The shooting of former president Donald Trump and three attendees at his rally was just one of nearly in the US so far this year.
Author
David Smith
Associate Professor in American Politics and Foreign Policy, US Studies Centre, University of Sydney
Amid all the shocking news from that day, there was one depressingly familiar detail. The shooter used an , the kind of semiautomatic weapon that has featured in dozens of since the .
Despite the it has brought, the AR-15 has a fierce grip on American politics. The has called the AR-15 ““, and in 2023 .
The AR-15 enjoys a on the American Right, a defiant response to persistent efforts .
Since a Clinton-era assault weapons ban expired in 2004, the United States has never come close to reinstating federal curbs on semiautomatic rifles. Will this change now that an AR-15 almost claimed the life of Donald Trump, the former Republican president and current presidential nominee? It’s unlikely. But past shootings of American presidents have given rise to some of the most significant gun control reforms in the country’s history.
Assassinations and gun control in the 1960s
The murder of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963 began a painful discussion about the need to curtail the flow of cheap firearms in the United States. Lee Harvey Oswald had used a surplus Italian military rifle, , to shoot the president.
Within days of Kennedy’s death, Connecticut Senator Thomas Dodd was proposing legislation to ban mail order sales of rifles. His initial proposals never made it out of Senate committees, and .
But President Lyndon Johnson continued to press Congress on the issue, which eventually resulted in the . This introduced minimum ages for gun purchases, restricted interstate sales, and prohibited sales to felons, and “mentally incompetent” persons.
Tragically, it took two more shooting assassinations to get the legislation passed. The murder of in April 1968, followed by as he campaigned for the presidency in June, provided the final push for congressional votes in favour of the legislation.
By this point, the Gun Control Act even had the partial support of NRA Executive Vice President Franklin Orth. He testified before a Congressional Committee in favour of banning mail order sales, :
We do not think any sane American, who calls himself an American, can object to placing in this bill the instrument that killed the president.
The attempt on Reagan and the Brady act
The in 1981 is remembered today for the and the of his would-be killer. But it also led to the most enduring gun control reforms of the last 40 years.
Reagan’s press secretary James Brady was shot in the head and paralysed during the attack on Reagan. His wife Sarah Brady became a leading campaigner for gun control, and her organisation threw its weight behind the when it was first introduced to Congress in 1987.
This bill amended the 1968 Gun Control Act to mandate background checks and waiting periods for firearm purchases, both of which could have prevented the Reagan shooting. It failed in 1988 and again in 1991 . This was largely due to the NRA, which had now into an absolutist opponent of gun control with considerable influence in Congress.
The Brady Act finally with the support of the Clinton Administration in 1993. It has since been credited with reductions in and . Reagan, along with former presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford (who survived himself), also , which had almost unanimous support in the Senate but ten years later.
Why renewed gun control is unlikely in wake of Trump shooting
Since the George W. Bush administration, Republicans have stood firm against almost any form of national gun control. The NRA has , especially over Democrats, but gun rights have become one of the signature battles of America’s culture wars.
It is an issue for Republicans, who have opposed even that large majorities of Americans . Trump, mindful of anything that could harm his chances of getting elected, has removed almost any mention of guns or the Second Amendment from this year’s Republican platform.
If anyone could actually weaken the Republican orthodoxy on guns, it would be Trump at this moment, given his colossal standing in the party. But if his and current are anything to go by, there is little chance of him ever supporting for a renewal of the assault weapons ban.
Previous shootings of presidents have forced Americans to reconsider the role of guns in national life. But for Trump’s supporters, his survival may fit a pro-gun narrative.
The that “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” is not a call to end gun violence. It’s a call to embrace gun violence as natural, and to be on the winning side of it.
Americans have thankfully been spared the truly horrific images that would have ensued if a bullet had killed Trump. Instead, Trump has created an of survival and triumph, while his attacker was killed in seconds by the Secret Service. As traumatic as this event was for some of those who attended it, it has rapidly become a for many of Trump’s supporters.
For years, of the have been in terms of war. The attempted killing of Trump will have confirmed for many of them that their enemies are truly dangerous, but they are destined to win. Senator Marco Rubio tweeted within minutes of the assassination attempt that “God protected President Trump”.
Who needs gun control when you’ve got that?
David Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
