Trump calls for unity after shooting
President Donald Trump was called upon Wednesday to speak words of comfort in a troubled moment, one fraught with the overtones of gun politics and the heated rhetoric of a nation sharply divided along party lines.
He delivered a brief address from the White House Diplomatic Room in which he denounced the shooting of a top House Republican and others as a “very, very brutal assault.” He said that “many lives would have been lost without the heroic action” of Capitol Police officers who took down the gunman.
“We may have our differences, but we do well in times like these to remember that everyone who serves in our nation’s capital is here because, above all, they love our country,” Trump said. “We can all agree that we are blessed to be Americans, that our children deserve to grow up in a nation of safety and peace and that we are strongest when we are unified and when we work together for the common good.”
The Wednesday morning shooting occurred at a congressional baseball practice. Republican Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana was shot in the early morning fusillade of gunfire, and several other people, including members of Scalise’s security detail, also were wounded. Scalise was listed as in critical condition as of press time.
The gunman was killed. Northwest Georgia’s Rep. Tom Graves, R-Ranger, is not on the baseball team and he was not present, his spokesman Garrett Hawkins said. Floyd County’s former state representative, U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk, RCassville, was.
Loudermilk suggested that Congress should look at whether members could carry guns in Washington.
He carries a gun at home, as does a staffer who carries a 9 mm in his car in Georgia, but is banned from doing so in Washington.
“If this had happened in Georgia, he wouldn’t have gotten too far,” Loudermilk told CNN and other reporters. “He had a clear shot at him, but here we’re not allowed to carry any weapons.”
But Loudermilk suggested a broader look at security details for large gatherings of members.
“We’re not any more spe- cial than anybody else, but we are targets,” he said. “This is exactly why there’s a lot of fear of even doing town halls at this point. Some of the things this guy is posting on Facebook — we get the same things and even worse.”
Trump, whose 71st birthday was Wednesday, was informed of the shooting minutes after it occurred. The White House press office quickly put out a brief statement and the president followed up with a tweet: “Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, a true friend and patriot, was badly injured but will fully recover. Our thoughts and prayers are with him.”
He also praised Capitol Police officers and first responders who mobilized at the softball field where the Republican
baseball team was practicing ahead of tonight’s charity game against the Democrats.
“Their sacrifice makes democracy possible,” he said.
Trump also broke the news that the shooter, 66-year-old James T. Hodgkinson of Illinois, had died. Hodgkinson had a history of lashing out at Republicans and apparently had volunteered for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign.
Several prominent Republicans, including the president’s eldest son, were quick to link the gunfire to anti-Trump rhetoric from the left. But in the hours after the shooting, the president, whose pugnacious style has come to define this era of bruising partisanship, avoided any mention of the political debate surrounding the shooting.
Trump’s brief speech at the White House was reminiscent of the more than a dozen times that his predecessor had to address the nation after a mass shooting.
Some of the most indelible images of Barack Obama’s presidency followed an act of violence, including the tears in his eyes while mourning the 26 people, including children, killed in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012 and his rendition of “Amazing Grace” while delivering a eulogy after nine churchgoers were killed in Charleston, South Carolina, three years later.
While Obama’s statements of mourning were frequently paired with a plea for stricter gun control laws, Trump did not mention firearms regulations.