Assassination And A History Of Violence

“There is no place in America for this kind of violence.”

The words of President Biden yesterday following an attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump ring hollow to those whose lives have been torn apart by gun violence in the US in recent decades.

One only has to say the words “Sandy Hook” to understand how gun culture and gun violence leave a dark stain on an American society determined to cling to its guns no matter how many school children have to pay the price.

Indeed the conspiracies around that one event – Sandy Hook – are enough to sicken even the most questioning of individuals. It is something that it’s taken twelve years for political broadcaster and commentator Alex Jones to be held fully to account for peddling lies that the Sandy Hook shooting was staged and that the parents of the murdered children were, in reality, actors helping create a fake event, the aim of which was to extend further gun control throughout the United States.

There has always been a place for violence in American politics. Their relatively short history is dotted with assassinations and assassination attempts at both the highest levels of politics and the lowest. Here’s a look at some of the more notable ones over the last 200 years.

Andrew Jackson

Jackson was the first US President to face an assassination attempt in January 1835. Seventh President of the United States, he was leaving the Capitol Building when unemployed painter Richard Lawrence pulled a pistol on him. Fortunately for Jackson, the gun misfired – and he promptly began beating his would-be assassin with his walking stick.

Lawrence pulled out a second gun, but that also misfired and he was overcome and detained by Jackson’s aides.

Abraham Lincoln

A key moment in US history is the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on 14th April 1865. Lincoln, who had led the United States to victory over the Confederacy in the American Civil War, faced the daunting task of reuniting and rebuilding a vast nation after years of conflict.

Watching the popular comedy Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC, the sixteenth President was shot in the head at close range by John Wilkes Booth.

Booth leapt from the theatre box where he had shot the President, yelling the word “sic semper tyrannist” – the Virginia state motto meaning “thus always to tyrants.” He fled the theatre but was later captured and killed hiding in a barn.

Lincoln was taken to a house across the street for treatment but died the following morning,

James Garfield

James Garfield was the second President of the United States to be assassinated. A disgruntled Republican constituent named Charles Guiteau shot him while he was on his way to catch a train to New England on 2 July 1885.

Garfield, the twentieth President of the United States, was a former Union general and congressman from Ohio. Guiteau shot him in the arm and lower back and while not killing him immediately, the shooting left him mortally wounded. He lay injured at the White House for several week before being moved to the New Jersey shore, where he died.

Guiteau was found guilty of the killing and executed in June 1882.

William McKinley

Mckinley was shot six months after the inauguration of his second term. He had just finished a speech in New York on 6th September 1901 and was walking the line of supporters outside, shaking hands and greeting them when a man fired two shots into his chest at point blank range.

Describing the event, a journalist at the New York Times wrote:

There was an instant of almost complete silence, like the hush that follows a clap of thunder … the President stood still, a look of hesitancy, almost bewilderment on his face. Then he retreated a step while a pallor began to steal over his features. The multitude seemed only partially aware that something serious had happened.

Doctors had expected McKinley to recover but an infection in his wounds caused blood poisoning and he died eight days later on 14th September 1901. His assassin – an unemployed Detroit resident and self proclaimed anarchist called Leo F Czolgosz – admitted the shooting and was executed by electric chair on 29th October 1901.

Theodore Roosevelt

Roosevelt – the twenty sixth President of the United States – was the first President to have Secret Service protection following McKinley’s assassination and has hands down the ballsiest response to an assassination attempt, which occurred while he was on the campaign trail for a third term.

Shot as he was getting into his car outside the Gilpatrick Hotel in Milwaukee, the folded papers and metal spectacles case in his pocket apparently blunted the impact of the bullet and he was not seriously hurt.

Nevertheless, he proceeded to the Milwaukee Auditorium where he was due to speak and told the audience

I don’t know whether you understand it but I have just been shot … Fortunately I had my manuscript, so you see I was going to make a long speech, and there is a bullet – there is where the bullet went through – and it probably saved me from going into my heart. The bullet is in me now so I cannot make a very long speech but I will try my best.

Once he completed his speech he allowed himself to be taken to hospital and recovered from the attack.

John Schrank was arrested for the shooting and spent the rest of his days in a mental hospital.

