Former President Donald Trump emerged unscathed from an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania during a rally on Saturday when a bullet grazed his ear from an AR-15-style semi-automatic weapon, a rifle typically used by mass shooters in the United States.
But in interviews with 12 of the New York billionaire’s delegates at the Republican Party’s nominating convention in Milwaukee, none stepped forward to advocate limits or bans on assault rifles, raising the legal age to buy a gun or even stricter background checks.
The representatives were completely against any kind of reform to the country’s gun laws.
Many of them considered that even small measures, such as expanding background checks or raising the legal age to purchase an assault weapon to 21, were violations of the Second Amendment of the US Constitution, which gives citizens the right to own weapons.
Delegates also said any changes related to guns should focus on funding better mental health support for citizens, a position frequently held by Republicans.
They blamed gun crime and mass shootings (including the attack on Trump) largely on mental illness and guns falling into the wrong hands.
US officials are still trying to determine why Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old nursing home worker, opened fire on the Republican at his campaign rally in Pennsylvania. The young gunman died after being shot three times, which the FBI says is being investigated as possible domestic terrorism.
The key to detecting potential shooters is that mental health services must be more effective in offering them help before they commit a crime with firearms, explained the delegates interviewed.
“It’s all about mental health,” said Montana delegate Will Boone. “The right to own a gun is enshrined in the Constitution. If you start infringing on that right, you start taking away other rights.”
Georgia’s Steve Kramer, meanwhile, said it was a “lie” that expanding background checks would help, Reuters reported.
“If you look at most murders, someone stole the gun, so background checks wouldn’t matter,” Kramer said.
Between 1966 and 2019, other than school shooters who stole guns from family members, most gunmen who committed mass shootings had purchased their weapons legally, according to data compiled by the National Institute of Justice, a research agency of the Department of Justice.
The gun used by the suspect in the Trump attack belonged to his father, according to detectives.
Republican politicians have largely blocked attempts to reform gun laws, including in the wake of a 2012 massacre that left 20 children dead at a Connecticut elementary school by a gunman armed with an AR-15 assault rifle and two handguns.
Trump has repeatedly tried to relax gun laws during his administration, said Kris Brown, president of Brady: United Against Gun Violence.
After taking office, he signed a law that reversed an Obama-era regulation that made it harder for people with mental illnesses to buy guns.
During his tenure, the Republican banned bump stocks, an accessory that turns a semi-automatic weapon into a machine gun. A bump stock was used during the deadliest mass shooting in the United States, in Las Vegas in 2017, when a gunman killed 60 people and injured more than 400.
In February, Trump spoke before the National Rifle Association and pledged to undo gun restrictions enacted by Democratic President Joe Biden.
Keep reading:
- Thomas Mathew Crooks: He had explosives and other information about the attack on Donald Trump
- Deadly victim identified after Trump attack in Pennsylvania
- FBI investigating Trump attack as possible act of domestic terrorism