摘要：本月，在美国两座不同的城市，当高处传来的枪声划破天空时，人们只能仓皇逃离，却根本看不到致命枪手的影子。这些几乎难以察觉的狙击手让安全专家们纷纷发出警告：由来已久狙击暗杀手段日益成为现代杀手的首选工具，他们往往受到无处不在的网络仇恨言论煽动。

2024年7月13日，特朗普在宾夕法尼亚竞选时被狙击手击中耳朵，一现场观众丧命

本月，在美国两座不同的城市，当高处传来的枪声划破天空时，人们只能仓皇逃离，却根本看不到致命枪手的影子。这些几乎难以察觉的狙击手让安全专家们纷纷发出警告：由来已久狙击暗杀手段日益成为现代杀手的首选工具，他们往往受到无处不在的网络仇恨言论煽动。

几个世纪以来，狙击手一直是对美国政要和名人的潜在威胁。但安全专家表示，当前美国恶劣的政治氛围，再加上网络快速传播的激进主义威胁以及枪支泛滥等问题，使这种新兴致命暴力形式越来越流行并引起美国社会和专家的紧张不安。

9月10日，在犹他州一所大学，特朗普总统的青年政治盟友查理·柯克在安保团队近距离保护下向观众发表讲话时，一名枪手在距离他约152米的屋顶上，射出了致命一枪。

9月24日，一名男子手持步枪站在达拉斯一栋建筑的楼顶，向附近的美国移民与海关执法局（ICE）外勤办公室扫射，造成1名移民被拘留者死亡、2人重伤，随后该男子自杀身亡。

而在这两起命案发生之前的2024年7月13日，宾夕法尼亚州一名刺客在屋顶上向参加竞选集会的唐纳德·特朗普开枪，子弹擦过总统的耳朵，导致1名观众死亡，该枪手随后被美国特勤局的反狙击小组击毙。

CNN执法分析师、前特勤局特工乔纳森·瓦克罗指出，处于一定距离之内使用步枪瞄准镜的狙击手，即便很少接受专业训练，也能给被暗杀对像及其周边的人造成致命伤害。他强调：“我们正目睹暗杀威胁环境发生的巨大转变。特勤局和私人安保公司保护政要和名人免受手枪、利刃等近距离袭击的一套有效方法正在失效，他们必须设法防止越来越多的远距离威胁。”

特朗普总统的青年政治盟友查理·柯克因经常发表极右言论遭暗杀

二、现代“暗杀文化”在美国兴起

除了出于政治动机的袭击者令人不安的狙击手段外，暴力问题研究者还对一个现象日益担忧：一些无暴力倾向前科的人，往往在大量网络恶毒言论影响下，在相对较短时间内被激进化。

瓦克罗称“这种现代暗杀文化是一种新兴威胁：它是怨恨、意识形态与道德绝对主义感的危险结合体。”执法研究人员过去通常会通过审视潜在枪手的背景，找出被忽视的危险信号如行为问题、配偶虐待、犯罪行为等，以解释其逐步走向暴力升级的过程。

瓦克罗指出，回顾近期的暗杀事件，没有证据表明暗杀特朗普长期以来有暴力想法；2024 年 12 月 4 日在纽约杀害联合健康集团首席执行官布莱恩・汤普森的凶手此前也没有暴力倾向；枪击柯克遇的刺客也没有任何过往暴力记录。是什么让他们如此迅速地转变，并决定行凶呢？他表示，答案之一在于网络文化：这种文化常常美化针对“认定的政治对手”的暴力行为，从而可能煽动并诱发更多意识形态暴力。

犹他州州长斯潘塞·考克斯此前表示，柯克遇刺案的枪手在犹他州郊区长大，家庭关系亲密，却“在相当短的时间内”被激进化。该枪手在弹壳上留下了信息，内容混杂着网络迷因和对电子游戏的影射，表明其深陷于充满讽刺意味的网络世界。

联邦调查局官员称，达拉斯ICE大楼枪击案的嫌疑人在实施袭击前，曾在网上搜索柯克遇刺的视频，并留下了“明确反ICE”且“表明对联邦政府怀有仇恨”的字条。

因而，安全专家表示，一个关键的解决方案是，民选官员及其他有政治影响力的人士应带头降低妖魔化言论调门。瓦克罗强调：“我们必须开始遏制充满仇恨的言论，因为我们正处于全国性的混乱失控状态。”

但在左右两翼为争夺选民支持而日益极化的现实政治形势下，要让美国政客及其吹鼓手降低政治调门，无疑是与虎谋皮。因而，美国的政治暗杀事件将与其枪击事件一样持续成为对政要、名人和社会安全的威胁。

