P.S. I suspect this thread will be used infrequently but repeatedly. It would also be a good place to note when Secret Service staff are thrown out of foreign countries for misbehavior:
The obvious example would be the guy who tried to assassinate Trump in Pennsylvania. If he hadn’t been shot, he’d have kept on shooting. And even with as bad a shot as he was, eventually he’d have gotten lucky.
Trump got down, and was well-protected by a combination of the podium and staff, right away (1 second?) after being shot, only coming up for his triumphant photo op once he was sure the shooter was no longer a danger, about a minute later
I will give you that the Secret Service, and people in the crowd, would have been in additional danger if no one on the government side was armed. Maybe Crooks would have tried to get away, but he did shoot into the crowd after shooting Trump.
Having all Secret Service bodyguards armed is low reward for high risk, as seen in Philadelphia today.
This one does not involve a Secret Service employee, but it sounds like, if the news reports are correct, the shooter must have been working with the SS.
A Biden administration “pre-event site security advisor” accidentally shot and killed his girlfriend this past Tuesday:
I’ve borrowed Theodore Roosevelt and the Assassin by Gerard Helferich, from the public library, put it on my Kindle, and started reading. It’s looks good.
However, as I just put in another thread, on being shot, Teddy quickly asked his bodyguards to NOT hurt the assassin. And AFAIK (not far in the book yet) the bodyguards, and local police, obeyed.
Back then, a former president, like Teddy, was not under Secret Service protection. If SS had been there, who knows what they would have done.
As did Andrew Jackson. Richard Laurence rushed him and fired two pistols at Jackson. They both misfired. Jackson started beating the would-be assassin with Jackson’s cane.
When two Puerto Ricans attempted to attack President Truman in 1950, Secret Service agents and White House police stopped them at the front door. The exchange of gunfire resulted in one of the attackers and one White House officer dead, and another officer and the other attacker wounded.
The song seems to inspire outstanding performances. Here’s the same singer you link to, Anita Gillette, 50+ years later (and she arguably improved a bit):
