The Bullet, Or Not

The Democrats want you to believe that Donald Trump did not suffer a bullet wound. Yesterday they got FBI Director Christopher Wray to cast doubt on whether President Trump was struck by a bullet:

‘With respect to former President Trump, there’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,’ Wray said. ‘I don’t know right now whether that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing, could have landed somewhere else.’

Set aside whether the FBI Director is a tool of the Left (he has certainly created a track record in support of that), let's deal with the possibility that he is right. Does it matter whether it was a bullet or shrapnel? The answer is "yes" and "no."

The image of Trump getting to his feet with blood on his face, fist held high, shouting "Fight, fight, fight!" is a powerful message that the Democrats dearly want forgotten or, at least, diminished. They think shrapnel bloodying Trump is less compelling than a bullet. But it isn't.

The facts, bullet or shrapnel, remain: President Trump was targeted for assassination -- full stop. He didn't somehow coincidentally show up at a mass shooting event. He was the target. The intention was for him to die. The Secret Service did not just fail to protect him, they failed to do some pretty basic things. Reports are that the Secret Service sent too few agents, with too little preparation, and with too little real experience and training, to protect President Trump. The communication between local law enforcement and the Secret Service was constrained because it had to be relayed through someone who was on both the local law enforcement channels and the Secret Service channels rather than everyone being on the same frequency. Pre-event engagement between local law enforcement and Secret Service was limited and coordination suffered.

The question is were the Secret Service failures a reflection of poor leadership, training and planning, or were they intentional -- or if not intentional, conveniently useful? (It does not help allay suspicion that Biden denied any Secret Service protection to RFK Jr. before the assassination attempt on President Trump.) This is where the bullet vs. shrapnel argument becomes relevant.

If it was a bullet that struck Trump's ear it was not just a narrow escape and it implies a level of skill, preparation and planning that shrapnel does not. Someone with less skill, less preparation, and less planning could open fire in the direction of President Trump and hit something in his vicinity that could send a fragment of metal or glass striking Trump's ear. Yes, shrapnel could have killed him. But the capability of the shooter would be different. When you have a crazy person with access to a semi-automatic rifle and who serendipitously gets close enough to the President he could harm the president even without planning and skill, this speaks, in the Democrat mind, to the need for gun control (as was evidenced by the statements of many Democrat Congressional Representatives at the hearing on the attempted assassination).

And the shrapnel theory also draws attention away from the possibility that the attack involved more than a lone gunman (at least with logistical assistance if not additional shooters). So the Secret Service's failure is negligence, not coordination.

Finally, in the Democrats' mind, President Trump standing up after shrapnel hit him is somehow less of a showing of animalistic natural bravery than if struck by a bullet. But to come to that conclusion you have to believe that Trump, who heard the shots and felt the sting on his ear, somehow knew it wasn't a bullet, that his life was not in mortal danger, and that it was perfectly safe to stand up and create "theater" in that moment. Doesn't make sense to me. But then, again, Democrats have been telling us for years what is in President Trump's mind, so why stop now?