An extraordinary moment for America’s media elite is all too ordinary in America | CNN Business

What happened at the Washington Hilton on Saturday night might have seemed extraordinary because President Trump and so many people in the presidential line of succession were in the ballroom when shots were fired outside. But we need to say out loud that it was actually all too ordinary. In America, this is all too common: a shots-fired moment, a chaotic lockdown, a spasm of violence interrupting a peaceful gathering. Thousands of media and political elites have now gone through what countless millions of other Americans have experienced in their schools, offices, malls and churches. And on most of those occasions, there were no Secret Service agents. As I crouched underneath a table in the ballroom, I didn’t know much, but I knew that help was on the way. Waves of law enforcement officials were pouring into the room, leaping from chair to chair, securing the scene. A man near me seemed hurt, or at least dazed, and a police officer helped him limp away. Everyone in the room gave thanks to the agents, bodyguards and officers who responded. But I couldn’t help but think that most of the Americans who have found themselves in the middle of a shots-fired emergency feel much more e