It's the Brian Lera Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Two days after another assassination

attempt against Donald Trump, there are many questions being asked about the effectiveness

or deployment of the Secret Service to protect someone in Trump's unique position of candidate,

former president, and cultural lightning rod, about Trump's unique role in promoting political

violence in our country, though obviously not aimed at himself. And there are the questions we will take on today

about guns. Authorities say the suspect in the shooting, 58-year-old Ryan Ruth, had an AK-47-style

weapon with a scope, and the serial number blotted out. What do each of those things represent

in American life for Trump with a target on his back or for

the rest of us? He's been charged, Ruth has, with two federal gun crimes, possession of a firearm by a

convicted felon, and possession of a firearm with that obliterated serial number. The 20-year-old who shot at Trump in July, also with an AK-47-style

rifle, if I've got the reporting right, had 14 guns in his home, according to Fox News and other

media reports. FBI officials were quoted by the Wall Street Journal saying he had been making

dozens of gun-related purchases and stocking up on bomb-making materials for more than a year.

Fox News says the one he used that injured the former president was sold to him legally by his father.

You can't buy a cannabis gummy until you're 21, but you can own an assault weapon

at 20. The 14-year-old who confessed to killing four people at his Georgia high school this month

used an AR-15 style assault weapon, allegedly given to him by his father. The father, as well as the son, has been charged in connection

with those deaths. The assault weapons and other gun safety laws debate has been stuck in this

country for decades, as most of you know, mostly stuck. There was a law that got passed during the

recent Congress and in the Biden administration. But the gun owners of a leader

was quoted typically after Trump was hit in July saying gun laws won't make anyone safer.

Ryan Ruth, Sunday's alleged would be assassin, had been convicted back in 2002 of owning a machine gun, a fully automatic weapon that's not legal

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