I HAVE no Secret Service protection while running for president of the United States. But the other two guys do. And once again you see how relative that is. A twenty-year-old kid climbs on a roof and gets all the time he needs to aim his father’s AR-15 assault rifle.
Attempts to kill a presidential candidate are nothing new, far from it. A German shot Teddy Roosevelt in the chest in 1912, but because Teddy liked giving long speeches and to read them from paper, the thick, folded pack of paper in his chest pocket largely stopped the bullet.
The other Roosevelt had already been elected but not yet sworn in, when an Italian tried to kill him in 1933. The shooter was a short man, he needed a folding chair and it wobbled as he aimed. Miss. He hit someone else.
Jerry Ford was shot twice within three weeks in 1975, both times by a woman. Miss and miss. Five years later, Ronald Reagan was actually hit, but only because a missed bullet ricocheted off his armored car.
The two Roosevelts, Ford and Reagan survived their attacks. Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy did not. All four were elected in a year that ended with a zero, 1860, 1880, 1900 and 1960. More remarkably even: since 1840, every president elected in such a round year died while in office: Harrison (1840), Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Harding (1920), Roosevelt (1940), Kennedy. It was considered the Presidential Curse until the attack on Reagan (elected in 1980) failed, and a grenade intended for George W. Bush (2000) failed to go off.
Such details are of interest only to Trivial Pursuit fans. What concerns me is the question that will, once again, yield no answer: what does a young man barely out of high school, or his dad, or anyone else, need an AR-15 assault weapon at home for? In America, you’re not even allowed to yell “Fire!” inside a movie theater, but in many states you are allowed to walk in there carrying an AR-15 under your coat.
I find that strange. Odd. Weird. Crazy.
* VanderBus left home at the age of six weeks and went hunting for a city bus in Maine. He caught the bus. It cost him one eye, but he won a standing ovation from everyone who watched him do it. VanderBus, since then mayor of Bicker Hollow, is running for president of the United States.
