On Sunday, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump had to be whisked away while members of his Secret Service detail fired upon an apparent would-be assassin who they had spotted pointing an assault-style rifle toward the golf course Trump was on. We’ve reached an inflection point in our society. We can’t keep the most vulnerable among us, our school children, safe from shooters, and now we can’t guarantee the security of the most protected high-ranking officials in and around our government.
It’s time to ask whether we’re OK with ignoring the root cause of this lunacy. I, for one, am not.
We can’t keep the most vulnerable among us, our school children, safe from shooters, and now we can’t guarantee the security of the most protected high-ranking officials in and around our government.
Sunday’s incident was another close call just two months after the attempted assassination of Trump at an open air rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The Secret Service internal report on its own lapses, which led to eight shots fired at Trump by a young sniper on July 13, was scathing. Yet, despite all their obvious mistakes that day, we’ve essentially dumped a now virtually impossible task on the lap of federal agents and told them to figure it out. That task, to guard the lives of their protectees in outdoor settings, including in the 31 states that allow citizens to walk around displaying a gun, in a nation with 20 million assault-style rifles, defies logic. Something must change.
We can talk all day about the need for increased use of technology, drones, cameras, aircraft, dogs, increased staffing of the Secret Service and enhanced federal funding for local police support of the Secret Service, but none of that will change the fact that people who should never have a gun are walking around with high-powered weapons. In fact, the Secret Service budget has expanded by 55% in the last decade according to the CATO institute. Those extra dollars seem to not have had an impact on the agency’s ability to successfully carry out their “Zero Fail” mission. That’s because you can’t just throw money at an implausible mission and hope it helps.
The man arrested in Sunday’s incident had been charged more than 100 times by police in North Carolina, including charges of possessing a weapon of mass destruction and a fully automatic machine gun, resisting an officer, and hit and run. We don’t yet know whether this man was in lawful possession of the assault-style rifle he wielded on Sunday, nor do we know whether he had any felony convictions that would have precluded his purchase or possession of a gun. Nevertheless, ask any responsible gun owner if this guy should have a gun, and they’d tell you, “No.” That’s where we need to focus: the guns, and people who shouldn’t have them.
The truth is that the Secret Service didn’t fail on Sunday. Agents spotted a rifle barrel pointing through the shrubs along the golf course fence line. While some agents safeguarded Trump, others fired shots at the suspect. Trump was not harmed, and the assailant was eventually apprehended by Martin County Sheriff’s deputies. That’s the problem with too many guns in the hands of too many potential bad actors: Everything can go well and still nearly kill a presidential nominee. That’s why we need bipartisan action on guns now.
And there are things we can do to focus on root causes — guns and mental health. Here are three to start:
First, double the size and budget of the federal agency responsible for enforcing existing gun laws, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The ATF is woefully understaffed and barely able to do what we’re asking of it, including find stolen guns and arrest people who unlawfully manufacture weapons or parts like ghost guns and fully automatic weapons, trace weapons found at crime scenes and halt the illegal flow of weapons into the United States. They’re supposed to do all of that, across the country and the globe, with less than 3,000 agents and a recent $50 million slash to their budget.
Second, it’s time to relieve the Secret Service of all of its other duties other than protective services. The Secret Service investigates financial crimes, including counterfeiting, forgery, theft, credit card fraud, telecommunications fraud and computer fraud. They also investigate threats to the financial systems of federally insured institutions. These duties are remnants of the agency’s history under the Treasury Department. We don’t have the luxury of preserving remnants anymore. Those responsibilities can be divvied up among Homeland Security Investigations, the FBI and U.S. Postal Inspectors.
Third, we need to significantly reduce the number of assault-style rifles in this country. Research shows that not only are these weapons preferred by mass shooters, but past federal bans on such weapons actually worked to reduce mass shootings. According to Everytown, “A study found that the federal prohibition on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines was associated with a significant decrease in public mass shootings and related casualties, preventing at least 11 public mass shootings during the 10 years it was in effect. The researchers also estimated that had the law remained in effect from 2005 through 2019, it would have prevented 30 mass shootings that resulted in the death of 339 people and wounded 1,139 more.”
There’s irony in the fact that Donald Trump in February promised at the NRA convention that if re-elected, “No one will lay a finger on your firearms,” and, boasted that while president he “did nothing” to curb guns. Now, Trump has been the target of two attempted assassinations in close to two months, with both assailants carrying an assault-style weapon. The man who brags that he did nearly nothing in the face of horrific mass shootings during his term should realize it’s time to act. If he and his party don’t confront that reality, I’m sure Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz will be happy to lead the way.