Our nation’s history is full of assassinated and wounded leaders by gunfire. We can list those killed by bullets: JFK, RFK, MLK, McKinley, Garfield, Lincoln.
Then there’s the lesser known yet much longer list of elected officials shot, some critically, but who survived an assassination attempt: from contemporaries like Gabby Giffords and Steve Scalise to further back in time Teddy Roosevelt and dozens more. Now joining that list is former President Donald Trump, shot while campaigning at a Republican rally in Pennsylvania.
In our supersonic social media age, supporters of Trump were quick to blame the Democrats, their presumed sworn enemy. More disconcerting, immediately after the shooting were their middle fingers shot at the mass media.
But no, the assassination attempt was not an enemy plot but just ‘the usual suspect’—spotted & killed almost as soon as the deadly shooting occurred—another troubled white young man, an American youth.
After bullets flew across the sky, killing one man in the crowd while critically injuring two others along with President Trump, the former President was quick to show a defiant fist and shout to his supporters “Fight! Fight! Fight!”—as if the assassination attempt was a long-awaited plot by his political foes to bring down our country.
No. Just another obscure white American man-child of 20. Essentially nothing is known about him as the FBI has interviewed not only his parents, relatives and neighbors but also his classmates from high school. He was a loner, never smiled, seemingly pathetic and friendless, neglected hygiene, no known mental illness or police record, didn’t leave a trail of rantings on social media or on paper but did have the makings of bombs in his home—a home with more than a dozen guns owned by his parent. A few hours before the Trump rally, this slim unassuming teen-age-looking male simply took one of his father’s AR-style rifles and lots of bullets. And because he knew nobody ever really noticed him, he was able to climb atop a nearby building, aim at Trump and took to shooting people.
Why did he do it?
Isn’t it obvious? He was bullied all his life—like practically all the young white males in our country who foresee nothing but a grim future and believe shooting people, especially someone as famous as Donald Trump, will show up those who knew them. They’re not chicken. They’re men, damn it, and now everybody will know their names, maybe even respect them especially if they die in action.
The bullet that got away
Life is ironic sometimes. An assassin’s bullet that nicks an ear, totally missing the head and brain, brings thoughts if not assurances of ‘Someone up there’s watching out for me.’ Anyone who survived such a close call with death will often come to prayer or even start believing in a Supreme Being or Higher Power, maybe a higher purpose in their miraculously spared lives.
Then for others who count themselves in the lucky few, there’s the guilt of surviving such a deadly attempt when another died and others were severely injured with months of painful rehabilitation. Gunshot survivors will never be the same physically and emotionally. There’s a mass post traumatic stress disorder to cope with, too, when the shooting takes place in a crowd.
But a bullet to the ear is worth pondering. It’s as if Trump’s would-be assassin was trying to get through to someone who is known as a bully, someone who while serving as U.S. President was proud of coming across as a Tough Guy. Tough guys play on the weakness and politeness of everybody else in society, those who don’t speak up, those who don’t push back because it’s unbecoming.
That is likely what Trump’s would-be assassin learned from childhood that included lots of bullying as well as the tumultuous Trump presidency, if we’re being honest.
Someone that young, not even yet voting in a Presidential election, hasn’t lived long enough to decide his own politics. Apparently, he fell in line with everyone around him in his neck of the Pennsylvania woods and registered as a Republican. He just wanted to fit in, didn’t want to make waves, probably was never confrontational his entire life.
Yet he’ll go down in history as a murderer and attempted assassin of a former U.S. President.
This lone shooter, with no motive or political grudge against Trump or Republicans, got a gun and took to shooting people. Wonder if he gave a thought to the harm he would cause. Doubt it. Wonder if he thought he would really assassinate a former President. Perhaps. Wonder if he thought he’d live to tell why he did it, live the rest of his life in prison. Maybe. Did he think he’d be killed in the process? It happens all the time.
But … we and he know guns do a lot of damage in split seconds, death being the purpose of the weapon after all. Those, like President Trump, left with gunshot wounds and the surviving family of the man shot to death in the flurry of traveling bullets from a powerful rifle—where the shooter doesn’t really see his targets—along with all the rest of us Americans must deal with another sorry incident caused by a deeply troubled young man … who felt powerless … until holding a loaded gun.
Shootings are so common in America as to occur several times a day, causing more than 25,000 deaths a year by firearms and many more injuries. And … it’s never going to end, is it? It is the bold thick lengthy expanding red thread sewn into the tapestry of our nation’s history, tightly binding all us Americans together.