AMERICA has had its fair share of tragedies when it comes to gun violence in recent times, so the rest of the world could be forgiven on asking why an apparent assassination attempt against the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump appears to have barely registered on his campaign’s Richter Scale of bizarreness.

After all the Secret Service, a Federal Magistrate Judge, British Foreign and Commonwealth Office and others have been tied up dealing with 20-year-old Michael Steven following claims he made a grab for a Las Vegas police officer’s holstered gun in an attempt to whack the controversial politician at Treasure Island Casino on Saturday.

The Brit, who public defenders say has a background of mental illness, suicide attempts and autism, appeared in court in ankle chains and been remanded in custody until a further appearance on July 5 without entering a plea.

It has been claimed he told police he bought a ticket for the Trump rally having planned an assassination attempt for a year, including taking shooting lessons, convinced he would die trying at the venue, which was packed out with 1,500 people.

His lunge for the gun failed when a posse of other police and security detained him without interrupting a beat of Trump’s speech.

But it didn’t seem to interrupt the narrative around the US gun debate much either.

HE DIDN’T HAVE A GUN OF HIS OWN?

Apparently not, but that might have been very different had a newly elected President Trump already been making himself comfortable in the White House by now.

Certainly if his comments about the shooting dead of 49 people at the gay nightclub Pulse in Florida are anything to go by.

He triggered more controversy when he suggested the deaths, and the wounding of 53 others, might not have happened if some of those attending the Orlando nightclub had been packing heat of their own on the dancefloor.

During a supporters rally in Texas, Trump said: “If some of those wonderful people had a gun strapped right here – right to their waist or right to their ankle – and one of the people in that room happened to have it and goes ‘boom, boom,’ you know that would have been a beautiful, beautiful sight folks.”

That went down badly, with even the NRA’s top lobbyist Chris Cox distancing themselves from the property mogul, saying: “No one thinks that people should go into a nightclub drinking and carrying firearms. That defies common sense. It also defies the law.”

Trump has tried to “clarify” his remarks, turning to Twitter to post: “When I said that if, within the Orlando club, you had some people with guns, I was obviously talking about additional guards or employees.”

Obviously.

ARE VOTERS STICKING WITH HIM?

Maybe not so much. The New York-born billionaire has seen his performance in the numbers game nosedive, with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton moving on up the polls in two key battlegrounds.

In the pivotal swing state of Florida, latest polling puts her 47-39 ahead, up from a dead heat just a month ago. His once commanding lead in Ohio has also evaporated, with the pair now locked on level pegging.

His rhetoric on the economy, which saw him edge ahead, is next on the line, with Clinton now taking him on over the issue.

She plans to portray Trump as an erratic and unfit steward of the American economy as she did in San Diego when she said: “If we put Donald Trump behind the steering wheel of the economy, he is very likely to drive us off the cliff.”

Bolstered by more than £27 million in television advertising, Clinton and her Democratic allies will now seize on a report by Moody’s Analytics which claims Trump’s plans would lead to a “lengthy recession,” costing nearly 3.5 million American jobs.

The analysis by Moody’s Mark Zandi, a former economic advisor to Republican Senator John McCain’s 2008 campaign, making it all the more embarrassing for him and his party as she beats Trump’s campaign around the head with the figures.

WILL HE NOW CHANGE TACK?

He’s doing more than that. He’s just sacked his campaign manager – Corey Lewandowski is gone barely a month before the Republican party’s national convention in an effort to appease the faithful who have become increasingly worried his unofficial “let Trump be Trump” approach would spell election-day disaster and lose them the Presidency – and party unity – for another generation.

It is an inglorious end for Lewandowski, who has been with Trump throughout the roller-coaster ride, only to find himself escorted from the Manhattan campaign’s HQ.

Ever the good soldier, and claiming no regrets, his parting note was: “The campaign needs to continue to grow to be successful.”

Nonetheless, despite his lack of national campaigning experience, he has helped to take a joke candidate to within touching distance of the most powerful job in the world, enshrining his own place in political history if nobody else’s.

But as ever with the Trump campaign, the drama surrounding the high-profile dismissal didn’t stop there.

Michael Caputo, who was poised to serve as director of communications for the campaign at convention, resigned after firing off a celebratory tweet after news of Lewandowski’s sacking broke.

He tweeted: “Ding dong the witch is dead!”

Accompanying the tweet was a photo from the Wizard of Oz, showing the feet of the Wicked Witch of the East protruding from under a house.

SO NOW WHAT HAPPENS?

Campaign chairman Paul Manafort – a veteran of the US political scene – now largely inherits the campaign reins and the task of keeping Trump in check during these last few months of the Presidential race.

He has long advocated a more scripted approach backed by a larger and more professional campaign apparatus to take on the Clinton juggernaut, despite

Trump’s apparent unwillingness to embrace a wholesale change in his approach.

Insiders say it was his sharp elbows that led to Lewandowski’s end.

Trump has roughly 30 paid employees working in key states and is not spending anything so far on television advertising compared to Clinton’s staff of hundreds and mega pot of ad cash. That could be about to change.

But with Manafort at the helm comes a more relaxed and trusting relationship with the party top brass, which could finally persuade leading lights to endorse Trump.

Republican strategist Ryan Williams said Lewandowski’s dismissal “is the first major public admission from Donald Trump that his campaign is not going well”.