Less than two days after surviving an assassination attempt, former President Donald Trump is now officially the GOP nominee for the country’s top office. Delegates at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee voted in Trump, long the presumptive nominee, shortly after he announced Senator JD Vance as his running mate.
There’s a lot to unpack about the last few days, and there’ll be even more in the days and weeks to come. For now, here’s a rundown of the most recent developments:
Vance, the junior senator from Ohio, has opposed gun regulations. In June, after the Supreme Court struck down an effective ban on bump stocks, aftermarket accessories that were used in the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, Democrats in the Senate attempted to pass their own ban on the devices. Vance called the effort “a huge distraction,” and asked: “What is the real gun violence problem in this country, and are we legislating in a way that solves fake problems? Or solves real problems?” In a 2022 interview on Breitbart radio, Vance also called extreme risk protection order laws “a slippery slope” that “don’t solve the problem of gun violence.” In a statement, the National Rifle Association commended Trump’s selection of Vance as a running mate.
With the backdrop of the Republican National Convention, conspiracy theories about the assassination attempt have flooded the internet. As Politifact reports, there’s still a lot we don’t know. Read the group’s breakdown for a fact-check.
The Secret Service didn’t include monitoring the building where Trump’s would-be assassin was perched in its security plan for Saturday’s rally. Instead, The New York Times reports, the agency left the building under the purview of local law enforcement, and no officers were stationed on the roof. Witnesses reported the presence of the shooter to at least one police officer more than a minute before the gunman opened fire, video shows. The Secret Service is under multiple investigations, including one internal probe, over its decision-making before and after the shooting. The Atlantic’s Juliette Kayyem has a summary of some of the remaining questions about the Secret Service’s actions.
This isn’t the first time that Butler, Pennsylvania, where the assassination attempt took place, has been thrust into the political spotlight. Presidential candidates from John F. Kennedy to William Howard Taft have visited the town, writes journalist Chris Solari, who grew up there. Butler has always been a Republican stronghold, and one of those places that big media outlets send writers to gauge the temperature of an election. Nearly a half-century ago, The Washington Post called the town “almost a cliché of small-town U.S.A. and chosen as an election bellwether.” “I still cherish my hometown, as troubled as it is and despite my love-hate relationship with it,” Solari writes. “For such a small town, it has plenty to make me proud.”
Our team is following 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.
From The Trace
In 2022, Jason Rotter and Martin Rossen brought their families to downtown Highland Park, Illinois, to attend the city’s first Fourth of July parade since the coronavirus pandemic shut down much of public life in America. The friends are still living with the trauma of the mass shooting that followed — and, along with many of their neighbors, reckoning with their astonishment that such an attack could happen in Highland Park, a place regarded as a “safe, affluent community where this type of violence was unacceptable,” Rossen told The Trace’s Rita Oceguera.
The shooting opened their eyes to the gun violence that many people face every day in nearby Chicago, where there have been hundreds of mass shootings since 2010. Two years after living through gunfire, Rotter and Rossen reflect on what they’ve learned — and how they’re trying to help.
What to Know Today
The second phase of the civil trial against the National Rifle Association, which will determine whether the gun group will be put under the eye of an independent monitor, began in New York on Monday; it is expected to last two weeks. In March, Judge Joel M. Cohen said he would approach any outside supervision with caution, The Trace’s Will Van Sant reported at the time, and that he would “be looking for private remedies, internal remedies, rather than state oversight.” [Associated Press]
The criminal case against Alec Baldwin, who was charged with involuntary manslaughter for his role in the 2021 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on a movie set, was thrown out with prejudice on Friday; the actor’s legal team will now focus on the related civil lawsuits against him. Baldwin was holding a prop gun that he said he believed was loaded with blanks when it discharged a live bullet during the filming of “Rust.” The case forced Hollywood to confront questions about handling guns on movie sets. [NBC/The New York Times]
Seven people were killed and 10 others were wounded in two separate shootings in Birmingham, Alabama, on Saturday. Police Chief Scott Thurmond said that it was “probably the most tragic day” he’d seen during his more than 25 years with the department. The names of the victims have been released: Arkia “Kia” Berry, 28; her 5-year-old son, Landyn Brooks; and 28-year-old Eric Ashley Jr. were killed in the first shooting. Angela Weatherspoon, 56; Markeisha Gettings, 42; Stevie McGhee, 39; and Lerandus Anderson, 24, were killed in the second. [AL]
There’s growing evidence that murder rates fell in the U.S. last year: Using state Uniform Crime Reporting program data, criminologist Jeff Asher found “exceptionally strong evidence” that murders likely declined at a record pace in 2023. [Jeff Asher]
Archive
Investigators say the Trump rally shooter bought 50 rounds of ammunition the morning of the shooting.
Ammunition regulation hasn’t been a top priority for gun reformers and lawmakers, and public opinion polls and surveys rarely include questions about it. In January 2023, The Trace’s Jennifer Mascia explained what happened to “bullet control.” Read that here:
- Why Is It Easier to Buy Bullets Than Cold Medicine?: Ammunition isn’t regulated like guns. But it used to be. Advocates and lawmakers say it’s a missed opportunity.
