Did anything interesting happen in the past few weeks? I jest, but my goodness! Even by the standards of what we memeicly now call “this timeline,” the latest stretch has been wild. And who knows, before this posts President Joe Biden may quit the race (perhaps even the White House); J.D. Vance could face those accusations—each more outlandish than the last. As the Babylon Bee wryly headlined it prior to Vance’s naming: “Twelve Women Come Forward Alleging They Were Sexually Assaulted By Whoever Trump’s VP Pick Is.” Heck, at this point it might be a fresh new war in Eurasia—maybe tomorrow. Stay tuned! As we continue to ingest (and struggle, valiantly, to digest) the most recent episodes of The America Sketch Comedy Hour, we are also mindful of the immense gravity of the moment. So you’ll forgive me as I pivot to a more serious tone. The moment calls for it—obviously.
No, we do not yet have the motive behind a clearly troubled young man’s assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally for his reelection. There are growing fears we may never get one. Ultimately, does it really matter? Violence against public servants, whatever its cause—be it the rhetorical “temperature” among the pundit class or simply the delusions of a madman—is per se one of the greatest harms to face any society, no less one as polarized as ours. Adding to the drama is how physically close those bullets came to changing American—even world—history. It is a deeply sobering thought. It is, essentially, the flipside of the question that has haunted our nation since November 22, 1963: What if the shooter had missed? For all our current “timeline” has thrown at us, by sheer luck we’ve caught something of a break in this instance. I say “something” because the attempt itself is an egregious crime against the American people and, I—like so many others—fear heralds even darker days ahead.
While we as a nation continue to grapple with last week’s heinous crime—which saw a father killed and two other attendees critically wounded—and try to derive useful lessons from it (besides the obvious one that the U.S. Secret Service must finally get its act together), it is also worthwhile to reflect, here briefly, on the history of political violence in America. Including snippets of how the law has evolved (or sought, unsuccessfully to evolve) to combat the phenomenon.
Note: I normally prefer not to name assassins or mass shooters, but I think we can all agree attempts on a president’s life is an historically important exception.
When Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy, there was no federal law against killing the president—indeed, any federal official. Congress quickly fixed that. After John Hinckley, Jr. nearly killed President Ronald Reagan in 1981, proponents of gun control spent the next decade pushing for a federal background check mandate. These efforts culminated in the 1993 passage of the so-called “Brady Bill.” But, in a win for federalism, U.S. Supreme Court in Printz v. United States (1997) held that the Tenth Amendment—ensuring state sovereignty—prevented the feds from compelling state and local officials to enforce the law. Fast-forward just a few years, when on 9/11 Flight United 93 crash-landed in rural Pennsylvania during a passenger revolt that many believe prevented its attack on the White House (though then-President George W. Bush was in Florida at the time). Whereas Printz saw the high court hem federal power within its proper constitutional boundaries, their treatment of the post-9/11 PATRIOT Act still troubles us civil libertarians.
Time and again, actual and attempted attacks on the president and other national institutions have produced a tug-of-war between the needs for safety, especially in public service, on the one hand and the intrinsic human right to freedom on the other. This is not a bug but a feature of the American lawmaking (and interpreting) process. Attempts on the president’s life simply broadcast this perennial battle to a wider audience.
We have come a long way. The security lapses around President Trump—abysmal by modern standards—still would have been unimaginably tight to the likes of Presidents Lincoln and Garfield, for example. The former shot in 1865 during a play, while his one bodyguard was using the bathroom. The latter hit in the back while waiting, unguarded, for a train in 1881—by a scorned office-seeker who weeks earlier had walked into the White House armed and prepared to commit the dastardly deed then and there. Lincoln’s assassination led directly to the creation of the Secret Service. This did not prevent the 1901 close-range murder of President William McKinley. Nor, even with technological and logistical advances, did it stop 1963 or 1981—though there was far more security around those presidents than in the century prior. Saturday appears to have fallen somewhere in the middle—during a time when temperatures are so high they should not be making any mistakes, let alone dozens.
Gone are the days when more devious politicians “resolved” their differences at high noon. But physical threats to the body politic are, unfortunately, alive and well. By present accounts, last Saturday a deeply troubled young man—one who did not seem particularly organized—climbed a roof just a few hundred feet from the podium and came within centimeters of murdering a former president on the precipice of reelection. That this never should have happened goes without saying, except to the effect of holding the negligent accountable—that the Secret Service chief has yet to resign is its own national scandal—and undertaking to avoid similar future tragedies. As we the people, our pundits, and politicians grapple with last Saturday’s events, it should be remembered that the law plays a vital role in protecting our democracy from the outsized destructive power of a madman committed to his or her self-appointed mission—doing so while endeavoring, as well, to keep safety and freedom in a rough equilibrium.
Alki,
Sam Spiegelman