(5 of 5)
It would be callous or worse to scoff at efforts taken anywhere to make people safer. The important and powerful will always have to be given special protection because they face special risks. Moreover, nobody should have trouble understanding why the U.S. is more anxious about security matters than other parts of the world: the U.S. is in fact more dangerous than other countries. In 1980, according to Handgun Control in Washington, murders by handgun alone killed eight people in Canada, eight in Britain and 11,522 in the U.S. Such facts, never mind the history of frequent assassination attempts, dictate that ordinary people, as well as Presidents, must move about with considerable care.
To see the limits of the utmost care, however, is not to scoff. It is to realize that those who meticulously plan for safety are rational people caught up in the task of trying to anticipate the will-o'-the-wisp quirks of irrationality. To suppose it can be done without failures is to trade in rationality for some false sense of security.
—By Frank Trippett