Ten days ago, a lone shooter attempted to kill former President Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania. About 6 minutes after he began speaking, Trump is noticed to turn his head to the right and then grab his right ear and drop to the ground. He is swarmed by Secret Service agents and after a period that seems too long is escorted off the stage and taken to a local hospital for assessment and treatment. Three people in the audience are shot – one dead and two seriously wounded. They were all in the line of fire seated behind Trump. About one minute later the Secret Services Counter Assault team returns fire fatally wounding the shooter. Weeks later it is learned that the shooter may have fired as many as 8 rounds based on shell casings found near his body on the roof.
There is immediate speculation and controversy about the
incident. Quite incredibly several members of the Republican party blame the
incident on Democrats even though they are the party that has been espousing
political violence and gun extremism. Preliminary reports suggest that although
the shooter is a registered Republican – he donated $15 to a liberal cause a
few years earlier. The shooter was using
an AR-15 rifle that he borrowed from his father and he had purchased 50 rounds of ammunition. At
the time of this post there is no information on whether he was using a high-capacity
magazine or not. The state of
Pennsylvania has no prohibition on assault rifles or high-capacity magazines.
We subsequently learn that the shooter did not make the cut
for his high school shooting team, but did belong to a local shooting
club. He was described as a loner who
was bullied in school. Some people described him as bright and eccentric. All agreed that there was no suggestion that
he was a potentially violent individual and nobody ever heard him make any
threats. It was later learned that he did some drone surveillance of the site and had saved materials on several people from both
parties. To at least one analyst this
data suggested that his goal was a mass shooting rather than an assassination. Others speculated that it may have been a “suicide
by cop” scenario. Some information
leaked from the preliminary investigation suggested he was searching “major
depression” on the Internet.
We also learn that the shooter had a picture of a recent
mass school shooter whose parents were also convicted for allowing him access to
firearms. The shooter in this case
places his father in the same predicament, although there have not been any statements from the parents.
At this point there are signs that there were significant
security lapses. That led to
Congressional testimony by the Director of the Secret Service on July 22. Several members of Congress demanded an
immediate resignation and she subsequently resigned on July 23. She did accept
full responsibility for the security lapse, an administrative maneuver that is
apparently expected only in the government.
She resigned at a time when the results of the investigation of the
incident are still pending.
The public has been presented with interviews of people who
saw the shooter on the roof and tried to get the attention of law enforcement
including the counter assault team without success. The shooter was approached on the roof by a
police officer who apparently had to back down because the rifle was pointed at
him and he was not able to draw his weapon in defense. There was a story today that Secret Service
agents were located at the roof level on the interior of the same building that the shooter was
on but did not see him. The shooter was
identified as a “suspicious person” but not a threat because his rifle was not
seen initially. If he had been identified as a threat – Trump would have been
sequestered in a safe area until the threat was neutralized.
I have not heard any information about the perimeters established
for security. I heard initially that
there was a Secret Service perimeter closest to Trump and extending out for 200
yards. The meant that Secret Service was
responsible for anything inside that perimeter and local law enforcement was
responsible for the next tier beyond 200 yards.
That may explain the aborted attempt by the police officer to intervene
moments before the shots were fired at Trump.
Most significant to me as a psychiatrist is the continued
“search for a motive” or that “no motive has been found.” That is a routine finding in these
events. There really are no rational
motives for picking up a gun and trying to kill the former President or anyone
else. There is no motive for essentially
firing into the crowd beyond Trump and killing a spectator and seriously
injuring two more. Most firearm related
homicides are irrational acts – related to angry disagreements and firearm
accessibility. The fact that motives are
lacking is probably the reason mental illness is often considered to be a
factor in firearm homicides.
That takes me back to my hypothesis of mass shooters that can
probably also be related to lone shooters in this case. The United States has a long history of
cultural memes related to firearms. Film
and television is a rich source of revenge stories where the hero/antihero is
wronged and proceeds over the next 90 minutes to kill everyone who wronged
him. That has extended in the media to
include mass shooters and school shooters. Many are described as “bullied”,
loners, or mentally ill. The overriding
story is the revenge meme – whether it is accurate or not. For several decades the meme involved postal workers "going postal" due to workplace stress and mismanagement although a subsequent investigation showed the incidence of post office violence was not greater than other workplaces. All it takes is a
marginal person without self-control ability to decide to project their
problems onto an available individual or group and extract their
revenge. The method of choice in the US
is a firearm.
There is another group and cultural factor that may be
important in these cases and that is the American sniper. There are thousands of snipers in the US
military. They typically operate at a
range of 600-1200 meters, although several shots have occurred at much greater
distances. The IMDB database lists 18 sniper movies dating back to 1963. Just
inspecting that list suggests to me that there are many more. And of
course there are constant real-life stories about mass shooters.
My point about snipers is fourfold. First, it reinforces the shooter meme in that
a sniper is generally seen as a very competent person who is shooting people
for the right reason. Even the cinematic
revenge version often has the audience primed to see the shooter's
viewpoint. Second, snipers are generally
portrayed as cool and professional.