2025年9月21日联合国大会召开前夕，美国特勤局警察在纽约联合国总部外巡逻

三、安保机构与私人安保公司面临越来越大压力，被迫调整安保策略

通常情况下，对负责保护美国政要的特勤局等执法部门和保护名人的私人安保公司的专业安保团队来说，他们工作中最关键的部分早在受保护对象公开露面之前就已开始。

前联邦调查局监督特工、汉密尔顿安保集团创始人詹姆斯·汉密尔顿表示：“无论过去还是将来，暗杀的核心始终是能否与受保护者发生物理接触。”

汉密尔顿指出，安保团队监控针对受保护者的威胁、并在其抵达前勘察场地都是标准操作，但要预判远距离威胁，还需采取更多有效的方法。他说：“你要检查周边的每一栋建筑，检查每一个屋顶通道，在你需要控制的区域内，你要事先在每一扇通道门上贴好封条，然后反复检查，确保封条没有被破坏。”

瓦克罗强调，安保工作归根结底还在于“改造环境，阻断狙击手可能指向受保护对象的视线”。这意味着要将保护范围扩大到手枪射程之外。“如果我无法阻断通往附近屋顶的视线，我有两个选择：要么部署穿制服的警察在屋顶形成威慑，要么调整场地整体布局，以保护要员的就座区域。”

但这类措施可能超出一些名人的负担能力或可获取范围。针对安保人员未能阻止枪手暗杀查理·柯克的指责，《查理·柯克秀》执行制片人安德鲁·科尔维特）在本周的播客节目中表示，在柯克遇袭的犹他谷大学活动现场，其安保团队面临诸多限制。他说：“为我们的安保团队说句公道话，大家需要明白，他们对屋顶及周边区域没有管辖权，在校园里，他们的管辖权只限于查理的身体周围区域。”

因而，汉密尔顿向客户建议，室内活动通常比户外活动安全得多。他补充称，随着激烈政治言论激增、威胁层出不穷，预计会有更多政客及其他知名演讲者选择封闭场地。“室内环境基本能排除狙击手的威胁，消除那些‘看不见的危险’。”

汉密尔顿表示，虽然租用室内场地成本更高，但通过门口的金属探测器和安检人员对入场人员进行检查会更加容易。

对于面临威胁的政府机构，例如ICE设施遇袭事件或近期亚特兰大美国疾病控制与预防中心总部枪击事件。专家表示，其现场安保团队也必须做出调整。

汉密尔顿说：“我敢肯定，他们现在正在彻底打破原有的操作手册。以前，重点是防撞柱、路障和阻止汽车爆炸袭击。现在，他们还必须考虑步枪、通道以及通过瞄准镜能看到的一切。”

2025年9月11日特朗普总统改变传统，将纪念9·11活动改为在五角大楼庭院内举行

已有迹象表明，人们对狙击手和政治暴力的担忧正日益加剧。一名消息人士此前向CNN透露，特朗普出席的9·11纪念仪式就从原来计划的五角大楼传统的楼外举办地迁至内部庭院。

柯克遇刺后，多名国会议员及其工作人员也向CNN表示，他们将推迟近期的户外活动。部分人还动用私人资金，为在国会山以外的活动聘请私人安保。

众议院监督委员会主席詹姆斯·科默近期提议将限制户外活动作为临时解决方案。佛罗里达州众议员贾里德·莫斯科维茨称自己曾是暗杀目标，如今已不再举办户外活动。

Snipers in this highly charged political climate are a wake-up call, security experts say. By Josh Campbell on CNN. September 27, 2025.

As gunshots pierced the air from high above, people in two different American cities this month found themselves running from a deadly shooter they could not see.

The nearly undetectable threat of snipers has security professionals sounding the alarm as age-old tactics of assassination become the tool of choice for modern killers often fueled by ubiquitous streams of online hate.

Snipers have been a potential threat for centuries, but security experts say the current toxic United States political climate coupled with the threat of rapid online radicalization and easy access to guns requires an especially urgent adjustment to an emerging form of deadly violence.

Multiple recent high-profile incidents have put security professionals on edge.

At a Utah university this month, a gunman perched on a rooftop less than 500 feet from Charlie Kirk fired one fatal round as the conservative activist was addressing an audience while flanked by a security team providing close protection.

And this week in Dallas, a man armed with a rifle atop a building sprayed bullets into a nearby Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office, killing one migrant detainee and critically injuring two others before taking his own life.

Both killings came after an attempted assassin on a roof in Pennsylvania opened fire on Donald Trump during a campaign rally last year, grazing the president’s ear and killing a member of the audience before the gunman himself was taken out by a counter sniper team from the US Secret Service.

“We are witnessing a seismic shift in the current threat environment,” said Jonathan Wackrow, CNN Law enforcement analyst and former Secret Service agent, who notes a sniper at relatively close range and using optics on a rifle requires very little training to be lethal.

