Gun Violence 'Expert' Claims Trump Attack Just Another 'Mass Shooting'

AP Photo/Paul Sancya

There is apparently no limit to the depths that the left will sink to in their efforts to prevent Donald Trump from being viewed as a sympathetic (if not heroic) figure following his attempted assassination last Saturday. The initial efforts to claim that the attempted killing was entirely "fake" have mostly died down by this point. Yet other efforts to at least downplay the event remain underway. Yesterday, while browsing the coverage online, I came across an interview that was conducted on NewsNation with American University history professor Allan Lichtman. The host first recounted the history of American presidents who have been assassinated or had attempts made on their lives. She then introduced Lichtman and asked him to compare the attempt on Trump's life to those previous attacks. He immediately declared that this shooting was "fundamentally different" than all of the others because it was a "mass shooting," going on to launch a diatribe about gun violence with barely a mention of Trump, the shooter, or the catastrophic events in Pennsylvania.

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Lichtman: It is fundamentally different. It is an assassination attempt that is consistent with the epidemic of gun violence in America today. All of those other attempts or successes that you pointed out were aimed at the individual. This was a mass shooting with multiple victims. That separates it out from the history that you have pointed out. And unfortunately, mass shootings are as common as the sunrise in America. We have a mass shooting every single day. More mass shootings by far than all of our NATO allies combined. The very next day there was another mass shooting that killed seven people and we didn't even notice it because we have become so inured to mass shootings. That's the real lesson of what went on in Pennsylvania, and the big question is will America just ignore it... say "thoughts and prayers" or will we come to grips with the epidemic of mass shootings and generally of gun violence?

You can check out more of Allan Lichtman's rantings on Twitter if you can tolerate it. 

Allow me to take a moment and point out how fundamentally flawed Professor Lichtman's argument is for any leftists who stumble across this article or any of you who may be engaging in some very early day drinking. (And who could blame you during a week like this?) Saturday's attack was not "fundamentally different" from previous presidential assassination attempts or successes. It was fundamentally different from the typical mass shootings we've seen in recent years, and yes there are too many of them by far. But it's not because we have an overabundance of guns. We have an overabundance of violent lunatics, most of whom turn out to be deranged leftists.

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First of all, typical mass shooters go after the easiest targets possible. They go to schools, parks, or parades, where there will be large numbers of people gathered in groups and there will typically be only minimal law enforcement present, if any. They fire at people in a scattershot fashion, taking out targets of opportunity as they present themselves. They pick locations where nobody is expecting a shooter to show up. That campaign rally was the exact opposite. The area was crawling with law enforcement and Secret Service agents who were specifically on guard against a potential shooter, though the security operation wound up failing. 

The only reason that multiple people were struck by gunfire in Pennsylvania was that Crooks was a poor shot, though he still came within centimeters of succeeding on his first attempt. He didn't fire at random into the massive crowd. All of the bullets were fired at the stage because that's where his specific target was standing. That target was former President Donald Trump. The other people who were wounded or killed were collateral damage in his efforts to kill the likely next President of the United States. 

This entire argument is stuff and nonsense. But Lichtman isn't the only person who is still trying to downplay the assassination attempt as "no big deal." Another rocket scientist on Twitter tried to claim that Trump was actually struck by "flying glass" because the shooter took out the teleprompters.

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Of course, as one Twitter friend quickly pointed out (with video) you can see the intact teleprompters after the shooting was over.

The left is still losing its mind over Trump's surge in the polls and there are clearly no depths they will not sink to. I will confidently predict that the surge will only continue after the convention now that the world realizes that there are people willing to literally try to kill Donald Trump in an effort to maintain their grip on power.

You can watch the interview below if you have the stomach for it. I have it queued up to the point where the host introduces the professor.

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Ed Morrissey 10:00 PM | September 06, 2024
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