The Correspondents' Dinner Shooting Is No Excuse for More Security Theater |
Secret service
The Correspondents' Dinner Shooting Is No Excuse for More Security Theater
Calls for more aggressive security measures evoke the post-9/11 security theater that brought us the TSA.
Joe Lancaster | 4.27.2026 2:35 PM
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(AARON SCHWARTZ/UPI/Newscom)
Secret Service agents reportedly subdued a gunman Saturday at the Washington Hilton hotel, during the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner.
"A man charged a security checkpoint armed with multiple weapons, and he was taken down by some very brave members of Secret Service," President Donald Trump said while posting security camera footage to social media.
Officials later identified the assailant as Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old California man, and said he was armed with a shotgun, handgun, and knives. Allen reportedly exchanged gunfire with Secret Service, and one agent was hit, though further details are still unknown.
Allen reportedly told law enforcement he was targeting "Trump administration officials," not Trump himself. But in a digressive manifesto purportedly sent to family members, and published by the New York Post, Allen criticized a number of Trump policies and seemingly deemed the president "a pedophile, rapist, and traitor."
Some, on both the left and the right, see Allen's near-miss as a failure that requires more extensive security measures in the future. That's a mistake, and we should always proceed with caution before subjecting ourselves to more extensive scrutiny.
Trump said the event underscores the need to build a giant ballroom at........