I was six years old. I had walked to school that Friday morning in November. My first-grade classroom was two blocks from my grandparents' home, where my parents, siblings, and I all lived. At lunchtime, surprisingly, my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Jones, told us that school was finished for the day. We collected our belongings and headed home. When I reached my grandparents' house, my mother was crying. The president, she told me, had been shot.
That was 1963. Here we are, 61 years later, and an assassin attempted a similarly angled shot at Donald Trump. Another inch and the former and soon-to-be president would be dead.
Basics
I know very little about firearms and tactical shooting. My father and brothers were fine shots with rifles. A long-time boyhood friend was in charge of a prison SORT team for years. SORT teams are the prison equivalent of SWAT teams. He had sniper training and was a superb shot.
The only factoid I'd like to impress on readers is that the weapon and distance employed by Trump's attacker made the shot more or less a lay-up. Unchallenging. A trained sniper should, at the least, put four of five rounds into a head-sized target at that 130-yard distance. Donald J. Trump is extremely lucky to be alive.
So Many Questions
I have no idea how someone toting an AR-15 could have managed that location unimpeded. As the shooting pundits all have said, the shooter had clear sightlines and a lay-up distance. Reality is messy, and slip-ups occur, but the shooter's location was prime assassin real estate.
In terms of timing, it's the last stop before the Republican National Convention. The outdoor Butler location was the last, best opportunity to kill Trump. Hard to believe that there were obvious gaps in coverage. I have no brilliant conclusions, only speculation. When you realize that law enforcement had to account for all vulnerabilities out to a thousand yards, it makes the gaps in the hundred-yard coverage somewhat understandable. Just as egregious a mistake, but somewhat understandable.
Murky waters. It gave me X-Files chills when I was told that both parents of the shooter were licensed behavior training specialists. And the shooter, as is almost always the case, is dead.
Trump Uber Alles
Trump's real-time coping reactions were extraordinary. No moment too large. He seized the day and will be remembered by history for being in control no matter the context.
The photos of the Secret Service agents enveloping him while he raised his fist, blood streaking down his face, American flag looming in the sky overhead, that photo will be a Pulitzer Prize winner and will be in every history book.
I'm going to recommend a couple of articles that haven't gotten splashed on every media page. First is Tim Stanley's "Trump has become an unstoppable force" for The Telegraph. He frames these recent events in a historical context. For a factual, Joe Friday analysis of the Secret Service and counter-sniper response, check out Laura Italiano's Business Insider piece, "Ex-Secret Service agents explain why counter-sniper who saved Trump's life may have lost crucial seconds."
Takeaways
I have nothing yet. I am waiting on further information. I do not buy the shooter as "acting alone." I think that's a longshot starting point. He had no car. He had limited resources. There had been no indications that he was going to do this.
So we wait. The Republican National Convention is next week. It's going to bristle with more energy than any political convention in American history.
Bob Dietz
July 14, 2024
