During a time of global pandemic and multiple civil rights protests, many more Americans are arming themselves. The images of looters and of hate groups inciting violence and causing damage at otherwise peaceful protests, have caused Americans to be fearful for their own personal safety. Since 1998 when the FBI began keeping statistics, the pattern of buying firearms spiked at an all-time high this past July 2020. According to the FBI, more than 3.6 million background firearm checks were made up from just over 2 million checks made the prior year.
Because Americans are buying more firearms does not mean they are trained to use them. The FBI started collecting firearm background check data to track accidental firearm deaths. After mass shootings, there have always been spikes in gun sales. For example, the spike in firearm sales following the Sandy Hook school shooting also led to a spike in accidental firearm deaths, particularly among children. No one yet knows the consequences of having more firearms in the hands of private citizens who are being goaded by Trump to commit violence.
Trump spews invectives, distorts reality and incites violence. He tells the white supremacist hate group the Proud Boys to “Stand Back and Stand By,” and instructs his followers to go to the polls on election day to “watch very carefully” to prevent voter fraud. His call to his followers to monitor the polls prompted an outcry from state and local officials who are concerned about voter intimidation, chaos and the eruption of violence on election day. The hue and cry for voter fraud is Trump’s way of laying the ground for a most certain violent outcome. You can rest assured that voter fraud will be committed somewhere, somehow, in America on or around election day and there is no way to know whether the fraud will be bonafide or staged by desperate Trump supporters.
There is no rational reason to explain why Trump is increasingly unhinged as we draw closer to the 2020 Presidential election. There is no understanding his incompetent response to the Covid-19 pandemic and why he has dug in his heels, locked into a flagrantly absurd position even now as Covid-19 runs rampant in the White House and he, himself, has contracted Covid-19. We've all witnessed his cockamamie Liberate Michigan rants and his rallying cries to heavily-armed crowds that violating stay at home orders, not wearing masks, and not social distancing is a very good thing. Flag-waving. Patriotic. Freedom.
If Trump is not reelected, he stands a very good chance of being indicted on multiple counts of fraud by the Southern District of New York. But this is not reason alone for him to use violence as a tool to stay in power. He’s been in trouble with the law so many times in the past that it matters not. He knows how to effectively use the legal system to walk away scot free. A greater reason for his call to violence might be because he cannot bear to walk away from the enormous power of being President of the United States.