Foreign national arresed during an attempt to assassinate Donald Trump.

The suspect, Michael Steven Sandford. Reuters.

A British man was arrested for attempting to steal a gun from a police officer during a Donald Trump rally with the intent to shoot the presidential candidate. NBC News. The attack occurred in Los Vegas during a Trump rally. The suspect, Michael Steven Sandford approached a Las Vegas police officer claiming to want an autograph. He then noticed that the police officer's firearm was not locked into it's holster, and then attempted to steal both the gun and the holster. He failed and was arrested. He reportedly said that stealing a gun from a police officer was the "easiest way to acquire a gun to shoot Trump". Sandford practiced at a Las Vegas gun range, firing 20 shots from a Glock for practice. 

The Washington Post has additional information. According to them, Sandford was in the country illegally. Sandford is also autistic and was living out of his car. He has also been denied bail.

My Comment:

You would think that this would be a bigger story, but I haven't seen this story on social media. There are a few news agencies covering this, but I would hope that an assassination attempt on a major presidential candidate would be bigger news. I am guessing if this has been an attempt on Hillary Clinton there would be 24/7/365 coverage, a dozen hashtags and new gun control legislation already proposed. But since it is Donald Trump...

I think part of it is that the suspect is an illegal alien. He isn't a stereotypical one though. He's from the UK and was living out of his car. He also has some mental health issues. But he is a good example of a person living in the country illegally committing a crime. The fact that he is white has nothing to do with it, the man shouldn't be in the country period.  After he serves his presumably long sentence he should be deported back to the UK. But if we actually enforced out immigration laws, he probably wouldn't even be in the country right now.

Covering an assassination attempt on Donald Trump would give him sympathy. Above all else, the media does not want people to empathize with Donald Trump. They want to downplay the idea that people would be willing to kill Trump for his ideas. After all, if people find out that someone wanted to kill Trump for his ideas, then they may actually decide to listen to him. I came around to openly supporting Trump after his rally was attacked in Chicago. Perhaps more will support him after this attack. 

I've been saying for awhile not that the media and the Democrats have all but encouraged this attack. How long now have we been hearing from then that Trump is literally Hitler? He's been called sexist, racist, bigoted and evil, despite being none of those things. If you keep calling him that then eventually some people are going to believe it. Impressionable young people like Sandford, who may have been mentally ill, hears all this and thinks it's true. And then does what one does when they think someone is literally Hitler. 

Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, had a post about this recently. Though firmly tongue in cheek, Adams endorsed Hillary Clinton. Not because he likes her or dislikes Trump but because he was afraid that he was going to be murdered. Though the whole thing was a joke, I think his basic idea was right. People are demonizing Trump and his supporters to the point where it's only a short leap to go from disliking Trump to supporting violence against him and his supporters. I wouldn't be surprised if someone does attack Adams or any other prominent Trump supporter. After all, they are going after Trump himself. 

And there has been violence against Trump and his supporters. This isn't the first time someone tried to attack Trump. I've posted this video before but I will again:

And his supporters have come under attack as well:

This tells me that some people are taking the over the top criticism of Trump and his supporters seriously. They really think that Trump is some kind of mini-Hitler instead of a center-right politician who occasionally says controversial things. And they really think that his supporters are a crowed of bigots who deserve whatever they have coming to them. They think these actions are justified. But nothing justifies violence. Especially when they are wrong on their justifications. 

The good news is that this assassination attempt was incredibly stupid. If your plan depends on stealing a gun from a cop to kill a politician, then it's almost certainly going to fail. The attacker did not seem like he was smart enough to pull off any kind of attack, so we lucked out in that regard.

Of course the media is also going to downplay the fact that the would be assassin failed to purchase a firearm. Turns out non-residents can't purchase firearms in the United States. Since he was in the country illegally, he couldn't buy a gun without possibly being deported. And he wasn't able to get a gun from a gun show or any other source either. Seems like a terrorist was prevented from committing a murder by our current gun laws. That's something the media will never cover either...