The Sept. 10 assassination of Charlie Kirk, the influential conservative activist and prominent media personality, at an open-air college event in Utah has reverberated across America. Among those likely reflecting deepest on the killing are other outspoken celebrities whose business is public performance — along with the security experts whose job it is to protect them.

The Hollywood Reporter spoke to James Hamilton, a seasoned advisor to the country’s most at-risk individuals, about the evolving challenges of threat assessment and mitigation. The former FBI agent created the bureau’s Close Protection School and served on its director’s own protective detail before an extended tenure in private practice, first as a key figure at the entertainment industry-favored Gavin de Becker & Associates and, more recently, his own eponymous firm.

Hamilton, who notes that protection clients often review their existing arrangements following publicized violence, explains that the environment in Utah — a large outdoor venue surrounded by elevated positions — is among the most difficult and costly to secure. “It’s eerily familiar to what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania” in July 2024, when Donald Trump was nearly murdered at a rally during the campaign for his second presidential term. “There you had the Secret Service, and they weren’t able to stop it.” He observes that Kirk’s team intentionally had him positioned under a tent: “It takes away some visual ability.” Still, “technology today allows a mediocre shooter to be highly accurate at long distances.”

Among the complications is determining the allotment of personnel as well as any coordination between private security details and law enforcement agencies. “It’s terribly tricky,” he says.

Assassination attempts are becoming a constant, from the healthcare CEO Brian Thompson and Minnesota state lawmakers to the Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C. “People think that this is some watershed moment, but a sniper shot is not new,” Hamilton says, adding, “nothing has changed in my business since Julius Caesar.”

There are two key contemporary through-lines. One is that the perpetrators typically know in advance where their targets will be. “Charlie Kirk was killed at a public appearance, not on a CVS run on a Sunday morning,” he says. The other is that the weapon is a firearm. “71 percent of attacks on protected individuals, according to research, are with a gun. There are more guns than people in America.”

Hamilton remarks that the 1960s saw its own wave of assassinations. Yet this era’s social media feedback loop increases the contagion. “There wasn’t the same way to express support as there is now — look at the fan fair Luigi [Mangione] got” after being identified as Thompson’s killer. “The public sentiment is scary. Right now, we’re just in this moment where there will be copycats. People are using violence to speak.”