In a totally shocking event, a lone gunman breached the Washington Hilton Hotel, the site of the shooting of President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981, in an attempt to harm President Donald Trump, and in theory, all those in the line of Presidential succession, at the White House Correspondents Association Annual Dinner.
About 2,500 attendees at the annual event were all in the line of danger from the crazed gunman, Cole Tomas Allen, a well educated resident of California, who graduated California Institute of Technology, graduating in 2017 with a mechanical engineering degree, and later gained a masters degree in computer science, and someone said to be thought to be no threat to anyone, based on people who know him.
This is a terrifying event, and the thought that the line of succession was endangered, is sobering. This is the result of the division that has become the norm in America in recent years; the easy accessibility of guns; and the reality of widespread mental illness.
While the gunman did not get into the actual ballroom where the event occurred, it is still horrifying and traumatic that such an event could occur in a well protected hotel by the Secret Service.
Political violence is a disease that is eating away at American domestic and international security.
The constant rising threats against members of Congress, as well as the executive and judicial branch, is a never ending crisis.
One does not have to be supportive of anyone in government, but the horrors of constant threats against individuals in all branches of government is a crisis that needs to be addressed in a sane manner.