American society was formed from violence, and it has remained violent ever since. From settlement to independence to nationhood, the United States has required force to build its institutions. Americans have always owned guns and used them to project strength and vigor—think of the gun-slinging cowboy or the gun-carrying lawman immortalized in Hollywood. And guns have been central to our politics, including the settlement of native peoples’ lands across the United States, the importation of slavery, a civil war, and the rise of America as a global superpower. Guns have influenced the politics of every era—from the death of Alexander Hamilton to the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr., among many other figures. The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on July 13 was part of this long history. Understanding this can help us to make sense of this horrific event, and find a way forward.
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Violence is persistent in American society, but its targets vary over time. For the first 150 years of U.S. history, Americans directed violence primarily against those who challenged the expansion of the nation and the growth of slavery. President Andrew Jackson, the most popular political figure of the early 19th century, was famous for his prowess as a fighter of Indians and a defender of slavery. He was a brawler, beloved by rural settlers, Southern plantation owners, and urban immigrants—all trying to get ahead with the help of righteous force. Jackson fought for them, they believed.
During the Civil War and in the decades after, violence was much more controlled by the state. The Union Army was the largest land army in the world, and the first national military organization in the United States to conscript citizens to carry guns against an enemy. The Union Army destroyed large parts of the South, killed tens of thousands of citizens, and eventually ended slavery. The United States experienced what some historians call a “Second American Revolution” from the barrels of breechloaders and other weapons.
The Union Army was not, however, the only American organization to harness violence for political purposes. States, especially in the former Confederacy, created militias to enforce their rules and protect power for their favored populations. The Ku Klux Klan, founded in Tennessee in the aftermath of the Civil War, was one of many state-supported paramilitaries that systematically attacked former slaves, immigrants, and others who tried to open businesses, buy property, and vote in various communities. The Constitution granted all citizens certain legal rights, but violent groups —often operating with support from local and state governments—determined what those rights meant in practice. That dynamic still applies in some communities, especially for poor and disadvantaged citizens.
John Wilkes Booth, the actor and Confederate sympathizer who shot Abraham Lincoln, was the first presidential assassin, but not the last. As the federal government became effective at using violence to force changes throughout the country, men like Booth resisted by targeting the commander-in-chief. Booth believed he was slaying a tyrant, and his dastardly act was glorified in Southern newspapers. He became the first martyr for countless men in later decades who believed they could defend principle and find glory by using violence against the figure who commanded the most force in the country.
A motley group of characters followed Booth as assassins and would-be assassins of Presidents. Charles Guiteau, an unsuccessful man with delusions of grandeur, shot James Garfield in 1881 because he felt the President denied him a government appointment. Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist angered by the inequalities of wealth, fired two bullets into William McKinley in 1901. John Schrank, a tavern owner in Milwaukee who feared Theodore Roosevelt was becoming a dictator by seeking a third presidential term, attempted to murder the former President in 1912. Giuseppe Zangara, a man who wanted to kill “all capitalists,” fired five shots at President-elect Franklin Roosevelt in early 1933. He missed Roosevelt, but he killed Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, who was standing next to the President-elect. Lee Harvey Oswald, probably the most notorious assassin, murdered President John F. Kennedy in November 1963, for reasons that appear to be personal, not part of a larger conspiracy. And John Hinkley Jr., an unsuccessful songwriter, shot President Ronald Reagan in early 1981, hoping to win the affections of actor Jodie Foster.
None of these assassins were part of violent militia groups; they all acted alone. They were, however, symptoms of the larger history of violence in the country. They attained their weapons easily, they echoed others around them who glorified violence, and they had reason to believe that their violent actions would be greeted with approval in some quarters. The vigilante assassin, like the cowboy and the lawman, is part of the fabric of American culture—a figure that appeals dangerously to individuals seeking to boost themselves and their cause.
In recent years, our partisan politics have promoted this violent tendency in American society. Political candidates and elected officials frequently call their adversaries “traitors” and “threats to America.” In 2016 then-candidate Donald Trump advocated violence against his opponent, Hillary Clinton. On Jan. 6, 2021, President Trump called on his supporters to “fight much harder” and “fight like hell” as they marched to the Capitol and tried to disrupt the certification of President Joe Biden’s election. Trump refused to call off or condemn the violence perpetrated by his supporters on that day, and since then he has treated the men and women convicted for law-breaking as heroes.
In October 2022 David DePape, a Trump supporter, broke into then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home and assaulted her husband. He told police that he was responding to Pelosi’s alleged stealing of the election from Trump: “I was going to hold her hostage and get her to tell the truth. If she didn’t tell the truth, I’d break her kneecaps.”
That is the language of violent bullying (and male misogyny) long glorified in American history. DePape believed he was a courageous vigilante for principle and people like him. That is the defiant and violent message that Trump and his supporters send every day. It makes them popular because it resonates, and it encourages attacks and shootings, especially by young men seeking to boost themselves in the eyes of their peers. They just want to be heroes, like the gunfighters before them.
We don’t yet know why Thomas Matthew Crooks fired multiple shots at Donald Trump on July 13. This assassination attempt has been condemned by political leaders from all sides in the United States. That is necessary, but also easy. The real question is whether we are willing to see how extreme rhetoric, particularly from Trump himself, has encouraged this pre-existing tendency to violence in our society.
We have inherited a very violent culture in the United States. Moving forward, we have a choice. We can continue to encourage violence, or, we can step back and actively discourage personal attacks, bullying, and intimidation, knowing all too well where they can lead. This glorification of violence threatens us all. But we can push against our history.