Three Bullets, One President

May 03, 2026

Sunday morning at the kitchen table. Coffee on. One of the boys looked up from his cereal and asked, “Did somebody try to shoot the President again?”

Again.

That word landed like a brick. Because he was right. Again.

July 13, 2024. Butler, Pennsylvania. A bullet clipped a sitting president’s ear at an outdoor rally. One American died protecting his family. Two more were wounded.

September 15, 2024. West Palm Beach, Florida. A man with a rifle hid in the brush along the fence line of Trump International Golf Club for nearly twelve hours. A Secret Service agent saw the barrel through the shrubs and engaged before the suspect could fire.

April 25, 2026. The Washington Hilton. A 31-year-old man named Cole Tomas Allen ran a 12-gauge shotgun through a magnetometer outside the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, fired on the security checkpoint, and put a Secret Service officer on the ground. The officer’s vest stopped the round. The President was evacuated. Allen left a manifesto and signed it “Friendly Federal Assassin.”

Three bullets. One president. Twenty-one months.

And here is the part that should freeze every American who can still feel a chill. The Washington Hilton is the same hotel where John Hinckley Jr. shot Ronald Reagan in 1981. Same lobby. Same driveway. Forty-five years apart.

And I have been in that hotel.

I have stayed at the Washington Hilton for a conference. I have heard President Trump speak in that ballroom. I have sat through more than one dinner under those chandeliers with a name tag on my dress and a coffee in my hand.

The Hilton is not an abstraction to me. It is carpet I have walked. It is a lobby I have crossed late at night in heels that hurt. It is a checkpoint I have stood in line for. When the news said Cole Allen ran a shotgun through a magnetometer outside the ballroom, I knew exactly which magnetometer he meant.

That is the part that does not sleep right.

I am not writing this because I am Donald Trump’s biggest fan or his loudest critic. I am writing this because I have two boys who are watching how grown-ups handle disagreement, and what they are seeing is not good.

A republic that gets used to assassination attempts is not a republic anymore. It is a country running on borrowed time and Secret Service vests.

So let me read the data so you don’t have to.

The U.S. Capitol Police investigated 9,474 threat assessment cases in 2024. Threats and concerning communications against members of Congress, their families, and their staff. In 2025, that number climbed to 14,938.

A 58 percent jump. In one year.

Now here is the strange part. The FBI’s 2024 national crime data show violent crime actually fell 4.5 percent year over year. Murder fell 14.9 percent. Robbery fell 8.9 percent. Aggravated assault fell 3 percent. In some real ways, America got safer in 2024.

But politically, we got more dangerous. Random street violence is down. Targeted political violence is up. Those two things can both be true, and they are.

A country can lose its republic without losing its crime stats.

Here is the conservative line, and I want to put it right in the middle of the page so nobody can pretend they missed it.

Argue hard. Threaten never.

That is the rule. It does not bend for our side. It does not bend for the other side.

By his own manifesto, the shooter at the Hilton was motivated by grievances on the political left. The Butler shooter had a different profile. The man in the bushes in Florida had another. The pattern is not partisan. The principle is.

If we only condemn political violence when our guy is the target, we do not have a principle. We have a team jersey.

A serious country says it plain. A bullet aimed at a president is a bullet aimed at the ballot. A death threat to a member of Congress is a death threat to the voter who sent her there. A shotgun at a checkpoint is a knife at the throat of self-government.

That has to be true whether the target is Donald Trump, Hakeem Jeffries, a federal judge, an election worker, a school board mom, a pastor, or a pregnancy center director on a Saturday morning.

One standard. Equally enforced. No asterisks.

Romans 12:18 says, “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.” (KJV)

That verse is not a suggestion to roll over. Paul also wrote that the magistrate “beareth not the sword in vain.” Government has a job. Punish the wicked. Protect the innocent. Keep the peace.

But before government does its job, citizens have to do ours. We have to be the kind of people who can disagree without dehumanizing. Who can lose an election without losing our minds. Who can call a politician corrupt without calling for him dead.

That part is on us. Not on a federal agency. Not on a platform’s content policy. On us.

So what do we actually do? Five things. None of them require a new Department of Anything.

One. Prosecute violence and true threats. Fully. Equally.

A shotgun at a public event is not rhetoric. A death threat against a senator’s children is not speech. Existing federal and state law already covers assassination attempts, weapons offenses, stalking, intimidation, and conspiracy. Use it. Publicly. Consistently. Without partisan filter. The Cole Allen prosecution is moving fast. Good. Every prosecution like it should move that fast, regardless of who the target was.

Two. Publish transparent threat data.

Capitol Police releases threat numbers. Almost nobody else does. Congress should require annual public reporting on threats and attacks against elected officials, candidates, judges, election workers, school board members, churches, pregnancy centers, and political offices. Categories for method, target, prosecution status, and taxpayer cost. Sunlight is cheap. Ignorance is expensive.

Three. Protect free speech with surgical clarity.

Conservatives must not hand bureaucrats a blank check to label parents, pastors, homeschool moms, pro-life advocates, or school board critics as “extremists.” The First Amendment protects strong speech. It does not protect true threats, weapons attacks, or targeted intimidation. The line is conduct. Always conduct. Never viewpoint. Get that line wrong and the next administration will use the same tool against the people you love.

Four. Harden civic events without militarizing civic life.

Senate investigators found severe security failures at Butler. The Washington Hilton was not even designated a National Special Security Event the night of the WHCD shooting, which is part of how a man with a shotgun got to a magnetometer in the first place. That is a fixable problem. Better screening, layered checkpoints, trained personnel, real coordination, real consequences when agencies fail. We can keep families safe at a parade without turning every town hall into an airport.

Five. Rebuild civic formation at home and in school.

Law enforcement can stop a shooter. It cannot raise a child. That work belongs to families, churches, and schools. Teach the boys and girls under your roof that political opponents are not vermin. That losing an election is not the end of the world. That courage is not cruelty and conviction is not rage. That ballots are sacred because human life is sacred.

That last one is the one no senator can do for you. That one is on the kitchen table.

After my son said “again,” I sat with my coffee a long time.

I thought about the country he will vote in. The town halls he might one day speak at. The school board meetings I drag him to. The neighbors we love who vote the other way and bring us tomatoes anyway.

I thought about every mom who ever raised a son to use his words instead of his fists, only to watch grown men on television model the opposite all day long.

And I thought about Reagan, and the Hilton, and the strange and terrible fact that we are doing this again.

Three bullets. One president. Twenty-one months.

We can do better than this. We have to. The boys are watching.

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