Law enforcement officials have alleged that a 20-year-old gunman armed with an AR-15-style rifle fired multiple shots at former President Donald Trump in an apparent assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. The gunman, firing from a rooftop roughly 400 feet away, killed a member of the audience, wounded two others, and injured Trump.
Update: The rifle was later identified as a DPMS AR-15 rife, as discussed here.
Investigators believe that the shooter used an AR-15 purchased by his father. According to The New York Times, the shooter was able to fire eight shots in a matter of seconds, highlighting the danger of AR-15s and other semi-automatic rifles, which have been used in the country’s deadliest mass shootings. Such military-style assault weapons are lethal for a number of reasons: They utilize high-capacity magazines, typically fire high-velocity ammunition that causes devastating wounds, and, because of their semi-automatic speed, allow shooters to fire dozens of shots as quickly as they can pull the trigger.
Further, AR-15s and AK-47s can easily be converted into machine guns using auto sears or bump stocks, and the gun industry has created several other rapid-fire modifications. To learn more about assault weapons and how the gun industry continues to promote and sell them, click here.
Questions remain about the shooter’s rifle
Law enforcement personnel have yet to identify the manufacturer and model of the gun that was used — as is often the case after shootings, making it harder for officials, researchers, and the public to learn more about the guns recovered from crime scenes.
A photo taken with a high-speed camera at the rally appears to show a small-caliber bullet streaking past President Trump. It is likely a .223 Remington or 5.56mm NATO bullet considering its size and velocity, and that most AR-15s are designed to fire both .223 Remington and 5.56mm NATO ammunition.
Notably, Pennsylvania does not have laws regulating the sale or possession of assault weapons or high-capacity magazines. Nor does the state require that gun owners lock up their firearms to prevent unauthorized access, for example.
The Connection to GUNTUBERS
Reports indicate that the alleged shooter was wearing a Demolition Ranch T-shirt during the attack. No further information about the shooter’s online activities has been released, but Demolition Ranch is both a location and a popular YouTube channel with over 11 million subscribers dedicated to showcasing military-grade weapons provided by gun makers, including machine guns, sniper rifles, and explosives. For example, the channel hosts videos about the “most powerful” and “quietest” sniper rifles, and “Which Bullet Goes the Deepest,” a reference to a bullet’s penetration and wounding capabilities in human targets. Others feature exploding targets and grenades.
Demolition Ranch’s content creators have also partnered with other controversial social media influencers — known as “GunTubers” — who contribute to a toxic online gun culture. For instance, Matt Carriker, the owner of Demolition Ranch, hosted Brandon Herrera (known as “The AK Guy”) in a video discussing, and even recreating, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. In the video, Herrera asks Carriker if the FBI was involved in that assassination, and Carriker responds first by asking if the video will be published online, then sarcastically says, “No, on the record, I do not believe that the government would ever do anything against us.” An animated explosion then appears, implying that the government killed Carriker.
Herrera’s most popular video today recreates the assassination of President John F. Kennedy using ballistic dummies. He has also published videos glorifying the weapons used by Nazis (including one video in which he calls a German machine gun “Kanye’s Buzzsaw,” a reference to West’s antisemitic rants) and Rhodesian soldiers, which have become a source of inspiration for white nationalists.
After YouTube announced that it would implement new age restrictions for gun content, Carriker created a video both mocking and criticizing the rules, and claiming that they would hurt his viewership numbers. He also claimed that over 27 percent of his logged-in audience members are 18 to 24 years old.
As more details about the suspected 20-year-old Trump rally shooter emerge, it’s obvious that young people are being exposed to toxic and callous GunTubers who market firearms for the gun industry while diminishing the very real dangers and tragedies of gun violence and providing tactical playbooks for people looking to carry out this exact kind of violence.