The Secret Service agent’s fake hands are not fake hands folks

I came across what initially appeared to be an interesting story yesterday.  After President Trump’s inauguration, a number of people noticed that one of the Secret Service agents protecting Trump did not move his hands for a long period of time.  It almost looked as his he had prosthetic hands.  Since it seems impossible for a double hand or arm amputee to be on the President’s close protection detail, there had to be another explanation.

Oh, boy, the internet is on the case!  Next thing you know, we’ll connect the dots between the fake hands with some golden showers and a child abuse network run out of a pizzeria all funded by George Soros and orchestrated by the Queen of England.

Some speculation was interesting, but ultimately untrue.  Could he have been wearing prosthetic arms while under an oversized jacket, be gripping a sub-machine gun that he was ready to instantly deploy if there was a threat to the President?  Back in the 1980’s the Secret Service would carry Uzis but today the more likely option would be a MP7 or a FN P90.

On the other hand, is it possible that he was wearing “tactical” prosthetics that concealed a weapon?  So far, these types of weapons have only been seen in science fiction like Ghost in the Shell.  In this near-future fictional setting, many people have exchanged their real bodies for prosthetic ones, becoming cyborgs.  In several episodes of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, a assassin or body guard will have concealed weapon in his or her arm, ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice.

Low and behold, if you watch the following video you can actually see the Secret Service agent moving his hands at about 30 seconds in.

Of course the internet can probably spin a conspiracy theory out of this as well, saying that the “fake” arms also included animatronics but I tend to think that this gentlemen was just keeping his arms close, perhaps concealing a sub-machine gun under his jacket, and that it just looked a little odd on camera.

While this story is probably much ado about nothing, it is still interesting to speculate about what the future of security, counter-terrorism, and close protection may look like.  We already live in a world where nearly everyone we encounter is carrying a phone, camera, and recording device in their pocket.  These technologies will soon be so advanced that they may be embedded in the human body, if someone hasn’t done it already.  The same could be true for deadly weapons such as firearms and bombs.

A few years back, one terrorist actually blew himself of using a “butt bomb” and Al Qaeda’s Inspire magazine has even included instructions for building a rectal bomb.  Thankfully, jihadists are not the sharpest tacks in the drawer, but for a more sophisticated enemy, the high stakes world of political assassination is one rife with creative ways to kill.