1. Donald Trump was shot in the ear during a campaign rally Saturday after a major security lapse, an attack that will likely reshape this year’s presidential race and fuel long-standing fears that the campaign could descend into political violence. In the moments after the shooting, Trump was swarmed and covered up by his security agents. He quickly emerged, his face streaked with blood, and pumped his fist in the air, mouthing the words "Fight! Fight! Fight!" The FBI identified 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, as the "subject involved" in what it termed an attempted assassination in a statement early on Sunday. Earlier the Secret Service said in a statement that the shooter was dead, one attendee at the rally was killed and two other spectators were injured. Law enforcement officials told reporters they not yet identified a motive for the attack. (Source: reuters.com)
2. As you might imagine, the attempted assassination of former President Trump dominates today’s news coverage. The shooter has been identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. He was shot and killed at the scene. FBI says investigators haven’t identified a motive in the attempt on Mr. Trump’s life. The Secret Service is investigating how the gunman was able to get so close. The FBI said it was ‘surprising’ the shooter was able to fire so many rounds. The shooter’s weapon was an AR-15-type semiautomatic rifle. The AR-15 is a semi-automatic rifle, meaning it fires one round per trigger pull, not continuously.
3. Robert Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago who has studied American attitudes toward political violence since the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, conducted a nationwide poll on the topic last month. It found that 10 percent of those surveyed said that the “use of force is justified to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president.” A third of those who gave that answer also said they owned a gun. Seven percent of those surveyed said they “support force to restore Trump to the presidency.” Half of them said they owned guns. The shooting at Mr. Trump’s rally “is a consequence of such significant support for political violence in our country,” Mr. Pape wrote in an email. “Indeed, significant lone wolf attacks motivated by political violence have been growing for years in the United States, against members of Congress from both parties as well as federal officials and national leaders.” (Sources: political-science.uchicago,edu, nytimes.com)
4. UC Davis Research Paper:
Political violence—the use of force to advance political objectives—may soon become a leading contributor to firearm violence. In the 2022 survey that provides the data for this study, 32.8% of adults considered violence usually or always justified to advance at least 1 of 17 specific political objectives; nearly 8% thought it very or extremely likely that they would be armed with a firearm in a future situation where political violence was justified. (Source: jamanetwork.com)
5. Victor Mallet:
Contrary to what many French moderates would like to believe, France’s Marine Le Pen and her far-right Rassemblement National party were not crushed in the recent snap legislative elections called by President Emmanuel Macron. In France, as in much of the rest of Europe, extremists, populists and anti-immigration nationalists are stronger than at any time since the second world war.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to News Items to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.