The attempt to assassinate former President Donald Trump has raised a question that often arises after a politician is touched by a shooting: Does personal tragedy change their approach to gun policy?
If history is any indication, not exactly. Less than a year after he nearly bled to death during the 2017 attack on the annual Congressional Baseball Game, then-House Majority Whip Steve Scalise said his support for gun rights remained “as ardent as ever after the shooting, in part because I was saved by people who had guns.” Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat, offered little indication that he’d make a major push for gun restrictions following the mass shooting at the Old National Bank in Louisville last year; among the victims were two people close to Beshear, one of whom was killed. On the other hand, after then-Representative Gabby Giffords of Arizona survived a bullet to the head in 2011, she resigned from Congress and became one of the most prominent gun safety activists in the nation.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee’s actions after the mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville last year are uniquely instructive. One of Lee’s friends was killed in the shooting; two weeks later, Lee signed an executive order that strengthened background checks in the state and called on legislators to pass an extreme risk protection order law. When they resisted, Lee called a special session on public safety and pushed the measure for months — but by the time the special session rolled around, Lee had dropped the issue altogether. In May, he signed a bill banning local governments from enforcing extreme risk protection orders.
It’s still too soon to tell how Trump will react in the long run. But at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, change does not appear to be on the horizon. During an event hosted by the United States Concealed Carry Association — which is sponsoring an AR-15 giveaway at the convention — a senior adviser to Trump’s campaign said Tuesday that, if elected, he’d appoint judges who oppose gun restrictions. Still, it wouldn’t be unprecedented for him to change his tune: As Vox reports, Republicans were key to passing the 1994 assault weapons ban, the Brady Bill, and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.
The assassination attempt has raised a lot of other questions, too. The Trace’s Rita Oceguera rounded up five stories from our archives to help make sense of what happened, and where we go now. Read that here.
More from The Trace
American law enforcement agencies spend billions of dollars a year buying new guns. To lighten the budgetary blow, many agencies resell or trade in their used firearms. These weapons eventually make their way to gun store shelves, ready to be taken home by members of the general public.
Sometimes, the guns veer into the hands of criminals. Records released as part of a lawsuit against the federal government show that tens of thousands of former police guns have surfaced at crime scenes in recent years, including a killing in Indianapolis, a shooting in San Antonio, and a drug bust in Buffalo, New York. All were crimes involving guns released back onto the market by the very police departments and sheriff’s offices sworn to protect the public.
In a new episode of “Reveal,” a weekly podcast from The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, The Trace’s Alain Stephens reports on law enforcement’s fight to keep information about gun resales secret, and how the practice has divided police. He also talks with an Indiana family left grieving after a former cop gun traveled all the way to their neighborhood from halfway across the country — and claimed the life of a loved one.
What to Know Today
At a campaign event in Nevada, President Joe Biden evoked the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump to call for a ban on assault-style weapons. The shooter who fired at Trump used an AR-style rifle. “Understand that if you’re going to talk about standing against violence, you must stand against all violence,” Biden said, referencing not only the shooting at the Trump rally but also police violence, school mass shootings, and racist massacres. [C-SPAN]
The National Rifle Association’s new chief executive Doug Hamlin is a placeholder, according to the testimony of former NRA president Charles Cotton that points to fault lines in the gun group’s leadership. In May, board members chose Hamlin, who led the NRA’s publications arm, as Wayne LaPierre’s replacement. Hamlin is allied to a small, self-described reform bloc at the group. “The intent is to try to get, frankly, some high-powered person to take it over,” testified Cotton, a LaPierre defender whom the reformers consider part of an old guard. Cotton made his remarks in a New York courtroom where the final phase of New York Attorney General Letitia James’s lawsuit against the NRA is underway. —Will Van Sant
Shares in gunmakers Smith & Wesson and Ruger rose on Monday following the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. Firearms manufacturers have seen their stocks rise after incidents of domestic turmoil in recent years. According to one leading financial strategist, these share increases rarely persist, and don’t necessarily translate to increases in gun sales. [NBC]
For years, lawmakers and advocates in New York have sought to make lockdown drills less traumatic for students. This week, they celebrated a win: State education officials adopted new rules that require schools to notify parents at least a week in advance of a planned drill, and that the drills be conducted in “a trauma-informed, developmentally and age-appropriate manner.” [Chalkbeat New York]
The Federal Transit Administration ordered Philadelphia’s transportation authority, known by its abbreviation SEPTA, to better protect its workers amid a sharp rise in assaults. As The Trace’s Mensah M. Dean reported in January, the city’s non-police public employees — particularly SEPTA operators — have faced an increase in threats of gun violence and actual attacks, even as overall shootings declined. [The Philadelphia Inquirer]
ICYMI: Our team is chasing down stories about the attack at the Trump rally and its fallout, along with others about the broader issue of political violence in the United States. But we want to ensure that our coverage is useful to you. What do you want to know about the assassination attempt and political violence in America? What are you feeling about the state of the nation, and its gun violence, going into this election? What would you like to see from media coverage? Let us know via the form linked here.
Archive
New York lawmakers began taking action on active-shooter drills amid mounting criticism that the drills are ineffective and often traumatic. As The Trace’s Jennifer Mascia reported in 2022, lockdown drills can be especially difficult — even damaging — for children who have experienced trauma outside of school, including violence at home. Read her story here.
