Paul Kengor: Protecting presidential candidates, protecting the public

The day after the Trump shooting Saturday in Butler — which happens to be my hometown — I got a message from a friend who loathes Donald Trump (he doesn’t like Joe Biden either). As we struggled to assess the security failure that nearly led to Trump’s assassination, my friend directed some blame at Trump: “Whose fault is it really? Trump is a rich guy who can afford a well detailed security team … and with his narcissism he probably thought he didn’t need tight security.”

It was not a charitable response. And I mention it because it’s surely not an isolated response. In fact, I was told the same thing by a pro-Biden person about Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who going back to last summer has been denied Secret Service protection from the Biden administration. That Kennedy denial has been so egregious, so recklessly irresponsible, that I interviewed Kennedy about it and have written several articles on it. I was given various excuses by Biden supporters justifying the lack of security. But there’s no excuse. It is unacceptable.

One thing Kennedy said that really resonated with me was this: “I don’t spend time worrying about my personal safety,” Kennedy told me last October. “I do worry about the safety of my family and their sense of well-being — and about the safety of bystanders if there is a more serious incident.”

Exactly. That was what I told my anti-Trump friend. Whether you like or loathe Donald Trump, an ex-president and current candidate is due major protection at public events. And not only for the candidate’s well-being. If security is lax enough that a shooter can unload a rifle at a candidate at a platform surrounded by people, innocent bystanders will get hit. That was what happened at that Butler rally.

Footage shows that the 50-year-old man who died from a bullet to the head, Corey Comperatore, was seated far from where Donald Trump was standing. He was to the far left of the grandstand, almost against the fence. It’s astonishing that he was the poor soul who got hit and killed. It was so cruelly random.

Comperatore, the father of two girls, a loving husband, could have been your father, husband, brother or son. In fact, he could have been my son, who attended the rally in Butler. My son received an invitation from a friend of a friend who volunteers for the Trump campaign. He thought it would be neat to attend a big rally and see a president and witness history. He witnessed history all right. Praise God he didn’t get killed.

As a biographer of Ronald Reagan, I can affirm that Reagan often said what RFK Jr. said. In fact, Reagan quit going to church on Sundays after the March 30, 1981, assassination attempt because he feared a mass shooter or terrorist coming into the congregation (perhaps via a vehicle filled with explosives, as happened to our Marine barracks in Lebanon in October 1983), and killing not Reagan but innocents.

The lesson: These candidates receive major security protection from the federal government — or at least should — not only for the purpose of protecting them but you. When that fails, then individuals like 50-year-old Corey Comperatore (or your own loved ones) lose their lives.