agencies continue passing blame on for the shooting, Trump has said he plans to return to Butler for “FOR A BIG AND BEAUTIFUL RALLY” despite advice from the presidential protection service that he avoid holding outdoor rallies.Trump has also dismissed criticism that hiring at the Secret Service, and the quality of the protection it provides, was negatively affected by diversity programs – something that had become a talking point among some Republicans.At a rally in Minnesota on Saturday, he defended a “brave” female Secret Service agent who “shielded” him during the attempted assassination. He praised the agent and said she “wanted to take a bullet”.“She was shielding me with everything she could and she got criticized by the fake news because she wasn’t tall enough,” he said. “She was so brave, she was shielding me with everything, she wanted to take a bullet.”The Secret Service had not commented directly on the comments by Woods. But agency spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi has said the Secret Service “is committed to better understanding what happened before, during, and after the assassination attempt of former President Trump to ensure that never happens again”. More

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      FBI director questions whether Trump was hit by bullet or shrapnel in shooting

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      Christopher Wray, the FBI director, has raised questions about whether Donald Trump was actually shot by a bullet during the assassination attempt against the former president earlier this month or whether he was instead struck by shrapnel.During a hearing on Wednesday in Washington, before the House judiciary committee, Wray told lawmakers that it was not clear what precisely caused the injury to Trump’s ear during the shooting at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, earlier this month.The burst of gunfire from a shooter on a roof with a sightline to the stage and crowd killed one rally-goer and left others wounded.“There’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” Wray testified. “As I sit here right now, I don’t know whether that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing, could have also landed somewhere else.”Shortly after the shooting, Trump said in a statement on Truth Social that he had been shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of his right ear.“I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin,” the former president wrote. “Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening.”After the shooting, Trump released a memo about his recovery from Ronny Jackson, the former White House doctor and current Republican representative, but the former president has not allowed the medical professionals who treated him to talk publicly about his condition.On Thursday, Jackson responded to Wray’s testimony in a post on X, calling Wray’s comments to lawmakers “absolutely irresponsible” and “politically motivated” against Trump.“What little credibility he may have left is GONE after recklessly suggesting Trump might not have been hit from a bullet,” Jackson said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“It was a bullet,” he added. “I’ve seen the wound!”Wray also testified to lawmakers on Wednesday that the shooter who had attempted to assassinate Trump, and was then shot dead himself by government snipers, had searched online for information about the 1963 assassination of former president John F Kennedy. More

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      House to form taskforce to investigate Trump assassination attempt

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      The House voted on Wednesday to form a taskforce to investigate the security failures surrounding the assassination attempt against Donald Trump earlier this month.The vote underscores the bipartisan outrage over the shooting at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump came within inches of losing his life. One rally-goer was killed and two others severely injured. Lawmakers have responded quickly with hearings and widespread calls for accountability.The legislation passed by a vote of 416-0.The taskforce will be composed of 13 members and is expected to include seven Republicans and six Democrats. It will be tasked with determining what went wrong on the day of the attempted assassination and will make recommendations to prevent future security lapses. It will issue a final report before 13 December and has the authority to issue subpoenas.The bill is sponsored by Republican congressman Mike Kelly, whose home town of Butler was the site of the shooting. Kelly was at the rally with his wife and other family members.“I can tell you that my community is grieving,” Kelly said. “They are shocked by what happened in our backyard. The people of Butler and the people of the United States deserve answers.”He said he was concerned when the site of the rally was picked because he thought it would be “a difficult place to have a rally of that size.” He called the taskforce a chance to build trust with Americans that lawmakers can work together to tackle a crisis.House committees have already held three hearings focusing on the shooting. The Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle resigned Tuesday, one day after she appeared before a congressional committee and was berated for hours by Democrats and Republicans for the security failures.She called the attempt on Trump’s life the Secret Service’s “most significant operational failure” in decades, but she angered lawmakers by failing to answer specific questions about the investigation.Democrats also voiced support for the taskforce, saying what happened in Butler was a despicable attack that never should have happened.“We need to know what happened. We need to get to the truth. We need to prevent this from ever, ever happening again,” said Congressman Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat. More

