The US won’t put down its weapons – gun violence is as American as apple pie

The attempted assassination of Donald Trump has stunned the world – but if you think it will lead to meaningful gun control changes, keep dreaming, says Matthew Feldman

The AR-15 assault weapon – used to shoot Trump on Saturday – on display at the National Rifle Association convention in Dallas in May (Reuters)

A day after the failed assassination attempt on his rival Donald Trump, US president Joe Biden denounced the attack in statesmanlike terms, railing that “there’s no place in America for this kind of violence”.

Except that isn’t strictly true.

“This kind” of violence has long been commonplace in the US for centuries, and shows no sign of abating. In fact, nearly one in 10 US presidents have been assassinated in office, while another handful were either shot or narrowly escaped disaster.

Trump wasn’t even the first ex-president to be shot on the campaign trail when seeking non-consecutive election to the Oval Office. That dubious honour belongs to Theodore Roosevelt, the former Republican president who, while seeking a return to the White House in 1912, was due to make a scheduled address in Milwaukee when he was shot. With the bullet lodged in his chest – its progress had been slowed by a copy of his hefty, 84-minute speech tucked inside his coat pocket – he spoke to the crowd, apologising that “I cannot make a very long speech… but I will try my best”.

Despite his valiant efforts, Roosevelt lost the election to Woodrow Wilson. Trump, however – who managed to raise his fist and shout “Fight!” repeatedly before being bundled away by the Secret Service – looks set to return to the White House in four months’ time.

Gun violence in the US is as old as the country itself. Rather than having “no place” in 21st-century America, it is as American as apple pie.

The statistics make for grim reading: last year, some 43,000 people died by the bullet in the US (whether murder, suicide or other causes); that is, 117 a day, or five Americans an hour, every hour. So far in 2024, there have been more mass shootings in the US than days of the year.

Last month, more than 1.2 million guns were purchased in America – and that only includes those that were legally sold. The country’s 400 million guns are in the hands of less than half the population (some 333 million people) – meaning that if you have one gun, you’re likely to have several.

So if we’re talking about everyday gun violence, the US is exactly the place for “this kind of violence”. Forget the bald eagle or stars and stripes: the ammo clip is America’s truest emblem.

My most recent comment piece for The Independent came on the heels of yet another soul-crushing elementary school shooting, in May 2022, when 21 were killed by a lone gunman in Uvalde, Texas. I lamented at the time that it was “as if Freud’s ‘death drive’ is having a wet dream”, and warned readers not to “expect changes after this most recent massacre”.

I was wrong to suggest that no changes would take effect. The federal ban on “bump stock” magazine extenders was overturned last month, less than seven years after a mass shooting in Las Vegas made use of a “bump stock” clip that left 60 dead and more than 400 injured.

Under this Supreme Court, the direction of travel is one-way. Soon after Trump likely returns to the presidency, it may well be that the gun will have stronger rights and protections than the American citizen.

Take democratic-leaning Pennsylvania, where Trump was shot: no permit or registration is required to own a gun, and the state is open-carry – meaning there’s nothing wrong with strolling around town with a pistol on your hip. There are no background checks for “long guns” – like the notorious AR-15, used again on Saturday – so anyone can rock up to a gun show with cash in hand and leave with a killing machine.

While the shooting took place, we had guests staying from Pittsburgh, about an hour’s drive from Trump’s rally. We commiserated. We were angry at the one-track record, skipping along to the same pointless tune: “Nothing to be done.” That’s a follow-on tragedy for many of us: we were surprised that others were surprised.

The next day, President Biden addressed the nation from the Oval Office, telling his fellow Americans that “we can’t allow this violence to be normalised”.

We looked at our guests. Several eyebrows arched in unison. If it isn’t already clear that this kind of gun violence in the US is normal – pedestrian, even – then starting down the path to making America’s gun fetish abnormal now looks as unlikely as Biden’s re-election chances.

Professor Matthew Feldman is a writer and consultant, and director of Academic Consulting Services