How many assassinations and/or assassination attempts will be made on US politicians in the US on the federal- and state level by the day of the presidential inauguration?
The clock starts from July 14, 2024, the day after the attempted assassination of Trump.
As @Quroe has mentioned in the comments, there is a certain risk of corner cases. An attempt must carry a non-negligible risk. So, for example, firing a bullet into the air in the hope that it lands with lethal force will not be considered an attempt. Nor will a plot that fails to deploy lethal force. So, a last-second Hollywood-style take down of a would-be assassin will not be considered as an attempt.
At the suggestion of @GraemeStuart, I’m adding the clarification: To “deploy lethal force” means to unleash lethal force with intent to assassinate, and with a non-trivial chance of success, even if the attempt fails. So, the second recent attempt on Trump will not count for the purposes of this question, as lethal force was not unleashed. As of SEPT-20, the count remains at zero. I apologize for any misunderstanding: wording these questions unambiguously is more difficult than I originally thought.
Certain edge cases will remain, and I will use my judgment in deciding. And I will not be betting on this question.
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@GraemeStuart The current count is zero. While there have been two attempts, the clock on this particular question started after the first attempt, and the second attempt failed to deploy lethal force. If you disagree, I’d be very interested to hear why.
@ChristopherFitzgeraldRey so, according to my understanding of the criteria an 'attempt' must succeed in deploying lethal force?
Do we mean shots fired or shots on target?
@GraemeStuart you even describe the second incident as an attempt in your comment above, so I'm very confused.
@GraemeStuart I think you mean 'intentionally deploying potentially lethal force' which is distinct from 'getting close but being prevented from intentionally deploying lethal force'.
Clarification in the description would be useful.
@GraemeStuart Yes, that was my intention. I tried to write the criteria clearly but the fact that you are confused shows I fell short. Do you have a proposed edit?
@GraemeStuart Well, there was an attempt but the criteria for this particular question were even more strict: the deployment of lethal force.
I think the main confusion is the term 'deploy'. This could mean placing a weapon in a position where it could be used for an assassination attempt. Or, it could mean actually firing a weapon or otherwise triggering any mechanism capable of succeeding. Perhaps the term 'unleash' would help clarify?
"Unleashing lethal force with intent to assassinate, even if it fails."
For example, if secret service are able to intervene and cause the attempt to fail but a weapon is discharged nonetheless. My feeling is that this would potentially be counted. Whereas, if they intervene and prevent a weapon from being discharged, you have already indicated that this doesn't count. So the discharging of the weapon is critical.
Then your example of firing into the air becomes a question of degree. There are issues of intent, competence, and the impact of intervention that come into play. I would argue that even your example, if the would-be assassin has line of site, would count as a botched attempt just as much as missing by inches would.
It's important that we know what we are betting on here.
@GraemeStuart Thanks for the suggestion. I’ve updated the question, but I’m afraid plenty of people have already interpreted the statement in the same way you have. Damn! Sorry if you placed any mana on this.
There are some corner cases. Say, God forbid and for the sake of argument, there is another assailant who has basically set up everything for their act and gets to the point where their scope is trained on their target. If they are neutralized before they take their shot, would that count? How close does it need to be before it's an "attempt"?
[Deleted comment. It posted twice.]
I suppose you could try to rely on news sources as a sort of standard. If somebody can post a news source that uses the word "assassination" or "attempt" in the title, that could be a good way to have clear criteria.
You could even try to further filter out charged language by saying that the source to resolve this would have to be from one down the middle of the isle in terms of bias from a news aggregator like Ground News.