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      Secret Service chief berated in House hearing after Trump rally shooting

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      Lawmakers grilled the director of the US Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, during a contentious House hearing on Monday, where members of both parties called for her resignation in the wake of the assassination attempt against Donald Trump earlier this month.In her opening statement, Cheatle acknowledged the Secret Service had “failed” on 13 July, when a 20-year-old gunman was able to take a clear shot at the former president from a rooftop near Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.Trump survived but sustained an injury to his ear, and one rally attendee, former fire chief Corey Comperatore, was killed in the attack. Two others were injured.“As the director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security lapse of our agency,” Cheatle told the House oversight committee. “We are fully cooperating with ongoing investigations. We must learn what happened, and I will move heaven and earth to ensure that an incident like July 13th does not happen again.”In a particularly damning moment, Cheatle acknowledged that Secret Service agents were informed of a suspicious individual at the Trump rally “somewhere between two and five times” before the gunman opened fire.The Republican chair of the committee, James Comer, mourned the assassination attempt as “a horrifying moment in American history” and demanded that Cheatle offer her resignation.“While we give overwhelming thanks to the individual Secret Service agents who did their jobs under immense pressure, this tragedy was preventable,” Comer said. “It is my firm belief, Director Cheatle, that you should resign.”Lawmakers repeatedly pressed Cheatle on how such a galling security lapse could have occurred, but the director dodged many of their questions, reminding members that the investigation of the shooting was still in its earliest stages. When Cheatle again told Comer that she could not specify how many Secret Service agents were assigned to Trump on the day of the shooting, the congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene interjected: “Why are you here?”Cheatle did deny allegations that the Secret Service rejected the Trump campaign’s demands for additional security on 13 July, telling lawmakers: “The assets that were requested for that day were given.”But Cheatle became more vague when the Republican congressman Jim Jordan pressed her on whether the Secret Service had denied past requests for additional security at Trump campaign events.“It looks like you won’t answer some pretty basic questions,” Jordan said. “And you cut corners when it came to protecting one of the most important individuals, one of the most well-known individuals on the planet.”Some Republicans representatives grew openly combative as they questioned Cheatle, with Nancy Mace telling the director: “You’re full of shit today.”Democratic members joined in on the criticism, and at least two of them, Jamie Raskin and Ro Khanna, echoed Republicans’ calls for Cheatle’s resignation. Khanna compared the situation to the fallout after an assassination attempt against Ronald Reagan in 1981.The then Secret Service director, Stuart Knight. stepped down in the months after the Reagan shooting.“Do you really believe that the majority of this country has confidence in you right now?” Khanna asked.Cheatle replied: “I believe that the country deserves answers, and I am committed to finding those answers and providing those answers.”Asked when more answers might be available, Cheatle said the agency hoped to conclude its internal investigation in 60 days, a timeline that sparked censure from committee members.“The notion of a report coming out in 60 days when the threat environment is so high in the United States, irrespective of party, is not acceptable,” said the progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “This is not theater. This is not about jockeying. This is about the safety of some of the most highly targeted and valued targets – internationally and domestically – in the United States of America.”Raskin, the Democratic ranking member of the oversight committee, agreed with calls for accountability at the Secret Service while adding that lawmakers must reckon with the broader problem of gun violence in the US. He noted that the Trump campaign rally attack was not even the deadliest shooting on 13 July, as four people were killed later that day after a gunman opened fire at an Alabama night club.“What happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, was a double failure: the failure by the Secret Service to properly protect Donald Trump and the failure of Congress to properly protect our people from criminal gun violence,” Raskin said. “We must, therefore, also ask hard questions about whether our laws are making it too easy for potential assassins and criminals to obtain firearms generally and AR-15 assault weapons specifically.”With Republicans in control of the House, it seems unlikely that a gun safety bill will pass Congress anytime soon. And after Cheatle’s performance on Monday, it seems even less likely that she will be able to hold on to her job for much longer. More

