The second attempt to murder Donald Trump in as many months has triggered the usual responses, including suggestions by many Democrats that Trump has only himself to blame. But a different question needs to be asked: how hard is it, really, to assassinate a president or presidential candidate?
The fundamental problem is that a rifle is effective at very long range. Thomas Crooks took shots at President Trump that should have been rather easy. He was able to get them off because of grotesque security failures: he was allowed to get up on the roof of a nearby building, and then Trump was not immediately hustled off the stage when police recognized the threat posed by Crooks. So outrage was properly directed at the Secret Service.
Ryan Routh’s attempt was quite different. He was in position, outside the wire fence that encloses the Trump International Golf Course, hidden by trees and bushes, 12 hours before Trump approached the scene. He was spotted only because he was so foolish as to poke his rifle through the fence, where it was seen by a Secret Service agent. If he had simply remained concealed until Trump came into view, his effort may well have succeeded.
You have no doubt seen many photos of Trump golfing. Some of those pictures were taken by photographers who, if they had wielded a rifle rather than a camera, could have shot Trump. The New York Post reports:
News photographers — including those hired by The Post — have had no problem repeatedly securing spots around the perimeter of the course to snap pictures of Trump playing golf or driving around in a golf cart.
They have even taken images — which require a clear line of sight to the 45th president — unnoticed through the bushes with telephoto lenses. Some have gotten as close as 75 yards — without so much as a sideways glance from the Secret Service.
75 yards is a pot shot for a rifle.
“They’re always amazed how close they can get to Trump and his entourage — it’s easy for them,” one photo agency source told The Post.
Photographers typically announce themselves to the Secret Service so they are not mistaken for threats, but the source said agents are easy enough to evade.
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The outside of the course is dotted with “No Trespassing” signs, but photographers are easily able to take their pictures from behind those signs, and they’re certainly no deterrent for someone up to no good.
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The source said it’s even easier to take pictures at the former president’s other Florida golf complex, Trump National Doral, about 77 miles from West Palm Beach.Doral has four courses, including the famed “Blue Monster,” which is “wide open” for photographers to take pictures.
If you can take a photo of a president, you can shoot him.
A president driving through a city is exposed from far more locations that law enforcement can possibly cover. This is why presidents no longer ride in open vehicles. But unless presidents and presidential candidates are willing to campaign under tighter security than we have yet seen, entailing far less contact with the public, it is hard to see how they can be anywhere close to fully protected.
For a long time, the mystique of the Secret Service likely deterred assassination attempts. There has not been a successful presidential assassination since 1963, although President Reagan was shot and survived only through luck. But that mystique has now been shattered.
So, what do you expect will happen, now that we have seen two assassination attempts back to back, and Democrats are still engaging in the insane hyperbole that eggs on unstable liberals?
Then, too, potential assassins will wonder, what is the down side? Crooks, of course, was killed, but Routh was apprehended and reportedly smiled and laughed during his court appearance today. Why shouldn’t he? He has gone from a nobody to a somebody, a historical figure. No doubt in some liberal circles he will be hailed as a hero. And he won’t be executed. He has nothing worse to look forward to than twenty or thirty years in a federal penitentiary. Some would consider that a small price to pay for becoming a person of world-historical significance. And martyrdom, if it comes to that, isn’t all bad, either.
I expect more attempts to murder Trump, and possibly other politicians. Unless politicians’ habits change drastically, there is a very serious risk that such attempts may succeed. The consequences of a successful assassination in today’s political climate are hard to foresee, but they likely would be profound.
