On Sunday, authorities apprehended a 58-year-old man who pointed a semi-automatic rifle through the fence line of Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, in an apparent assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump. Local police described the suspect as having an “AK-47-style rifle” with a scope, but experts who examined photographs of the rifle say it more closely resembles an SKS, another type of assault weapon.
The rifle appears to have been equipped with a scope, an aftermarket Monte-Carlo-style stock for precision shooting, and a high-capacity magazine. The rifle’s serial number was also partially obliterated, and police recovered a camera from the gunman’s shooting position as well as backpacks carrying ceramic tiles — possibly an improvised form of body armor.
The attempt on Trump’s life is the second in as many months — and the second to involve an assault weapon — though no one was hurt in this incident. On July 13, 2024, a 20-year-old gunman armed with an AR-15 fired several shots at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, killing a member of the audience, wounding two others, and injuring Trump. The FBI later identified the rifle as a DPMS A-15 that the shooter hid in a backpack.
history of the sks
The SKS is a semi-automatic rifle that was introduced for the Soviet military in 1945 before it was replaced by the select-fire AK-47 in the 1950s. Both rifles are designed to fire 7.62x39mm ammunition, but the SKS originally featured a fixed 10-round magazine — unlike the AK-47, which uses detachable, curved, 30-round magazines — as well as a folding bayonet.
The Soviet Union helped spread the SKS to numerous countries, including China, East Germany, Romania, North Korea, and Yugoslavia, and millions have been imported into the U.S. since the 1980s. Several SKS variants have been introduced over the years, including models that use detachable 30-round magazines — like the kind recovered outside of the Trump International Golf Club.
SKS-type rifles have been used in several mass shootings, including:
- Melrose Park, Illinois, in February 2001;
- Geneva County, Alabama, in March 2009;
- East Oakland, California, in March 2009;
- Pike County, Ohio, in April 2016; and
- Springfield, Missouri, in March 2020.
A gunman also used an SKS and a Smith & Wesson M&P pistol to attack people practicing for the annual Congressional Baseball Game in Alexandria, Virginia, leaving five wounded, including Representative Steve Scalise and two Capitol Police officers.
Finally, SKS rifles can fire on their own (i.e., “slam fire”) if they are not properly cleaned or assembled, and they are reportedly very easy to convert into fully automatic machine guns.
is the sks an assault weapon?
After the incident at the Trump International Golf Club, one gun group, the National Association for Gun Rights, incorrectly tweeted that the SKS that was used is not an assault weapon. Instead, the organization said, “The only thing on this rifle that would be illegal under the purposed [sic] [assault weapons ban] would be the magazine,” because it is a high-capacity magazine that holds over 10 rounds of ammunition. But the SKS in question is indeed an assault weapon.
As discussed in detail here, several state laws today define assault weapons as semi-automatic rifles, shotguns, and pistols that accept detachable magazines and possess certain military-style features, such as folding stocks and pistol grips. A standard SKS rifle that uses a fixed 10-round magazine and does not have any military-style features would generally not be considered an assault weapon.1Washington State has defined all SKS rifles, regardless of configuration, as assault weapons.
However, recognizing the danger they pose, states like California, Delaware, Illinois, and New Jersey specifically name SKS rifles that use detachable magazines — like the kind recovered in Florida — as assault weapons. Similarly, the assault weapons ban that the U.S. House of Representatives passed in 2022, and the version currently proposed in the Senate, would also prohibit SKS rifles that accept detachable magazines.
Florida does not currently regulate the manufacture, sale, and possession of assault weapons or high-capacity magazines. To learn more, click here.