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      Which Home Alone child star should everyone blame if Trump is re-elected? | Stewart Lee

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      The assassination attempt on Donald Trump last weekend is a tragedy; a tragedy for democracy, a tragedy for America and, above all, a tragedy for the whole world, because it means Donald Trump will be re-elected. And it is a tragedy for Donald Trump, who, whatever one thinks of his politics or his personality, is still a living creature, and as such, like Eamonn Holmes, is capable of suffering.Last week, I had a standup special, Basic Lee, on Sky Comedy, which even came as a surprise to me. I wish someone had shot me last weekend. The resulting publicity might have driven some traffic towards my work. Here’s hoping I’m at least wounded by a gunman while it’s still available to view on the Now streaming service. (Did you see what I did there?)When the free world’s last line of defence against a Trump MacTatorship ™ ® is Joe Biden, we are already doomed. I’m quitting quitting drinking. Stubborn Biden is too selfish to become the focus of a popularity elevating tragedy, preferring instead to let the world burn while he clings to his candidacy, a limpet in linen trousers, sitting there smiling, like something futile made of felt you’d win at a travelling fair.The now inevitable re-election of demagogue Donald, and the implementation of the puritanical Project 2025 agenda by Oliver Dowden’s Heritage Foundation friends, makes a Handmaid’s Tale-style Christian fascist America a certainty, ending not only the shared enlightenment values of the postwar western world, but also the Fifty Shades of Grey women’s erotica franchise. And Trump’s fandom for fossil fuels will hasten the inevitable extinction of all life on Earth, the only positive being that he may yet see his Scottish golf courses reclaimed by rising seas.American liberals and intellectuals with means and money, like Kacey Musgraves and the singer from Tool, must already be considering escape options as the nation begins its descent into the hell of an evangelical religious dictatorship. Trump’s presidency will, however, strengthen ties between Trump and the Clacton constituency of his right-hand man Nigel Farage, which is poised to be bulldozed and made into a private golf course-cum-leisure facility-cum-seaside stolen document storage unit.I’m joking, of course. But the attempted assassination of Trump and its butterfly flap consequences are no joke. Last Saturday, a piece of Trump’s ear was shot away by a gunman. Trump, with a presence of mind Biden might have benefited from when trying to remember the name of the president of Ukraine, struggled to his feet and, in a spirit of peace and reconciliation, shouted: “Fight! Fight! Fight!”, energising supporters who three years ago forced entry to the Capitol aiming to lynch Mike Pence, the Hartlepool monkey of American politics.But what if it had been Trump himself who had been shot away, and only Trump’s ear fragment had been saved by security? Could Trump’s meat ear rim itself have been persuaded to run for the presidency? Could Trump’s ear flesh fragment have beaten Biden in a democratic election? Almost certainly. And would an America governed by a small severed slice of Trump’s ear have offered the world a more secure future than an America governed by Trump, or an America governed by Biden? Again, the answer, sadly, is a resounding yes.The American Christian right believes that Trump, despite his obvious moral corruption, is a massive tool of a God bent on shaping America into their own twisted theocracy. Evangelical Christian America believes their selectively myopic deity actually intervened to save Trump from the gunman, while leaving a heroic volunteer firefighter to take the bullet. Blessed are the firefighters. But how much more useful to this morally equivocating God is a simple severed ear, unencumbered by accusations that it tried to overturn an election, or paid an adult film star hush money, or stole classified documents, or sexually assaulted a woman in a department store. The ear would be innocent and pure and good, like Jesus, or the unborn child.And if an ear had, as Trump did, repeatedly socialised with the unsavoury sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his young friends, it is unlikely it would have been able to do anything inappropriate, due to its being an ear. And should the ear be found to have lost the public trust, it could, due to its inability to defend itself or argue its case, be easily dispensed with by the Republicans without too much fuss. Ear today, gone tomorrow.Imagining different ways the Trump shooting might have played out raises deep ethical questions. Philosophers call this concept “killing baby Hitler”. Would it be ethical for someone to travel back from the future and kill Hitler in his cot in order to prevent the second world war? And would it be ethical to travel back in time and carry out an attack on Trump that ensured future government by Trump’s ear alone? Of course not. And the idea of replacing Trump himself with Trump’s own ear is, at this stage, neither ear nor there.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRather than risking the future on the policymaking of Trump’s unpredictable ear, the precise political leanings of which remain ill-defined at best, would it be better to go further back in time and stop the rise of Trump sooner? Perhaps, when he encountered Trump in Home Alone 2, Macaulay Culkin could have comforted the troubled billionaire with the same innocent friendship he gave to the sad dancer Michael Jackson, on the proviso that Trump abandon political ambition. But Macaulay Culkin didn’t do that. And now we all suffer for his selfishness. Macaulay Culkin has blood on his astonished infant face. Stewart Lee’s Basic Lee is on the streaming service Now. He is previewing 40 minutes of new material in Stewart Lee Introduces Legends of Indie at the Lexington, London, in August with Connie Planque (12), Swansea Sound (13) and David Lance Callahan (14)

