Samantha Vinograd, CBS News national security contributor, told "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," that the country is facing "the most complex threat environment" in its history.

"In this scenario, two things can be true. It can be true that law enforcement and intelligence professionals prepared exhaustively for last night, weeks of planning, intelligence gathering, physical security barriers, officers on site," she said. "But it can also be true that in this moment, in this security environment, the paradigms of the past may not be sufficient to meet the moment."

A.T. Smith, former deputy director of the Secret Service and CBS News law enforcement analyst, said that the Secret Service will have to look at the attack "very diligently" and examine how the suspected gunman was able to get near the ballroom armed with two firearms.

Law enforcement has said that the suspect was a guest at the Washington Hilton, where the dinner was held.

Vinograd said that she hopes the attack is a "wake-up call" to law enforcement to rethink whether additional security steps are needed for events like the dinner, as well as to the public in understanding that they have a responsibility to warn others if someone they know is demonstrating signs that could lead to violence.

"Every time an incident like this happens, the optimist in my thinks, perhaps this will be a turning point, perhaps this will be a turning point where each and every person in this country thinks about what they say and how they act," Vinograd said. "Words do matter."

Weijia Jiang, CBS News senior White House correspondent and president of the White House Correspondents' Association, told "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" that it was "remarkable" to see Secret Service in action and praised agents for protecting not only the president, but journalists, Cabinet officials and others in attendance.

"That is heartening, but obviously it was a tough situation for everyone that was there," she said.

Jiang said that while she has covered shootings, murders and other tragedies, it did not prepare her for being involved in an attack.

"This is the first time that I've been on the other side of a potentially violent and deadly situation," she said.

Source: Drudge Report