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People are not always what they seem. Vance Luther Boelter is a Christian preacher with a residential security company. He is suspected of killing the former Speaker of the Minnesota legislature and her husband and wounding another lawmaker and his wife. All were shot in their homes last weekend. To say the least, this would be an odd move from someone who preached non-violence and marketed home protection. Yet America has far more than its fair share of potential Boelters. The number of death threats against politicians, judges and other figures has been soaring.
Pity US law enforcement. Donald Trump made the most of nearly falling to an assassin’s bullet last July. A quarter of an inch separated him from death. One dreads to think what would have happened had he been killed. There is some dispute over the leanings of his late would-be killer, who had expressed both liberal and Republican views. There should be no dispute about Boelter, an ardent conservative who police say kept a hit list of 70 Democratic officials and abortion providers. Mike Lee, a Trumpian senator from Utah, nevertheless called Boelter a “Marxist”.
Law enforcement’s nightmare is that the Boelters are usually lone wolves. Killings are thus treated as black swan events. But US assassination has moved into a grey swan zone. Would-be political killers swim in increasingly hospitable waters.
According to his roommate, Boelter is a fan of Alex Jones, America’s leading conspiracy theorist. Jones is viewed as a crank but his reach is wide. Though bankrupted in a defamation suit, he continues to peddle the view that satanic globalists are out to destroy America. Their methods include paedophile rings (the “pizzagate” conspiracy), alleging fake school shootings (that the murdered children of Sandy Hook and their grieving parents were crisis actors) and the myth that the 2020 election was rigged for Joe Biden. Voltaire said that those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. It is fair to say that America 2025 is awash in absurdity.
It has never been easier to buy a gun and legally conceal it. More than half of US states permit concealed carry in public places, including churches and bars. Last year, more than 16mn guns were sold in the US, which is a multiple of the total stock of privately owned guns in Britain. America has 120 guns per 100 people against 4.6 in England and Wales. The next highest democracy to America is Montenegro with 39 guns per 100 people — still a third of its level.
America’s right has no monopoly on violent fantasy. Many liberals openly wish for Trump to die. But they are far less likely to own guns, watch shows that advertise guns or consume media that advocates violence. Nor are their representatives stoking the militarisation of America. Trump’s “big beautiful” budget bill that was passed by the House of Representatives last month scrapped a $200 tax on gun silencers.
Much as Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, thinks he is being stymied by regulators, the National Rifle Association stokes paranoia that the Feds are coming after your guns. In practice it is now easier than ever for people with criminal records and mental illness to get hold of firearms. The Democratic party’s inability to counter the NRA publicity machine is stunning. The left has lost nearly every fight since the ban on assault weapon sales was lifted in 2004. The frequency of US school shootings has leapt since then.
Here is the ticking bomb. Federal agencies have for years warned that America’s chief terrorist threat comes from the far right — both lone wolves and organised militias. Biden’s administration stepped up monitoring of such threats. Trump’s FBI and his Department of Homeland Security have shuttered those units. The first big step Trump took this time as president was to pardon hundreds of people who stormed Capitol Hill four years earlier in an assault that killed uniformed officers. Last month Trump said he was thinking of pardoning the nine men convicted of a plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan’s governor.
His message is plain. If you commit violence for Trump’s cause, he will have your back. That Trump nearly lost his own life is apparently immaterial. As America again offers empty thoughts and prayers to gun victims, one thing should be front of mind. The country has historically suffered phases of rife political killings and phases without. The difference lies in the level of rhetoric and availability of weapons. America in 2025 is making political murder easier. This is a choice, not fate.
edward.luce@ft.com
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