Experts at NCITE said threats against public officials on the rise

"In some ways, this is incredibly shocking as it was for most folks," said Sam Hunter, the head of strategic initiatives at the National Counterterroism, Innovation, Technology and Education Center (NCITE).

Hunter is talking about Saturday's attempted assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump. Hunter researches counter-terrorism at NCITE and studies events like what happened Saturday.

Three days later, Hunter's team is monitoring the reaction and response.

"What we'll pay attention to is what researchers are saying like changes and shifts in rhetoric and precursor incidents that may lead up to larger acts of violence," said Hunter.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Professor Elizabeth Theiss-Morse has been teaching political science for decades and calls Saturday's incident concerning. She said the start of a solution to Saturday's incident is to understand what civil dialogue means for the nation.

"All of us who are opposed to violence whether you're a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent need to take a step back and part of that is learning how to respect people who we disagree with," said Theiss-Morse.

According to the Polarization Research Lab, those under 30 support partisan violence at a rate three times higher than those over 30.

Hunter said it's too early to determine the shooter's motive on Saturday.

"Ultimately as academics, we'll deconstruct what happens in the months and years to come to understand the underlying factors that drove it," said Hunter.

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