It's the fucking guns

If the attempted assassination of their presidential candidate wasn’t a wake-up call for Republican gun extremists, then losing this election needs to be

I was in Chicago for the weekend and shopping with my kids when I received an urgent text from a friend that said, “Donald Trump has been shot!” I stopped in the middle of Michigan Avenue and scrolled through Twitter, assuming the story was a hoax. The shooting was so recent that it wasn’t yet trending, so I searched “Trump shot” and found a blurry, unsteady video that showed the former president grabbing his ear after what sounded like gunfire during a political rally in Pennsylvania. It was real. There had, in fact, just been an attempted assassination of an American presidential candidate. And, having worked in gun violence prevention for so long, I knew exactly what would come next: a flood of inaccurate assumptions about the gunman and his motive, accusations and finger-pointing between political parties, and, of course, rampant conspiracy theories.

For over a decade, my role as the founder of Moms Demand Action has been to cut through that bullshit and share the facts—not just about a shooting tragedy, but about gun violence and its causes. So, still standing on a city corner, I started Tweeting about the consequences of lax federal and state gun laws (Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania have long stood in the way of commonsense regulations). I tweeted that there are no background checks required on ammunition or long guns, including semiautomatic rifles; that there are no restrictions on owning semiautomatic rifles or large-capacity magazines; that there’s no waiting period after buying a weapon; and that Pennsylvania is one of 40 states that allow civilians to open carry handguns and long guns in public, making it difficult if not impossible to know when someone is open carrying or about to open fire.

As the details of the shooting unfolded, it became clear—as it always does—that the loopholes in lax laws had contributed to the senseless, preventable, and tragic shooting in Pennsylvania. The gunman was just 20 years old, and even though he used a gun that belonged to his father, he was old enough to buy and open carry a rifle but not old enough to rent a car. He had purchased 50 rounds of ammunition for the rifle just hours before the shooting, no questions asked. And even though he was apparently walking around near a political rally with a semiautomatic rifle, no one stopped him (in fact, reports suggest snipers held off on shooting him because they needed to be sure he was a threat and not simply armed as the law allows). And, during a search of the gunman’s family home, police recovered over 20 firearms, most of which appear to have been purchased online (and may or may not have required a background check).

In other words, the gunman—who had no prior criminal record and had never been adjudicated mentally ill—was considered by the law to be a law-abiding gun owner right up until the moment he opened fire.

While the story of what happened was coming together, the media spun narratives that attempted to humanize the suspect—a young white man. Some accused the gunman of being a Democrat who was seeking revenge, while others claimed he was a Republican with a grudge. People he went to high school with called him a loner and alleged that he was bullied in high school. Some claimed he had to be mentally ill or he was seeking infamy. But all of those allegations only get at the why of the shooting while fully ignoring the much more critical question of how. And the how here is clear. Because every peer nation is home to disgruntled or dangerous men, but only America gives them unfettered, easy access to arsenals and ammunition. Only America.

We still aren’t clear on what the gunman’s motivation was—and we may never be—but we do know that well over 60 percent of domestic extremist-related killings in America over the past several years have been perpetrated by right-wing extremists. We know the gunman’s father frequented several websites that buy and sell firearms and tactical supplies, indicating that the family was steeped in gun culture. We know there were Trump signs in their yard. And we know the family of the gunman was included in a secret 2016 Trump campaign database of voters who were likely to be susceptible to gun rights propaganda.

In other words, we know it’s the fucking guns.

Gun extremism ensured a 20-year-old assassin had access to a weapon of war, rendering even the most highly trained security forces incapable of protecting anyone—from school children to former presidents. We’re constantly told in America that only good guys with guns stop bad guys with guns, but armed guards didn’t stop the gunman at a store in Buffalo or a nightclub in Orlando. Armed security officers couldn’t prevent shootings inside schools in Parkland, Florida, or Santa Fe and Uvalde, Texas.  And now, dozens of armed Secret Service agents and police officers couldn’t prevent a citizen with a weapon of war from opening fire and killing and wounding people at a political rally.

In normal nations, the attempted assassination of a presidential candidate by a young man with an assault rifle—emboldened by firepower so strong that even local police refused to confront him—would result in significant cultural and political change. Citizens would come together to oppose gun extremism. Laws would get passed at all levels of government. And the extremism that has brought America to this place would be abandoned in favor of safety and sanity.

But, alas, this is America. And this week at the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin, a state that doesn’t allow cities to make gun policies that differ from state laws, Milwaukee officials are only allowed to ban tennis balls and water bottles from the convention perimeter, but not guns. And at that convention, less than 48 hours after their candidate was nearly assassinated, attendees are being invited to enter a raffle to win an AR-15.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t have to live like this, and we sure as hell shouldn’t die like this. But change in America will require every one of us to sort through the bullshit and embrace the facts: strong gun laws reduce gun violence and death. Republicans are the party of gun extremism. If the attempted assassination of their candidate wasn’t a wake-up call, then losing this election needs to be.

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