Fortunately, Donald Trump’s would-be killer failed. What next?

A LONE GUNMAN’S attempt to assassinate Donald Trump at a campaign rally is the most serious attack on an American president or ex-president since John Hinckley shot and wounded Ronald Reagan in March 1981. Fortunately, Mr Trump was not badly hurt. Republicans and Democrats, from President Joe Biden down, have condemned the incident and denounced political violence. The motives of the shooter, a 20-year-old white man from Pennsylvania called Thomas Matthew Crooks, are unknown. Mr Crooks was himself shot dead by Secret Service agents.

While mourning the bystander who perished and others who were injured, Americans can breathe a sigh of relief that the assassin failed in his objective. For an already fraught election to be decided by a bullet would be appalling. For one unbalanced man to veto the democratic preferences of tens of millions of voters would be an outrage.