The assassination of Charlie Kirk at a Utah Valley University event on Wednesday will provoke changes in how political commentators and activists organize their personal security.
While American traditions of free speech and patriotism have long fostered unity against the outbursts of political street violence regularly seen globally, political assassinations remain a scourge on our democratic republic. Like so many of his public events, Kirk’s appearance on Wednesday was designed to foster robust and sometimes entertaining debate on matters of public import. There are few more important American traditions. It’s a big problem that a single sniper wreaked such havoc on such an important American experience and its innocent purveyor.
One immediate development from this assassination is likely to be the use of countersnipers by private security teams protecting high-profile political commentators. Kirk’s security detail consisted of his private armed security team and uniformed police officers. But while this protective posture around Kirk’s speaking area might have stopped a threat from the crowd, it failed to deter, detect, or defeat the gunman who took Kirk’s life with a single bullet fired from 200 yards away.
The problem here is that the best and sometimes only way to defeat an aspiring sniper is with other snipers. Recent Secret Service experience offers a case in point. As we saw in the failed July 13, 2024, assassination attempt against President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, it was a Secret Service countersniper team officer who killed Thomas Matthew Crooks as he fired on Trump. Absent that countersniper team, Trump’s Secret Service detail would have had to evacuate the president under continuing fire while waiting for the Secret Service Counter Assault Team or other law enforcement personnel to engage Crooks in his elevated position. Line-of-sight angles would have made that very difficult. Put simply, countersnipers offer a priceless tool in identifying possible sniper positions, monitoring them, and, if necessary, neutralizing any emerging threats.
Certain other top politicians also have federal protective security details that can call upon countersniper team support. These include protective assignments under the authority of the Capitol Police, U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Marshals Service, FBI, Diplomatic Security Service, and the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, etc. The problem is that when you get beyond a few specialized units, countersniper teams are in very short supply.
Around the nation, they are often limited to specialized police units such as SWAT teams. And while Kirk’s assassination means that state and local law enforcement agencies are likely to be more receptive to future requests by private security teams for countersniper support at events, those deployments will undermine SWAT deployment readiness for other incidents.
Moreover, there will be significant logistical and legal complexities related to deploying private security countersniper teams. Even if a private protective team is operating in a state where rifle carry rules are more lenient, qualifying to serve in a private countersniper security role is likely to be a complex procedure. That’s for good reason: Countersnipers must operate as two-person teams, constantly scanning crowds, rooftops, and windows for threats. The speed and accuracy of their decisions and actions carry profound ramifications. Mistakes mean innocents dying.
Because of these limitations on countersniper availability, we should expect political commentators to hold more events indoors or under tents, for example, that obscure the line of sight from sniper vantage points. Expect private security teams to employ more static security outside buildings that have vantage threat potential and aerial drones that can monitor rooftops or other locations of concern.
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Whatever form they take, added protective efforts are clearly going to be required.
There is cause for hope. The threat of political violence has special poignancy today on the 24th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. But just as al Qaeda hijackers sought a political massacre with their Flight 93 targeting of the Capitol or White House, it was innocent Americans who stopped the terrorists that day. In the same way, amid the recent history of attacks against Trump, Kirk, and other politicians, including Melissa Hortman, Americans can and should now unify in utterly rejecting violence as a response to even the most emotive domestic political disagreements.