Pennsylvania State Police have already stepped up efforts to assist federal and local authorities following the near-assassination of President Donald Trump last summer in Butler County, along with the April arson attack on Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family.

The shooting of Kirk — at an open-air event with similarities to the attempt on Trump’s life at the Butler Farm Show grounds — has prompted state and federal lawmakers without protective details to take stock and ensure across-the-board awareness, communication and coordination with state and local partners.

Multiple lawmakers’ offices said they could not comment on security measures or did not respond. But Capitol Hill staffers for the Western Pennsylvania congressional delegation tell the Post-Gazette that security and safety are front-and-center as lawmakers navigate speaking events and other public appearances in a polarized political climate that’s led to an uptick in threats and violence in the Keystone State and beyond.

“There have been some members that have received death threats,” Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Butler, told the Post-Gazette on Thursday. “I haven’t seen that in our district, but I see our district as a bit of an outlier — as the way things used to be.”

Kelly did cite an incident of vandalism at his district office in Mercer County in July. He said officials are sometimes targeted regardless of who they are or their political affiliation. He added that he supports ongoing efforts by congressional leadership to bolster security for members, saying “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

“What disturbs me more than anything else is that [political violence] is no longer a shock,” he said. “It keeps cascading and it dulls the effect. Something’s wrong. We need to have more conversations that are full of thought and free of hate. Charlie Kirk brought that to the table.”

U.S. Capitol Police in February reported that its Threat Assessment Section investigated almost 9,500 “concerning statements and direct threats against Members of Congress, including their families and staffs.” That total marks an increase for the third year a row, and more than double the number of threats investigated in 2017.

“We must keep working to ensure the safety of the Congress while the members are away from Capitol Grounds,” U.S. Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said in a statement released with the February assessment. “We must continue to enhance our protective and intelligence operations to keep up with this evolving threat environment.”

On top of completing more than 100 Inspector General recommendations to improve safety after the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol by Trump supporters, the Capitol Police have launched a new Protective Intelligence Operations Center which receives and processes reports on member safety.

Sgt. Logan T. Brouse of the Pennsylvania State Police told the Post-Gazette this week that the agency remains “committed to a unified and proactive approach to public safety, working in close collaboration with local, state, federal and private sector partners-including the Capitol Police and the House and Senate Sergeants at Arms.”

“Our efforts emphasize not only seamless coordination on the day of an event, but also the development and implementation of long-term strategies aimed at reducing risk and strengthening the commonwealth’s capacity to prevent, detect and respond to potential threats,” he said.

Brouse added that a key component of the mission is the Pennsylvania Criminal Intelligence Center (PaCIC) — “the commonwealth’s primary fusion center.”

“PaCIC is an essential hub for gathering, analyzing, and sharing intelligence among law enforcement, public safety agencies, and private sector stakeholders,” he said. “By integrating data from various sources, PaCIC helps to identify and assess criminal activity, terrorism indicators, suspicious activity reports and cyber incidents. Its analysts provide timely and actionable alerts to stakeholders throughout the state, improving situational awareness and threat mitigation across Pennsylvania.”

Republican lawmakers are pushing to include a boost in the amount lawmakers can spend on personal security — from $5,000 to $10,000 — in the stopgap spending package being debated on Capitol Hill this week ahead of a Sept. 30 deadline.

Lawmakers proposed $88 million for what many say is a long-overdue effort to bolster government security, with the funding split nearly three ways between lawmakers, executive branch officials and federal judges.

But the proposal comes as lawmakers face a potential government shutdown on Oct. 1 if no spending deal is reached. Democrats are pressing for a longer-term spending plan with extensions of Affordable Care Act subsidies and reversals of GOP-led cuts to Medicaid.

Sen. John Fetterman has been adamant that he will not vote to shut down the government despite supporting the ACA subsidies. He told reporters in Washington this week that if someone wanted to kill him, “it’d be easy.”

“I mean, I’m very visible and I don’t have security — none of us have any security,” he said. “If somebody wanted to take me out, it’d be easy to just pop me.”

The Democrat said he wasn’t truly worried about that happening to him. He said he’s only concerned about the safety of his family.

Fetterman and Republican Sen. Dave McCormick denounced political violence in a joint interview on Fox News Tuesday.

“The senator and I agreed … that there’s just no place in this country for political violence,” McCormick said. “It’s absolutely something [that] runs counter to the very idea of free speech and freedom.”

Shapiro also delivered an impassioned message against political violence at the Eradicate Hate Summit this week in Pittsburgh.

“This type of violence has no place in our society, regardless of what motivates it, who pulls the trigger, who throws the Molotov cocktail, or who wields the weapon,” he said.

Several Democrats, including U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, have called on Congress to enact gun law reforms. Lee cited Kirk’s assassination and three students being shot the same day at a high school in Colorado, saying guns and political violence “cannot continue to devastate our communities.”

Michael Evanoff, a former assistant U.S. secretary of state for diplomatic security and chief security officer of security tech firm Verkada Inc., told the Post-Gazette that security and law enforcement officials must “see and think like a shooter or an assassin” in advance of events, with better communication, equipment including drones and specialized cameras, and manpower acting in concert.

Some of those elements appeared to be missing in both the Butler shooting that left former firefighter Corey Comperatore dead and two rally attendees injured, and the Kirk killing in Utah, Evanoff said.

Eric O’Neill, a former FBI counterintelligence and counterterrorism operative, said that political figures may hold fewer events, and more of them will be “in auditoriums where you can control who enters.”

“We’ve seen the end of these open-air events,” he said. “It’s next to impossible to [guarantee safety] unless you have Secret Service to defend against a potential active shooter.”

Kelly, who co-chaired a House task force investigating the Butler attack on Trump, toured U.S. Secret Service training facilities along with Director Sean Curran last week.

He said task force members “believe Secret Service should be back” under the U.S. Treasury Department instead of under the wide umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security.

He noted that on top of protecting American presidents, the agency helps protect many high-ranking government officials and foreign dignitaries as well.

“They’re spread pretty thin,” he said, noting the agency needs to recruit more talent and receive adequate funding from policymakers. “If that mission is that big, there should be more attention there so we have the full confidence they’re equipped the right way, manned the right way and trained the right way — not just a part of [many] agencies.”

Kelly also credited federal law enforcement, and state and local police and fire departments and first responders, for always “[running] to help settle a danger.”