Pikto, your history is a bit weak.
Reagan was shot.
Gerald Ford was shot at.
A guy shot at the White House, thinking he saw Clinton, and another guy flew an airplane at the White House, trying to hit Clinton. He missed, and hit the lawn, and died.
Nutcases with guns have been arrested trying to kill virtually every american president since Kennedy.
Bush Senior was almost blown up visiting Kuwait.
Basically, someone, somewhere, is always planning on killing the president of the US, including a few right now...
So what this tells us is that the Secret Service does a pretty good job.
And the Italian equivalent probably does too. If this guy had a Beretta, instead of a scale model of the Duomo, its extremely unlikely he would have gotten that close to Berlisconi.
Berlisconi is not universally popular in Italy- lots and lots of people dont like him. Just like any politician, especially rich fat cat politicians who seem to buy their way into office, anywhere in the world.
So attacks like this tell us nothing new.
I am more interested in the recent testimony in the criminal trial in Sicily, where former mobsters are talking about Berlisconi's government, and its deals with the Comorra and other criminal gangs in Italy.
That could prove to be a whole lot more painful to him than a model church was...