I’ve been to numerous events with presidents and presidential candidates in my 29 years as a journalist, and speaking from that experience, man.
How did a guy with an AR-15 get anywhere near a venue with a former president who is running for president again?
That’s a question that I can’t get away from.
Among my experiences
I was at the White House in 2002 to cover a Little League baseball game on the South Lawn.
To get in, I needed to get through a background check, of course go through all manner of search of my person to get through the gate, and then, once on the grounds, the group of us in the local reporter pool had several Secret Service escorts standing with us, just in case any of us had any ideas.
At one point, a Secret Service agent came over to me to tell me about an issue with the press credential hanging around my neck, which had fallen behind the tie I was wearing – it was 95 degrees on that Sunday afternoon, but I was dressed for church, because it was the White House.
“If those guys up there,” the agent said, pointing to the snipers on the roof, “can’t see your credential, they think you’re not supposed to be here.”
I made sure the credential was visible from that point on.
Before that one, in 1998, I was on the scene in Nelson County for a drop-in by President Clinton and Vice President Gore, who helicoptered in for a Democratic Party political-strategy meeting at Wintergreen.
Again, I had to go through a background check, and then, upon arriving at the location where the helicopters were to land, had to go through another search of the person.
They searched everything.
And we were just there to watch Clinton and Gore step off helicopters and get into unmarked SUVs.
We maybe saw them for a total of 30 seconds in the six hours we were on location.
There were Secret Service snipers everywhere.
One other comes to the forefront: another event with Clinton, who announced a Forest Service policy with a photo-op at Reddish Knob at the Augusta County-Rockingham County-West Virginia border in 2000.
Once again, background check, and to gain access to the photo-op location, on top of the mountain, we had to park at a location at the bottom of the mountain, and take a mini-bus to the top.
Others: several Barack Obama events in the 2008 race, including one in Harrisonburg that threw me for a loop, when I saw videos on social media of throngs of people lined up on local streets waving at the motorcade.
My thoughts when seeing those videos: did the Secret Service check those folks out?
Recent history
The most recent presidential assassination attempt before today was in 1981, the shooting of Ronald Reagan just a few months into his first term.
The perp in that one ended up being John Hinckley, a guy with serious mental-health issues.
Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of 1968 Democratic Party presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, was a Palestinian activist, so, there were political issues involved, but not of the Republican-vs.-Democrat dynamic.
There were two attempts on the life of President Ford in a 17-day period in 1975, one by a follower of Charles Manson, the second by a former FBI informant with obvious mental and emotional issues.
Keep all of that in mind, because we want to assume that the person who fired at Donald Trump today had explicit political motivations, but just wait until we get confirmation on that.