How close could a sniper get to the inauguration site?

[ChoppinBroccoli]

25. The Secret Service Plans For Every Contingency

I don't know a whole lot about this subject, but I can tell you just a few observations I've made over the years. On the Sunday before the election in 2008, Obama came to Columbus to speak on the Statehouse steps, and I went to it. The security was unbelievable. The crowd was massive, but nobody got within a city block of the Statehouse without going through a metal detector. And once inside, I noticed all the sharpshooters on the roofs of all the buildings surrounding the Statehouse (there was a commotion that caused people to start looking at one of the buildings--I guess some people who weren't authorized tried to get onto the roof to watch the speech and were summarily escorted out, but that's when the sharpshooters all popped up so I could see them). And those were just the security measures I could see. It was on that day that I realized that it would be nearly impossible to assassinate a President in this day and age.

Also, later into Obama's presidency, he came back to Columbus to give a speech, and he stayed in a hotel that I pass by on my way to the courthouse every day. From the parking garage across the street from the hotel, my friend pointed out that there was a line of school buses parked bumper-to-bumper behind the hotel. He asked me, "Do you know what that is?" When I said no, he said, "It's the blast radius. Those school buses are lined up at the exact distance away so that if someone tries to drive a car bomb in, it will blow up before it causes any damage to the hotel." That's when I knew Secret Service protection was on a whole different level.

I feel pretty confident that Joe is going to be safe next Wednesday no matter where they choose to hold the inauguration.