Attempted assassination of Trump: The long history of violence against U.S. presidents
Political assassinations in the United States have a long and disturbing history.
The , who narrowly escaped death when a bullet grazed his right ear while he was speaking at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, highlights the danger of those seeking votes in a country whose constitution guarantees citizens the right to bear arms.
Trump joins a not-so-exclusive club of U.S. presidents, former presidents and presidential candidates who have been the target of bullets. Of the 45 people who have served as president, four have been .
Given the near mythic status of U.S. presidents, and the nation鈥檚 superpower role, political assassinations strike at the very heart of the American psyche.
鈥檚 killing in 1865 and that of in 1963 are key moments in the history of the United States. (1881) and (1901) are less remembered, but their deaths nonetheless rocked the nation at the time.
Secret Service provides protection
It was after McKinley鈥檚 assassination that the U.S. Secret Service was given .
The last American president to be shot was Ronald Reagan, .
Reagan was leaving a Washington hotel after giving a speech when gunman John Hinckley Jr. fired shots from a .22-calibre pistol. One of the bullets ricocheted off the president鈥檚 limousine and hit him under the left armpit. Reagan spent 12 days in hospital before returning to the White House.
Other presidents have been shot at, but luckily, not injured.
In 1933, . Roosevelt wasn鈥檛 hit but the mayor of Chicago, Anton Cermak, who was speaking to Roosevelt after the newly elected president had made some brief remarks to the public, was injured and .
Two attempts in one month
In September of 1975, President Gerald Ford survived . The first came on Sept. 5 when Lynette (Squeaky) Fromme, a follower of cult leader Charles Manson, tried to shoot Ford as he was walking through a park in Sacramento, Calif., but her gun misfired and didn鈥檛 go off. On Sept. 22, Sara Jane Moore, a woman with ties to left-wing radical groups, got one shot off at Ford as he left a hotel in San Francisco but it missed the president.
Presidential candidates have not been exempt from assassination attempts, including most notably Senator killed in 1968 and shot and left paralyzed in 1972.
In 1912, former president Theodore Roosevelt as he was campaigning to regain the White House. But most of the impact of the bullet was absorbed by objects in the chest pocket of Roosevelt鈥檚 jacket. Even though he had been shot, Roosevelt went on to make a campaign speech with the bullet still in his chest.
The violence of 1968
Other figures with significant 鈥 if unelected 鈥 political power have also had their lives cut short by gunfire, most notably in 1968, just a few months before Bobby Kennedy鈥檚 death.
In a country with , and with firearms easily available, it is not surprising that invariably shootings are the preferred means of killing or attempting to kill political office holders.
Like Trump, most assassination attempts occur when candidates and politicians are in public spaces with crowds of people nearby. There is a long history of politicians insisting, against the advice of their security advisers, to 鈥減ress the flesh鈥 in events that jeopardize their safety. Trump was extraordinarily fortunate to escape with only minor injuries.
By Professor Thomas Klassen, School of Public Policy and Administration, 91亚色
This article is republished from .
