Assassination Attempt: A Sniper’s Take

Online video and social media accounts claim that the 2 black BDU-clad agents had eyes on the assassin for over a minute before they acted. In the video, both agents have sniper rifles chambered in what appears to be .300 Win Mag, a common round for military-grade sniper rifles, and were accessorized with very high-powered optics. For reference, at 150 yards, you can almost count eyelashes on a dude’s face. If they were in fact looking at the shooter, they knew what was unfolding and would have taken the shot.

Secret Service Counter Snipers are some of the best in the business. They are trained to an extremely high standard; many of them have backgrounds in military sniping.

From the video, it appears as though the agent in the kneeling was doing routine scans. It is possible that once he heard shots fired, he took his eyes out of his scope to get better situational awareness. Surveilling through a scope for long periods is hard work and you get tunnel vision very easily. Doing this with a tripod is even more difficult. From the video, it’s impossible to tell what exactly they were looking at, an adjustment of an inch of their barrel would equate to a completely different field of view inside their optic. They were probably responsible for a huge sector of fire at the time of the shooting and not looking directly at the shooter’s location. 

Once shots wrang out, you can see both agents readjust themselves and attempt to locate where the shooter was. They were the ones who eventually killed him.

It doesn’t appear the assassin had an optic on his rifle. If the rifle was zeroed, 150 yards is not an impossible shot with iron sights- especially in the prone. For reference, all Marines (even non-combat MOS) must qualify annually on the rifle range. The easy part of the qualification is shooting a 10-inch disk 10 times from 100 yards. It can be done with either iron sights or a combat optic.

His position on a slightly sloped roof may have contributed to a slightly suboptimal shooting position, but nothing that would make it extremely difficult to make the shot.

It’s been reported that Soy-boy was using an AR-15. The AR-15 is simply a platform, there are numerous variations that the weapon could be chambered in; 9mm, .223, 6.5 Creedmoor, .308; the list goes on. Typically speaking, the larger the bullet, the more propellant is required thus the less effect the environment has on the bullet’s path due to the projectile’s mass. Depending on what the weapon was chambered in, it’s hard to determine what effect wind had on the shot. Even the best shot by the best shooter is subject to a sudden gust of wind.

Wind is a formidable challenge when taking a shot. Anyone who has attempted long-range shooting knows this, it’s most often the decisive factor between hitting or missing the target. While elevation is another crucial variable, it remains a constant, known variable once a weapon is properly sighted in. It’s the ability to accurately judge and compensate for wind—making the right “windage call”—that truly distinguishes a professional marksman.

Reports are that there may have been 5-mph winds at the time of the shooting. 5 mph or less would have negligible effects on a rifle cartridge (.223/.556, .308, etc.) at that distance, but would throw something like .22 off target. We’ll have to wait for confirmation to see what the size of the bullet was.

What the Secret Service needs to address is the complete failure of perimeter security. With all the technology at their disposal (drones, thermal imaging, magnetometry, cell phone tracking, etc.) a lone wolf was able to get on top of a nearby building and take a shot at President Trump. There are grumblings that the Trump team has been denied additional security as recently as a few weeks ago. There have even been calls by the left to strip him of any Secret Service protection because of his “convicted felon” status. This event also highlights the fact that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had been denied Secret Service protection by the Biden administration. Really makes you wonder what’s going on.

The bottom line is this was a failure by the Secret Service. Not the counter snipers on the roof, but those involved in the overall planning and execution of the protection of the President. Manpower needs to be drastically increased- this was not a complex landscape in an urban environment with thousands of windows and rooftops that would be suitable firing positions. It was an open field with a handful of metal-roofed warehouses surrounding the event. There needs to be a congressional inquiry- in addition to the predictably incomplete FBI investigation and Donald Trump as well as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. need the same protection that Biden himself gets.