“The Secret Service and private security firms have developed a good approach to protecting individuals from the close in threat – handguns, sharp edge weapons, direct assault,” he said. “But this is a new environment for them, where they now have to be worried about these long-range threats.”

Security teams ‘shaking off their playbooks’

For security industry professionals, the most critical part of their job comes well before a high-profile person steps foot in public.

“Assassination has always been, and will always be, about physical access to the protected person,” said James Hamilton, former FBI supervisory special agent and founder of the Hamilton Security Group.

While it is standard practice for security teams to monitor threats to individuals under their protection and scope out venues in advance of their arrival, Hamilton said a methodical approach is needed to anticipate threats from afar.

“You go to every single surrounding building, you check every single roof access,” he said. “In the area you control, you put tape on every one of those damn access doors and then you check it again to ensure no one has broken the seal.”

Wackrow stressed that protecting professionals also “comes down to manipulating the environment, breaking up the line of sight” a sniper may have towards the person they are guarding.

It’s about extending protection even beyond the handgun range, 25 or 50 yards away.

“If I can’t block the line of sight to a nearby rooftop, I now have a couple choices: I can either put uniformed police officers up there as a deterrent, or I can shift how the entire venue is structured to protect where the principal is seated.”

Such measures may be beyond what a private citizen can afford or have access to.

Andrew Kolvet, executive producer of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” said in an episode of the podcast this week that Kirk’s security team faced limitations with the event at Utah Valley University, where he was killed.

“In defense of our security team, people need to understand that they do not have jurisdiction on the rooftops or the surrounding area,” Kolvet said. “Their only jurisdiction on a campus is Charlie’s physical proximity.”

Hamilton advises clients that indoor events are typically far safer than those held outside.

“It largely takes away the sniper, it takes away the thing I can’t see,” he said, adding he expects more politicians, and other high-profile speakers will opt for enclosed venues amid a surge in heated political rhetoric and myriad threats.

While renting an indoor space can be more expensive, it’s easier to screen people coming in through doors with metal detectors and officers conducting searches, Hamilton said.

For government agencies facing threats, like in the case of the attack on an ICE facility or the recent shooting at the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, experts say their security teams on the ground must adapt as well.

“I’m quite certain they’re totally shaking off their playbooks right now,” Hamilton said. “Before, the focus was on bollards, barricades, and stopping vehicle bombings. Now, they’ve also got to be thinking about rifles, access, and what can be seen through a scope.”

There are already signs of rising anxiety over snipers and political violence.

A 9/11 memorial ceremony Trump attended was moved from the Pentagon’s traditional site outside the building walls to an internal courtyard, a source previously told CNN.

Multiple members of Congress and their staff also told CNN after Kirk’s assassination they are postponing outdoor events for the near future. And some are using their own funds to hire private security for events away from Capitol Hill.

House Oversight Chairman James Comer recently proposed limiting outdoor events as a temporary solution. Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida, who says he was the target of an assassination attempt, no longer holds outdoor events.

Modern ‘assassination culture’ emerging

Beyond the disturbing tactics used by recent politically motivated attackers, those who study violence have also expressed growing concern over the relatively short period someone with no prior history of violent tendencies can be radicalized, often by torrents of vitriol accessible online.

“This modern assassination culture is a new and emerging threat – a dangerous mixture of grievance and ideology, plus a sense of moral absolutism,” Wackrow said.

Law enforcement researchers have historically looked to a shooter’s past to identify missed red flags, such as behavioral problems, spousal abuse, or criminal activity, that may help explain their progression to increasingly violent action.

“But now, when you look back at the United Healthcare CEO’s killer, he wasn’t a violent person before,” Wackrow said. “You look at the Trump shooting, there was no evidence of this person having violent ideations over time. We didn’t see any past violence with the Kirk assassin. What made them change so quickly and decide to kill?”

One answer, he says, lies in an online culture that can often glorify violence against perceived political enemies, thereby potentially fomenting and inspiring additional ideological violence.

Police at the scene of a shooting at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Dallas, Texas, on September 24, 2025. Jeffrey McWhorter/Reuters

Kirk’s suspected shooter, who grew up in a Utah suburb with a close-knit family, had been radicalized “in a fairly short amount of time,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox previously said. The shooter left messages on the bullet casings that included a mix of internet memes and allusions to video games that suggest a deep immersion in an irony-soaked online world.

And the suspect in the Dallas ICE building shooting had searched online for videos of Kirk’s assassination before he carried out his own attack, and left notes that were “definitively anti-ICE” and indicated “hatred for the federal government,” according to FBI officials.

Experts say one critical solution is for elected officials and others with political clout to lead the charge in ratcheting down demonizing language.

“We have to start suppressing the hate-filled rhetoric,” Wackrow said, “because we’re in this national tailspin.”

来源：读行品世事一点号