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      A wild three weeks in US presidential politics: a timeline

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      They may go down as the wildest three weeks in the history of the US presidency, when the prospects of Joe Biden’s candidacy surviving until polling day seemed to change from day to day – sometimes even from hour to hour.Here is a summary of the milestone events as Biden’s re-election effort went through a maelstrom of uncertainty.27 JuneBiden and Donald Trump face off in the earliest debate ever staged between two main candidates in a presidential election, largely in response to demands by a White House team eager to allay doubts over the president’s advanced age (81) and suspicions that his cognitive powers are fading. Instead, Biden puts in a perplexing performance that intensifies the concerns. Over 90 minutes, he appears at times confused, mangles his sentences, repeatedly loses his train of thought and fails to combat a rush of lies from a bullishly confident Trump, who cannot conceal his glee over his rival’s discomfiture. Democratic operatives exchange frantic messages calling for Biden to abandon his campaign even while the debate unfolds.28 JuneThe president, realising his campaign is suddenly in deep trouble, tries to launch a counteroffensive, telling a rally of supporters in North Carolina that he is staying in the race. “I know I’m not a young man,” he shouts – reading his remarks from an teleprompter. “I don’t debate as well as I used to, but I know what I do know … When you get knocked down, you get back up!”Few are convinced. Within hours, the New York Times, the most influential newspaper in the US, publishes as searing editorial telling Biden to step aside, calling his candidacy a “reckless gamble” that risks a second Trump presidency.3 JulyAs pressure mounts and with a Democratic member of Congress, Lloyd Doggett of Texas, already having called for him to withdraw, Biden meets virtually with state governors in an effort to set minds at rest. But although he wins statements of support, doubts persist after it is reported that he tells them that he is trying to refrain from holding events after 8pm to conserve energy. There is unease at his response when one governor, Josh Green of Hawaii – a medical doctor – inquires about his health, eliciting the puzzling response: “It’s just my brain.”5 JulyBiden gives his first mainstream interview since the debate, an eagerly awaited 22-minute affair with George Stephanopoulos of ABC in a school library in Wisconsin. It is an improvement on the disastrous debate showing but hardly reassuring. The president declares that only the “Lord almighty” could persuade him to step aside from the race. Many Democrats also express deep misgiving about his response to being asked how he would feel if he ran against Trump in November only to lose. “I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did as good a job as I know I can do – that’s what this is about,” he replies. Some condemn the statement as out of touch, given the Democratic fears of a second Trump presidency.7 JulyHakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, holds crisis talks with senior party House members, at least four of whom say the president should step aside as candidate.8 JulyBiden strikes back in anger. As members of Congress return to Washington DC after a recess, the president sends a letter to the entire Democratic congressional contingent telling them he is unequivocally committed to staying in the race and reaffirming his belief that he can beat Trump. He follows up with an unscheduled live telephone interview to MSNBC’s Morning Joe programme in which he throws down the gauntlet to his critics by telling them to “challenge me at the [Democratic] convention”, due to take place in Chicago in August. Jeffries meets with a full complement of House Democrats on Capitol Hill, some of whom tearfully voice fears about the effect Biden’s plunging popularity in the polls might have on their own election