Dem Senator Slams Trump for Making U.S. More Prone to Gun Violence

After a deadly shooting at Brown University which left two people dead and injured nine others, people across the country struggled Sunday to make sense of the event and the needless loss of life.

But while Americans tend to agree that mass shootings such as this one are a tragedy, much of the GOP, predictably, continues to engage in magical thinking—by pretending gun violence is not at all connected to being able to easily procure guns.

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy pointed out during an interview on CNN on Sunday that the president himself was making the problem much, much worse.  

“Over the last year, President Trump has been engaged in a dizzying campaign to increase violence in this country,” Murphy said. “He is restoring gun rights to felons and people who have lost their ability to buy guns, he eliminated the White House office of gun violence protection, and he has stopped funding mental health grants and community anti–gun violence grants that Republicans and Democrats supported... He’s been engaged in a pretty deliberate campaign to try to make violence more likely in this country, and I think you’re unfortunately going to see the results of that on the streets of America.”

“That’s a pretty big statement. He’s in a campaign to make violence more likely?” the CNN anchor said.

“Of course,” Murphy said. Later, he continued: “The evidence tells you that when you stop funding mental health, you stop funding community anti–gun violence programs, when you give gun rights back to dangerous people, you’re going to have an increase in violence, that is knowable and that is foreseeable.”

While authorities have reported that a person of interest in the shooting has been detained, details about the deadly attack at Brown University are still emerging. President Trump, for his part, weighed in on the situation Saturday night, saying, “All we can do right now is pray.” 

President Donald Trump spread unconfirmed information about an active shooter at Brown University,  potentially putting students’ lives in danger as they sheltered in place during the event. 

On Saturday evening at around 4 p.m., a man entered a classroom with about 60 students and started shooting. The students were in a final exam review session for their economics class. Two people were killed in the attack, and nine were injured. 

 On Saturday night, as students barricaded themselves inside dorms and libraries, Trump posted on Truth Social that “the suspect is in custody.” 

 But this was not confirmed. 

 At 5:53 p.m., according to the The Brown Daily Herald, Brown’s student newspaper, the Department of Public Safety sent out an alert saying that the “situation remains ongoing.” 

Trump posted at 5:44 p.m., writing that he had been “briefed” on the shooting and that a suspect was in custody.

Then, at 6:03 p.m., he retracted his statement, posting again on Truth Social that the police had reversed their previous statement.

Social media users and students pushed back on Trump’s characterization. One student posted, “I am at brown university they have not confirmed a shooter in custody please do not believe trump and stay inside.”

In a press conference later that night, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley also urged caution: “There is a lot of misinformation that can spread.… If it did not come from an official channel, it is not official.” 

As of Sunday morning, the Providence police have a suspect in custody, multiple outlets report. 

President Donald Trump’s Truth Social rants may be unhinged, but they have serious consequences: His violent rhetoric has spurred threats against nearly two dozen elected officials on both sides of the aisle.

According to a new tally by NBC News, Trump’s posts over the last few weeks have led to threats on a number of Democrats—but even more Republicans, including over a dozen Indiana state lawmakers whom the president was attempting to bully into voting for his gerrymandering scheme.

Democrats who have been threatened include senators Chuck Schumer and Elissa Slotkin, as well as the other five lawmakers whom, along with Slotkin, Trump accused of sedition. On the Republican side, soon-to-be-former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has been vocal about the threats she’s received since criticizing the president’s agenda, and over a dozen Indiana state senators have also received threats after being named out by Trump on Truth Social.

Meanwhile, Abigail Jackson, a spokesperson for the White House, said that Trump hasn’t done anything wrong.

“As the survivor of two assassination attempts—and recently watching his dear friend Charlie be assassinated—no one understands the dangers of political violence more than President Trump,” Jackson said in a statement to NBC.

“But President Trump, and the entire Administration, will not hesitate to speak the truth and call out Democrats for smearing their opponents as Nazis, encouraging members of the military to ignore lawful orders, and enabling violent criminals to invade our country. Sharing these facts is not inciting violence and the media would be wrong to make such an accusation,” she added.

Who’s going to tell her that the majority of the people receiving threats were Republicans?

President Donald Trump raged against ISIS and said the U.S. would retaliate after an attack in Syria on Saturday, possibly laying the groundwork for more American military involvement in another country in the Middle East.

Earlier in the day, a lone gunman shot and killed two U.S. Army soldiers and a civilian interpreter while they were conducting counterterrorism operations in Palmyra, a city in the central part of the country, various outlets reported. The shooter was killed, and three other members of the U.S. military and two Syrians were injured.

U.S. Central Command called the attack the “result of an ambush by a lone ISIS gunman,” though no group has claimed responsibility for the attack as of yet. More details are still emerging, but Trump took to Truth Social to declare there would be a response.

“This was an ISIS attack against the U.S., and Syria, in a very dangerous part of Syria, that is not fully controlled by them. The President of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is extremely angry and disturbed by this attack,” he wrote. “There will be very serious retaliation.”

What, exactly, that response might look like is unclear. This is reportedly the first case of U.S. deaths in Syria since Bashar Al Assad’s regime fell, and the attack is under investigation.

Defense Secretery Pete Hegseth, who has come under intense pressure and criticism for his role in carrying out questionably legal boat strikes in the Caribbean that have killed more than 80 people, also weighed in.

In a Saturday tweet, Hegseth wrote: “If you target Americans—anywhere in the world—you will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you, and ruthlessly kill you.”

Though it’s not well publicized, the U.S. military has had an ongoing presence at American bases in different parts of Syria since 2014.

President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice is reportedly trying to come up with a way to bring federal charges against Charlie Kirk’s alleged shooter. One solution? Declare Kirk’s murder an anti-Christian hate crime.

Tyler Robinson, the suspect, is already facing state charges for aggravated murder, and may even face the death penalty. But that’s not enough for the Trump administration, which seems to be trying to get the case taken to the federal level, according to a new report from NBC News.

Some prosecutors are pushing back. They say the crime doesn’t really fall under any federal statutes: Murder, generally, is under state jurisdiction, unless the suspect crossed state lines or killed an elected official.

As a result, apparently, the DOJ is exploring the option to charge Robinson with an anti-Christian hate crime, three people who are familiar with the investigation told NBC.

It would be an unusual “hate crime” to prosecute, to say the least: The federal case would have to equate anti-trans views with Christianity, in order for the legal logic to work, according to NBC’s sources.

“They are trying to shove a square peg into a round hole,” one said.

In case anyone is unclear what constitutes a federal hate crime: The Hitler-loving white supremacist who killed Heather Heyer at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville was charged with a hate crime, as was the white man who gunned down 10 Black people in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.

Hate crime charges are generally used when someone attacks or discriminates against someone else based on their race, gender, sexuality, or religion.

Robinson, in texts to his trans partner that were released by the FBI, allegedly said that he wanted to kill Kirk because he had “enough of his hatred.” In order to charge Robinson with a hate crime, prosecutors would have to argue that being Christian and being hateful—at least toward trans people—are one and the same.