Bullets: <\/strong>At a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday evening, a gunman tried to assassinate<\/a> former President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Trump survived the attack. A bullet apparently grazed his ear, bloodying him. Unfortunately, a member of the audience\u201450-year-old firefighter and father Corey Comperatore who was reportedly shielding the bodies of his family members<\/a> also in attendance\u2014was killed, and two others were critically injured but look likely to survive.<\/p>\n

The gunman was killed immediately by law enforcement snipers.<\/p>\n

The authorities have identified him as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. He used what looks like an AR-15 purchased by his father to shoot at Trump from a nearby roof outside the security perimeter, apparently undetected by local police and Secret Service. Nearby onlookers also outside the security perimeter tried to alert police to the existence of the gunman and his rifle, per a BBC interview<\/a>; police apparently failed to heed the warning. Little is known about the gunman, who seemingly left no manifesto<\/a> and had very little public online footprint. He appears to have been a registered Republican who had given money to Democratic causes around the time<\/a> of Joe Biden’s inauguration. His mother is a registered Democrat, his father a Libertarian.<\/p>\n

A descent into political violence directed toward presidential candidates\/former presidents is worrying; the last time this type of thing happened was over 40 years ago<\/a>, to President Ronald Reagan, when he was shot at in March 1981 by John Hinckley Jr., having just given a speech in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

Reagan, of course, survived, but the bullet was found by surgeons just inches away from his heart. In Trump’s case, the bullet seemingly very narrowly missed his head. The parallels between the two cases are striking.<\/p>\n

An Associated Press photographer, Evan Vucci<\/a>, took the instantly iconic photo of Trump raising his hand, defiant in the face of the attack. Immediately after the shooting, Trump signaled “wait” to his Secret Service agents who had rushed to him, before raising his fist and apparently chanting<\/a> “FIGHT” to the crowd.<\/p>\n

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I'm going to be judging people based on their ability or inability to put aside their opinion about Trump and acknowledge that this picture goes extremely hard. pic.twitter.com\/bzd9TGEXU7<\/a><\/p>\n

— Philippe Lemoine (@phl43) July 13, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n