prospects. Yet many Democrats appear resigned to Biden staying on the ticket10 JulyWith the mutiny apparently fizzling out, the New York Times gives it renewed impetus by publishing an opinion article from George Clooney, one of the Democrats’ biggest fundraisers, urging Biden to stand down. Proclaiming his love and admiration for the president, Clooney cites his personal experience of a fundraising event in Hollywood last month attended by Biden, who he says cut the same disturbingly diminished figure that millions saw on the debate stage in Atlanta on 27 June.11 JulyWith the pressure on and mounting numbers of Democrats calling for his withdrawal, Biden holds a rare news conference marking the close of Nato’s 75th anniversary conference in Washington DC. Facing massed ranks of international journalists and speaking for an hour without the aid of a teleprompter, the president gives an admirable – yet still flawed – performance. He expounds on intricate details of foreign and economic policy. At the same time, he commits embarrassing gaffes, referring to his vice-president, Kamala Harris, as “Vice-President Trump” without correcting himself, having earlier mistakenly introduced the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy as “President Putin”. The performance seems enough to buy him time.13 JulyDonald Trump survives an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler county, Pennsylvania, a stunning development that puts the discussions on Biden’s candidacy on hold just as the president has been holding talks on his future with leading party figures, including Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader.14 JulyBiden’s staff temporarily suspends all campaign events and political advertising in a display of solidarity over the attempt on Trump’s life. The president gives a prime-time televised speech from the White House urging that both parties rhetorically “lower the temperature” to stave off a rise in political violence.15 JulyWith no Democrats having called for Biden’s withdrawal since the assassination attempt on Trump, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) tries to lock in the presidential nomination for him by unveiling plans for an early electronic roll call of delegates – meaning that the president would effectively have secured his candidacy weeks before the party’s convention starts on 19 August. The plan triggers an immediate backlash among Democrats who still believe Biden must step aside.Meanwhile, Biden gives an arresting answer to NBC’s Lester Holt in another prime-time interview when asked who he listens to on whether he should remain or drop out of the race. “Me,” he replies. “I’ve been doing this a long time.”17 JulyWhile campaigning in Nevada, the president tests positive for Covid and immediately returns to his home in Delaware to isolate. The announcement seems to mark an end to the brief respite in the efforts to persuade him to end his candidacy. The DNC, reportedly following an intervention by Schumer, announces it is postponing the planned electronic roll call by at least a week – giving Biden’s critics more time to muster.18 JulyWith Trump preparing to accept the Republican nomination in at the GOP convention in Milwaukee, reports emerge that Biden is at least listening to arguments that he should withdraw and asking if Harris would fare better. It is also reported that Barack Obama has told associates that he believes the president’s path to winning the election has greatly diminished and that he should reconsider the viability of his campaign19 JulyTen congressional Democrats – nine House members and one senator – call for Biden to stand aside as the candidate, bringing the total who have done so publicly to 32. The president insist he will continue as the nominee and is ready to resume campaigning after isolating from Covid, seemingly confounding speculation that he could be preparing a withdrawal announcement. More

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      Past assassination attempts led to US gun reform. But not this time

