
On Saturday, July 14, a 20-year-old local boy with virtually no online footprint or history of political radicalism brought a ladder and rifle to the Pennsylvania grounds where presidential candidate Donald Trump was about to speak to supporters. The would-be assassin stationed himself on a low, unsecured, slightly sloped rooftop with a direct line of sight to Trump, a mere 130 yards away, and got off a shot that came within a hair’s breadth of killing the likely next President. A Secret Service sniper then eliminated the threat (but only after he got off a total of eight shots, murdering one Trump supporter and critically wounding two others).
