Opinion | The real miracle of Pennsylvania? To finally do something about guns.

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott told a roaring crowd at the Republican convention that the world witnessed a miracle in the failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump this past weekend.

“On Saturday, the devil came to Pennsylvania holding a rifle, but an American lion got back up on his feet, and he roared,” Scott bellowed from the convention stage.

It is indeed an amazing thing that the former president was not more seriously injured. Americans who have political disagreements should settle their differences with ballots and not bullets.

I don’t agree with Trump’s brand of politics, but I am grateful that he survived such a brazen attack.

However, all this talk of miracles and the instinctive conclusion that the events on Saturday underscore Trump’s destiny should make us uncomfortable.

We must first remember that other people were seriously injured — one fatally. A 50-year-old former volunteer fire chief named Corey Comperatore won’t grow into his sunset years alongside his wife. He dove to shield his wife and daughters before he was killed.

The sight of a bloodied Trump yelling “fight” with his fist held high, while surrounded by Secret Service agents trying to save his life, will go down in the annals of American history as a sign of invincible defiance and strength.

Follow this authorMichele L. Norris's opinions

It will be emblazoned on T-shirts, cast in bronze, circulated forever and reproduced in the history books our great-grandchildren will likely read. Instagram has informed us that people are already tattooing that image on their bodies.

Symbolism carries weight in America. A man obsessed with power and affluence all his life thankfully missed a bullet but caught a ghoulish windfall of potent political currency. A celluloid cocktail of kismet, courage and grit. The English poet William Wordsworth wrote about “the Happy Warrior” with a “generous spirit” and “inward light,” but a bloodied warrior who quite literally dodged a bullet will be lionized and even deified by voters looking more for a gladiator than a glad heart. We have already seen that on the first night of the RNC convention where Trump was exalted as someone who had received Heaven’s applause and protection.

And yes, I can see why so many of his followers immediately concluded that Trump had won God’s favor. A bullet from an AR-style rifle produced a minor wound compared with the damage normally associated with that kind of killing machine. It is easy to see why people talk of miracles.

But here is the flaw in that argument about Trump receiving an anointment from the Almighty.

Wouldn’t an awesome and merciful God also show protective grace on the children in Uvalde, Tex., or Newtown, Conn.? What about the concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest festival in Las Vegas? Or, the 10 people killed at a grocery store in Buffalo or the 18 souls who were mowed down in a bowling alley in Maine? What about the others who were hurt on Saturday?

This list is gruesome, and it is far too long. And that takes me back to the knee-jerk reaction to attach symbolic power to an image that’s now a part of our national psyche. We need to take another message from this tragedy that goes beyond raised fists.

The message that should be clear and immediate is this: We live in a country with too many guns, with too much easy access to firearms and far too much violence. America is so inured to violence that some in the audience instinctively reached for their phones to capture the action instead of dropping to the floor.

This tragedy calls for dialing back the rhetoric of division, the avalanche of personal political attacks, and the coded language used to stoke fear, hatred or retribution.

And let’s not forget that behind that now legendary picture of that fist pump are other images that will never be caught by flashing cameras. Months of recovery for the people that were injured. All those spectators who carry wounds you cannot see because of what they heard and saw and can never forget. Career trajectories that will be forever altered because of decisions and investigations and finger-pointing that will go on for months.

A disgruntled gunman atop a rooftop in Pennsylvania failed in his assassination attempt yet he succeeded in jolting a nation that has become far too accustomed to public displays of violence. But are we shocked enough to finally, actually, this time try to change? There’s not a chance that will happen if we continue to see this as a moment of individual valor instead of collective vulnerability.

And if this tragedy led to a new conversation about firearms and some kind of sensible gun legislation? Now, that would be a real miracle.

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