On Saturday, there was an assassination attempt on President Trump. Here are some random thoughts of mine on the topic.
Monday Morning Quarterback
One time I was watching a news report on a wildfire. The video was coming from a helicopter and showed some firemen clearing brush as the fire burned around them.
I remember thinking how crappy the video looked. Everything was a little jerky and blurry. Surely, they could come up with a better camera for their helicopter.
Then they zoomed out.
It turns out that the helicopter was several miles away from where the firefighters were. When they had zoomed back to no magnification, not only couldn’t I see the firefighters, I couldn’t even see the hill they were standing on.
It turns out that the camera I thought was crappy was, in fact, phenomenal. So, we know the technology exists. We’ve all seen it.
I’m not a security expert and I don’t claim to be one. When protecting a former and likely future president, there may be things I’m just not aware of. I also realize that I’m being a Monday morning quarterback here and that things always look clearer in hindsight.
Security Detail 101
But even I can see a gigantic hole in their security plan.
Look at overhead images of the rally location and you’ll see that all the roofs are white. Not one of them has vents or air conditioning units or anything else to hide behind. Had there been a single helicopter or drone hovering overhead, they would have been able to quickly see that there was someone on a roof that shouldn’t have been there.
They would have also been able to zoom in and see that he had a rifle. Which, if just the mere fact that he was on the roof wasn’t enough, then having a rifle should have been.
So, why wasn’t there air support? I really just assumed that there would be. I mean, Trump has Secret Service protection. That’s supposed to be the best in the world.
It seems like Security Detail 101 should have touched on the importance of having all line-of-sight points covered. Ideally, they would have put agents in those places. Air support could have been a fallback plan. But apparently, they did neither.
Someone approved this plan. Whoever did should be prosecuted.
Advanced Warning?
It’s almost impossible to believe that a lone gunman was able to get to a place that was only a football field and a half away from Trump. I just don’t see how he managed that all by himself.
I saw a video of a guy that looked like Beaker from the Muppets. He was describing how he, and some of the folks he was hanging with saw the guy crawling up on the roof with a rifle. The group tried to get the attention of law enforcement and tell them what they saw.
The story Beaker tells is that this happened several minutes before the shooting occurred. But, when in stressful situations, the perception of time isn’t what it should be. So, it probably wasn’t quite as long as he thought it was.
Then I saw a video of a second bystander who also tried to point law enforcement towards the shooter. He said that it appears that they were already looking for someone. Then the first shot rang out.
So, while it probably wasn’t minutes between the first report of someone up on the roof with a gun to the first shot, it was likely tens of seconds.
What I don’t understand is with multiple reports of a gunman, why weren’t Secret Service agents at least moving toward Trump before the first shot was fired? Whoever got the reports of a gunman should have immediately called an alarm and Trump should have been taken offstage. But it wasn’t until he was hit that the agents started moving.
Can you say DEI?
If I were someone who needed a protection detail, I would want my team to be people, most likely men, who are larger than I am. That way, if they have to surround me to protect me from a bullet, I would be completely protected.
When Trump got up from beneath a pile of Secret Service agents, those same agents surrounded him. Well, mostly.
Trump is at least six-foot-two. On three sides, he was surrounded by men who were at least as tall and wide as he is. In front of him was a female agent who barely came up to his shoulders. His entire head was left unprotected.
I’m certain she has a lot of good qualities, but height isn’t one of them. No matter how qualified she is, she has no business being on the team closest to him. Give her a different job. It is physically not possible for her to provide the same level of protection that six-foot-four men can.
Red Flag
Hitting a human-head-sized target that isn’t moving from 150 yards isn’t a particularly difficult shot. A reasonably decent hunter could make that shot. In ideal conditions. What I find difficult to understand is how the shooter could make that shot while under duress.
And yet he was able to hit President Trump in the head with his first shot.
He had to know that there was no way he was getting out of there alive. That would amp him up on adrenaline which would affect his breathing and fine-motor control.
There is no way he should have been able to make that shot on his first attempt. Not under those conditions.
So, either he believed there was an extraction plan for him, or he was insane. I’m going with “insane”.
I’m starting to think that we should use the red flag laws to remove weapons from anyone who supports a liberal cause.
Conspiracy?
In April, House Democrats introduced a bill that would strip Secret Service protection from Trump. Was this the beginning of a conspiracy to assassinate Trump? With the people likely involved in any conspiracy responsible for the investigation, we may never know.
While it’s true that a single person pulled the trigger, shouldn’t we hold responsible anyone who has been spreading lies about Trump and calling for him to be “stopped”? It should come as no surprise to anyone when some crazy left-wing lunatic believes your message and does exactly what you’ve been telling people to do.
Out of Luck
Donald Trump has gotten where he is by a combination of luck and skill. On Saturday, he used up whatever luck he had remaining.
If you watch the video of Trump being shot, you’ll see that while he was speaking, he turned his head to his right, toward the shooter. That presented the shooter with a narrower target than if Trump had been facing forward. Then, just before we heard the first shot, Trump looked even further to his right. Just a little bit. Then he twitched and reached up to touch his ear and then we heard the shot.
Had he not moved slightly at the very last possible instant, the bullet would have struck him on the right side of his head. Even a glancing blow with a bullet from an AR-15 would have caused some serious damage.
You can call it luck or divine intervention, but the fact is, turning just a little further to his right at exactly the right moment is what saved his life.
