In August, a little over a month after a shooter attempted to assassinate Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania campaign rally, Dr. Garen Wintemute made a grim prediction. A physician and political violence expert, Wintemute had anticipated that something like the attack on the former president would happen, and had for weeks “been ending every day, thinking: Wow, we made it another day,” he told Vox last month. “With that same level of certainty, I think it will happen again.”

Wintemute’s prediction seemingly bore out last weekend. On Sunday, Secret Service agents opened fire after spotting an AK-47-style rifle poking through a chain-link fence bordering Trump’s West Palm Beach club while he golfed, according to officials. The FBI has called the incident an apparent assassination attempt. The alleged gunman, 58-year-old Ryan Routh, was apprehended about an hour later. He’s been charged with one count of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person — he has two previous felony convictions, which bars him from owning guns under federal law — and one count of possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

Historically, charges like these have been cut-and-dry, and prosecutors have used them to keep potentially violent suspects behind bars. But as The Trace’s Champe Barton and Chip Brownlee reported this week, they’ve been repeatedly challenged, and sometimes dismissed, as unconstitutional in the two years since the Supreme Court decided New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the landmark case that dramatically expanded Second Amendment protections. 

It’s unlikely that Routh would succeed in challenging his charges on Second Amendment grounds, though. He’s awaiting trial in Florida, where federal courts are bound by precedent from the 11th Circuit, which has generally found the policies constitutional. Per former ATF agent David Chipman, it’s likely that Routh will be indicted on additional charges once the investigation is finished.

There’s a lot that’s still unknown about the alleged assassination attempt. Trump, however, has not waited on investigators to surface more details — as Mother Jones reported, the former president this week declared, without evidence, that President Joe Biden’s and Vice President Kamala Harris’s “rhetoric is causing me to be shot at,” adding that “they are the real threat.” (As of this writing, officials have not announced a motive.)

The apparent assassination attempt and Trump’s incendiary reaction underscore that we’re living in a new political reality. As The Washington Post reported, it’s not abnormal for the presidential candidates to appear behind bulletproof glass at outdoor events. Many people have become accustomed to violence this election season; one expert told the Post that he worries “the nation is hitting ‘a new plateau’ in public tolerance for threats and bloodshed.”

Wintemute saw this coming. “We’ve opened the door to political violence this election season, and there are still some leaders using rhetoric that enables violence,” he said. “And we will all pay a price for that, I suspect.”

From The Trace

What to Know This Week

During a wide-ranging interview with the National Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia, Vice President Kamala Harris emphasized her support for universal background checks. “I myself protested at a gun show probably 10, 15 years ago” over the so-called gun show loophole, Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, said. “A lot of homicides … are committed with illegally purchased guns. And that’s why we need to address each entry point in the issue, including universal background checks, closing the gun show loophole, and what we need to do as a general matter, to focus not only on reaction to crime but to prevention of crime.”

—Via Afea Tucker, Philadelphia engagement reporter 

Government offices, schools, hospitals, and other institutions in Springfield, Ohio, have been subject to a string of threats — including shooting threats that prompted two colleges to move their classes online — since former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance, began broadcasting baseless rhetoric about Haitian immigrants in the city. The Trump campaign was aware that the claims, which were initially spread online by far-right extremists and a neo-Nazi group, were false before Trump repeated them to 67 million viewers during the September 9 presidential debate; asked about the claims during a CNN interview on Sunday, Vance admitted that he was willing “to create stories” on the campaign trail. [Springfield News-Sun/The Columbus Dispatch/The Wall Street Journal/The Guardian/CNN] 

After a decade marked by frequent on-campus shootings, ballistic armor companies are marketing expensive technology designed to protect everyone from soldiers to schoolchildren, often redesigning products created for war with kid-friendly aesthetics. These items are expensive — and while some consider them prudent protective measures, there’s not strong evidence that they make students safer. [The New York Times] 

In California, a secret system of “clean-record agreements” conceals police misconduct, rewriting problem officers’ histories and ensuring that they have a chance to get hired again. One deputy whose conduct was hidden by these deals was accused of shooting and killing a wounded teenager. [San Francisco Chronicle] 

After the mass shooting at Apalachee High School, the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency opened a recovery center, where hundreds of residents and first responders flocked for support in dealing with their trauma. Counselors and grief support groups have also independently stepped up to aid in the recovery. But some health providers worry that the community may struggle to find help for their mental health needs in the months and years ahead. [MindSite News/KFF Health News]

In Memoriam

Rayshawn Bryant, 40, was loved throughout Detroit — “from the east side to the west,” his cousin told the Detroit Free Press, people knew him for his amazing dance moves and his desire to be good to others. Bryant, who sometimes went by his adoptive family’s last name, Palmer, was shot and killed during a tailgate for the Lions, his “hands-down” favorite team. Bryant was reportedly trying to mediate an argument when he was shot; another man was also killed. During a vigil for Bryant, members of the sizable crowd called the father of four a “jit legend,” referring to the Detroit street dance. He was the type of guy who “would always get the party started,” loved ones said, and whose mere presence made people feel safe. He was someone you could count on. Bryant radiated positivity, his cousin said: “That’s what he was about.”

We Recommend

The Hardest Case for Mercy: “Inside the effort to spare the Parkland school shooter.” [The Marshall Project]

Pull Quote

“School security measures and so-called ‘target hardening’ are extraordinarily expensive and so far, there is not scientific evidence that they make schools safer.”

— Dewey Cornell, an expert in classroom safety at the University of Virginia, on the new market for bulletproof products for classrooms, to The New York Times

Sunny Sone
Sunny is The Trace’s senior editor for audience and engagement. Sunny previously worked as a copy editor at The Intercept and as digital editor for the Texas Observer, and has covered topics ranging from the Texas funeral industry to the life of visionary composer Pauline Oliveros. Sunny holds a degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin.