Quote:
Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis
Do you think anyone in that hall took that as a joke? Almost certainly not.
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I'm sure almost everyone in that hall took it as dark humour.
But of course you're right in the sense that there's really no such thing as "just a joke", and that it was targeted for that specific audience, and that it's a reckless joke to tell.
Trump told a typical ingroup/outgroup joke. The point of such jokes is to strengthen the feeling of shared emotions in the ingroup, mark yourself as part of the ingroup and mark the boundary between the ingroup (those who like the joke) and the outgroup (those who don't).
I don't think Trump thought of even the possibility that someone actually might take the joke literally. Which is why telling that joke shows terrible lack of judgment.
Oh, and I also don't think the most common image that Trumps extremely vague 2nd amendment reference brought up in that crowd was that of assassinating the president. Armed resistance against the federal government is what I'd guess they were thinking.