Trump shooting is a shocking and perilous moment for America – Marin Independent Journal

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents as he is helped off the stage during a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., Saturday, July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally on Saturday was a shocking moment for America, although thankfully he was not seriously injured.

Since the country’s founding, U.S. presidents and presidential candidates have been killed or injured in acts of political violence, but it has been more than 40 years since such an attack, when Ronald Reagan was gunned down outside a Washington hotel in 1981. Hours after Saturday’s shooting, Trump wrote on his Truth Social website: “It is unbelievable that such an act could take place in our country.”

Unfortunately, it is all too easy to believe that such a thing could happen. Mass shootings and acts of political violence have become frighteningly common in the United States. No place is safe from bullets—not schools, not churches, not supermarkets, not Fourth of July parades—and no individual is safe. Members of Congress have been gunned down in parking lots or on baseball fields. And even one of the most heavily guarded people in the world, a former president with a Secret Service detail, is not safe.

Candidates for office, from school boards to Congress, regularly face death threats. Two years ago, Democrat Nancy Pelosi’s husband was seriously injured when a deranged person broke into their San Francisco home looking for the then-Speaker of the House. And on Jan. 6, 2021, armed assailants, some chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” stormed the Capitol building with the intention of overturning the results of the presidential election.

This should be a moment of unity — as President Joe Biden and Trump have called for — to condemn the violence and mourn the victims with one voice. Trump was shot and wounded, and three others at the rally were hit. One participant died and two others were seriously injured.

If anything, this incident threatens to further divide this deeply polarized nation and encourage more violence. In a country where there are more guns than people, this should worry every American.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The example set by political leaders is crucial to the conduct of the election campaign. This is not the time to blame victims or demonize them.

Biden and other Democratic leaders were quick to condemn the violence, as they should be. And the president wisely commissioned an independent review of the security measures taken at the rally, the findings of which were made public. But some on the right seized on the incident to make irresponsible accusations. A number of Republican elected officials went so far as to pin the blame for the shooting on Biden and Democrats. That is unfortunate.