Amid condemnations of political violence, A.G. Campbell is speaking out on gun control

"No one, from school children to presidential candidates, should live in fear of these horrific events," Mass. Attorney General Andrea Campbell said.

After the apparent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump Saturday evening, elected Democrats in Massachusetts lined up to condemn political violence and express their gratitude that Trump was safe. Mass. Attorney General Andrea Campbell was one of them.

In a second statement, Campbell went a step further than many of her fellow officials and said the attack illustrates the wider issue of gun violence in America.

“No one, from school children to presidential candidates, should live in fear of these horrific events — and we should not accept the status quo,” she said.

While many details of the attempt on Trump’s life remain unclear, officials have said that an “AR-style” semi-automatic rifle was recovered from the gunman’s position. The AR-15 rifle, dubbed “America’s rifle” by the National Rifle Association, has become massively popular among gun enthusiasts since the federal assault weapons ban ended in 2004.

That ban, signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994, was prompted by multiple mass shootings using assault weapons. In the years since the ban lapsed, AR-15-style rifles have been used in many notorious shootings, including the massacres at Sandy Hook elementary school, the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas, and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. From 2009 to 2022, nine out of the 10 mass shooting incidents with the most casualties involved the use of at least one assault weapon, according to Everytown, a policy organization that works to end gun violence.

Massachusetts has the lowest rate of gun deaths in the US. In national rankings compiled by Everytown, Massachusetts had the fifth-best gun safety rating of any state. Massachusetts is one of nine states that have some form of ban on assault weapons. Pennsylvania, where Saturday’s shooting occurred, was ranked 17th in the nation.

Campbell has made gun safety a core component of her platform. Citing a “growing epidemic of gun violence,” Campbell launched a new Gun Violence Prevention Unit last year. Young Black people are more than eight times as likely to die by gun violence than their white peers in Massachusetts, Campbell’s office said at the time.

Earlier this year, state lawmakers approved a major gun bill that specifically targeted “ghost guns.”

No one knows for sure how the attempt on Trump’s life will impact the presidential race. But Northeastern criminology, law, and public policy professor James Alan Fox told the university’s news outlet that it “will put gun violence as a major issue in [Trump’s] campaign.”

Gun control has become a deeply partisan issue, with many Republicans enthusiastically embracing assault weapons and less stringent gun laws.

Last year, Georgia Congressman Andrew Clyde handed out lapel pins shaped like assault rifles to his GOP colleagues after a string of mass shootings. While campaigning in 2020, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, also of Georgia, posted an image of herself holding a rifle alongside Democratic lawmakers saying there was a need to go on “offense against these socialists.”

Also, Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie drew backlash in 2021 when he posted a Christmas card photo of himself and his family all holding what appear to be assault weapons. It was posted just four days after three students were shot and killed in a Michigan high school.

Here in Massachusetts, while the gun bill passed this year drew praise from gun safety activists, some Second Amendment groups opposed the bill, saying it did more to target gun owners than to reduce crime.

“All of it goes against us, the lawful people. There’s nothing in there that goes after the criminals,” said Jim Wallace, executive director of the Gun Owners’ Action League — the official state firearms association of Massachusetts — after the House approved its version of the bill.