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      In the aftermath of the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963, the calls for stricter gun regulation came quickly. Senator Thomas Dodd proposed new legislation five days after the president’s death.Almost two decades later, the 1981 shooting of Ronald Reagan prompted swift demands for action, including restrictions on handguns.And though in both instances it would take years for lawmakers to move forward, both tragedies led to meaningful reform: bans on mail-order gun sales, restrictions on who can purchase weapons and federal background checks for all gun purchases.Political violence has long shaped the US gun control movement, but it appears little will change from this week.After the attempt on Donald Trump’s life over the weekend, outcry over the easy access to guns in US has been relatively muted. There are no Republicans calling for tougher laws. There’s no national conversation about the toll of gun violence on American life.The biggest movements for gun control in US history can be traced to specific assassinations, said Andrew McKevitt, a history professor at Louisiana Tech University and the author of Gun Country, which looks at America’s relationship with firearms.“The calls for those things came in the immediate aftermath,” McKevitt said. “These are both kind of foundational moments for gun control in the United States and yet we haven’t seen anything in that regard in the last week.”View image in fullscreenAfter Kennedy’s death, Dodd urged action. It would take five years, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert Kennedy, but in 1968 lawmakers passed the Gun Control Act, banning mail-order gun sales and restricting who can purchase weapons.In 1981, Ronald Reagan was seriously injured in an assassination attempt alongside his press secretary, James Brady, who was shot in the head, as well as a Secret Service agent and police officer. In the following years, Brady and his wife, Sarah, became advocates for gun violence prevention and joined a non-profit that was eventually renamed in honor of the couple.They pulled in the likes of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton to champion gun safety legislation, said Christian Heyne, the chief officer of policy and programs at Brady, the organization. The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which passed under Bill Clinton in 1993, was named for James.“It wasn’t quick. It wasn’t overnight. They had a series of votes over a series of years and not all of them were successful, but they were persistent,” Heyne said.In more recent years, as the US became plagued by increasingly horrifying mass shootings, the gun violence prevention movement has grown significantly, but progress at the federal level has been stymied. After the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school, efforts by Democrats to pass new gun legislation, including a renewal of the assault weapons ban, were blocked by Republicans.The school shooting in Parkland, Florida, sparked a major youth movement and massive demonstrations across the US and renewed hope that Congress would take meaningful action. It did not, and instead, the National Rifle Association (NRA) said schools should improve safety and that teachers should be armed.The cultural and legal landscape has changed dramatically in the decades since the attacks on Kennedy and Reagan, McKevitt said, pointing to the 2004 expiration of a federal ban on assault weapons, which opened the floodgates for a market for the firearms and occurred as TV news showed American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan carrying similar weapons.US gun culture underwent rapid militarization, he said, and the industry aggressively marketed the expensive AR-15 and swiftly expanded. The “gasoline on the fire” was the election of Barack Obama, who the right portrayed as “coming for your guns”, McKevitt added.At the heart of the movement is the NRA, the powerful lobbying group that spent $31m to elect Trump in 2016. The NRA developed into what was for years a virtually unstoppable political force that could make or break the careers of Republican politicians.The group made guns a core of US culture wars and successfully pushed the narrative that “it takes a good guy with a gun” to “stop a bad guy with a gun”.The gun rights movement was able to achieve major legal victories, McKevitt said, including “stand your ground” laws and open carry legislation.Meanwhile, during the pandemic, Americans bought guns at record rates.“We’re living in an era where the gun rights movement won. The gun rights movement has had tremendous, dramatic, triumphant success over the last 40 years,” McKevitt said. “These legal triumphs, these political triumphs, have remade the landscape of guns in America.“And here we came mere inches from America’s rifle taking the life of the president who is the sort of great icon of the gun industry,” McKevitt said.McKevitt said Republicans were likely to remain resistant of any talk of gun safety laws, no matter the victim. And that Democrats were unlikely to want to push such a proposal in an election year.Heyne, whose mother died in a shooting, said he hoped the shooting in Pennsylvania would inspire some action.“President Trump now is a survivor of gun violence and I hope part of the process of what comes next is a real sincere thought about what it is that can prevent other people from experiencing what he’s experienced.”Still, he is frustrated by the lack of a national conversation around gun violence.“There is a dangerous normalization of gun violence in this country. We’re not having robust calls to action so we can prevent the next national tragedy like this. Until we’re willing to do something it almost certainly will happen again,” he said.“This assassination attempt was enabled by easy access to a military-style rifle and it was used precisely as it was designed,” he said. More