Spray of bullets shatters nation's illusion of security | BBC News |

A defiant Donald Trump with pumped fist after failed assassination attempt at campaign rally in rural Pennsylvania

A spray of bullets may have only grazed Donald Trump in Pennsylvania on Saturday night, but they killed one rally attendee and critically wounded two others.

They have also torn through the 2024 presidential campaign, damaging the social and cultural fabric of the nation. The illusion of security and safety in American politics - built over decades - has been dramatically shattered.

Trump received only minor injuries but it was close - a photograph by Doug Mills of the New York Times appears to show the streak of a bullet cutting through the air near the former president's head.

Not since Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinkley Jr in 1981 has there been such a dramatic act of violence directed against a president - or presidential candidate.

It harkens back to a darker time in US history, more than a half-century ago, when two Kennedy brothers - one a president and one a presidential candidate - were felled by assassin bullets.

Civil rights leaders such as Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X all also lost their lives in political violence.

Like today, the 1960s were marred by intense political polarisation and dysfunction, when a firearm and an individual willing to use it could change the course of history.