Third, there are any number of weapons that can be used to become a
self-styled sniper. The first mass shooting I became aware of was the Texas Tower mass shooting of 1966. The incident occurred at the University of Texas and the shooter fired from the same clock tower position. Snipers are
generally portrayed as possessing some special talent to shoot well – but the
reality is that anyone can shoot well – even at a distance if they have enough
practice. Fourth, gun access in the US is easy.
The problem of how long mass shooters experience thoughts about shooting
people is unknown and probably an impossible study. That leads to a certain politics of
explaining the motives. To gun extremists
the shooter is just “a bad guy with a gun.” who needs to be stopped by a “good guy with a gun.” Many of these same
gun extremists tend to blame the behavior either on mental illness or the
treatment of mental illness even though most incidents are not related to
either. This group rigidly avoids
acknowledging their possible role due to cultural changes and the widespread
availability of guns. They are joined by
some mental illness advocates for not treating mental illness who suggest the
behavior is due to medical treatment. In
the past, I have suggested going after the problem directly and approaching it
as a public health problem. That is – if
you have homicidal thinking call an emergency number for intervention. Acute care psychiatrists intervene in the
problem when it is precipitated by severe psychopathology, but in most cases
that is not the issue. It is safe to
say, the problem and successful interventions cannot be well studied in the
current landscape.
Getting back to the shots fired at the Trump rally, Trump
was speaking 430 ft away from the shooter or about 131 meters. That is well within typical sniper
range. Further – given the military
sniper range suggests that the Secret Service would need to secure the entire
area out to 10 times the distance to that rooftop and even then, that may not
be far enough. If there are two
important lessons from this event it should be that guns are inadequate
protection from a shooter with an element of surprise and a long-range
weapon. You can make the argument that
the Secret Service snipers may have stopped a mass shooting event, but at this
point that seems to be highly speculative. Secondly, the perimeter is very
significant. If the initial descriptions
of a 200-yard perimeter are accurate – new strategies are required and even then,
I would question the likelihood of stopping catastrophic results from single
shot fired by a sniper who was trained in evasive action. These are important considerations when the
political solution at this point appears to be an investigation focused on who
to blame for security lapses. Members of
Congress are saying all that is needed is a thorough and transparent
investigation. So far – very few details
of the investigation are available.
It is doubtful that the obvious cultural factors like gun
extremism, widespread availability of weapons and military style weapons, and
the cultural phenomena of the lone wolf shooter will be addressed. It is
doubtful that public health approaches to the problem will be discussed. I
expect a final report several hundred pages long focused on what law enforcement
and the Secret Service should have done. I look forward to reading that report to see
what perimeters and measures are considered and anticipate that they will be
woefully inadequate compared with any determined shooter from a long
range.
And then there are the legal considerations. After the Reagan
assassination attempt, the Brady Bill
– a modest modification of existing gun control laws was eventually passed 12
years later. Since that time there have
been decades of gun extremism put into the law, basically because one of the
major parties needs the issue for political purposes. This has made the United States less safe for
everyone including Presidential candidates.
The most striking example is that the city of Milwaukee
was not able to ban firearms outside of the hard security perimeter at the
Republican National Convention that occurred 2 days after Trump was shot at. Wisconsin
law prohibits local municipalities from banning firearms.
Over the past 30 years we have gone from a nation of common-sense
gun laws – to a nation of gun extremism.
That is almost entirely due to the actions of the Republican party and
its politicians. There has been a clear
association with increased firearm deaths and there has been no resulting
retracing of the path to gun extremism.
Gun extremism puts everyone at risk including Presidential candidates. I
will refrain from the usual political platitudes about how I hope everyone will
be safe out there. Hopes and prayers for the victims of firearm
violence have not changed anything so far and I expect more of the same until
the party of gun extremism decides to change their mind or they are voted out.
These are my observations about this Trump rally. It was a shocking event, but probably not shocking enough to change any gun laws or the steady march towards gun extremism that is oddly enough in the hands of the party whose candidate was targeted.
George Dawson, MD, DFAPA
References:
1: Update on the FBI Investigation of the Attempted Assassination of Former President Donald Trump Update: July 15, 2024, 3:05 p.m. EDT:
2: Neuman S, Westervelt E. Trump's close call: A detailed time line. NPR: https://www.npr.org/2024/07/19/nx-s1-5041734/trump-shooting-assassination-crooks-bulter-secret-service
Supplementary 1:
I decided to write this essay ahead of any investigation
results because it appears that will be a very slow process. I will read those
reports as they become available.
Supplementary 2: This article became available after I completed the above post. It is based on testimony by the FBI Director Christopher Wray. He states the AR-15 used by the shooter had a collapsible stock and therefore was easier to conceal. He also said the shooter flew a drone for 11 minutes over the site about 2 hours before the event. And in terms of the motivation:
"Wray said investigators haven’t found a manifesto or obvious motive for the shooting. He said pictures were saved in the cache of Crooks' electronics from news searches, rather than necessarily because of a specific search for a public official."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/fbi-director-wray-set-house-143641332.html
Supplementary 3: Additional fragments of information today in the news. There were 8 expended cartridges next to the shooter's body. No word on the location of the other 42 rounds or whether there was a high capacity magazine. Some data from the shooters laptop showed that he did a Google search on the JFK assassination searching on both Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald.
Graphics Credit:
Click on graphic to get full information and CC license on Wikimedia Commons.