Franklin D Roosevelt

FDR – the thirty second President – was giving a speech on 15th February 1933 in Miami, Florida when five shots were fired at him. All five missed the then president-elect, but spectators in the crowd were injured and the Chiacgo mayor Anton Cermak was killed.

The would-be assassin was an Italian immigrant called Guiseppe Zangara. Zangara claimed he missed because at 5′ 1″ he had to stand on a wobbly chair to see his target through the thronging crowd. He was later convicted in the shooting and sentenced to death.

Harry S Truman

Probably the most brazen assassination attempt against a US President was that committed against Harry S Truman on 1st November 1950.

Truman, the thirty third President, was staying at Blair House during ongoing renovations at the White House when Puerto Rican nationalists Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo broke in and attempted to shoot the President and his wife.

Truman and his wife escaped unscathed but a White House police man and Torresola were killed in the gunfire exchange and two other White House policemen were shot.

Collazo was arrested and sentenced to death but President Truman commuted the sentence to life imprisonment and he was released from jail in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter.

John F Kennedy

The assassination of JFK at Dealey Plaza in Dallas on 22nd November 1963 is probably the most well known assassination in history.

The thirty fifth President was travelling in an open topped motorcade through downtown Dallas when Lee Harvey Oswald shot him with a high powered rifle from a high window in the Texas School Book Depository.

Kennedy, who was shot in the head and neck, was rushed to Parkland Hospital but was pronounced dead some thirty minutes later.

Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as thirty sixth President on Air Force a few hours afterwards.

Robert F Kennedy

In a bitter twist of fate – and some would argue a quite deliberate conspiracy – John F Kennedy’s younger brother Robert was killed shortly after giving a victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

It was 5th June 1968 and RFK had just won the California primary in his campaign to secure the Democratic nomination for the Presidential elections in November that year. There were high hopes that he could restore the Democratic Party’s fortunes against a tide of anger at Vietnam and rising social unrest on college campuses throughout America.

Sirhan Sirhan shot Kennedy at point blank range, as well as injuring five other poeople, as the Senator left the hotel via the kitchens. Kennedy survived the immediate shooting but died the next day. He is buried at Arlington Cemetery near to his brother.

George C Wallace

Four years after RFK’s assassination while seeking the Democratic Party nomination, the same thing happened to George Wallace.

The governor of Alabama was a controversial figure in Democratic politics, known for his segregationist views, and was making a campaign stop in Maryland on 15th May 1972 when he was shot by 21 year old Arthur Bremner.

The shooting left Wallace paralysed from the waist down and ended his campaign for the nomination. Notably, he later renounced his segregationist views.

Bremner was imprisoned and released in 2007.

Gerald Ford

The thirty eight President faced two assassination attempt within weeks of each other. He escaped both of them uninjured.

The first happened on 5th September 1975 while Ford weas on his way to meet the governor of California. The meeting in Sacramento was cut short when Lynnete “Squeaky” Fromme pushed her way through the crowd and pulled a pistol on the President. The gun was not fired however and Fromme – one of the infamous Manson Family – was imprisoned. She was released in 2009.

A little over two weeks later, Sarah Jane Moore confronted President Ford outside of a hotel in Sanfrancisco. She fired one shot but missed and was grabbed by a bystander while attempting a second shot. She was sent to prison and released in 2007.

Ronald Reagan

Leaving a speech in Washington DC on 30th March 1981, the fortieth President of the United States Ronald Reagan was shot at by John Hickley Jnr who was waiting outside in the crowd.

Hinckley fired six shots, hitting the President and three others, including Reagan’s press secretary James Brady. Brady was left paralysed by the shooting.

Reagan, unaware that he’d been shot, was bundled into his limousine by the Secret Service and taken to hospital. There it was discovered that the bullet had just missed his heart.

Reagan – noted for his quick wit and humour – said to surgeons “Please tell me you’re Republicans” just before his operation.

Hinckley, who claims he shot Reagan to impress the young actor Jodie Foster, was arrested and confined to a mental hospital, eventually being released in 2022.

George W Bush

The forty third President was attending a rally in Tblisi on 10th May 2005 when a hand grenade was thrown at him. Both he and the Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili were behind a bullet proof barrier but the grenade did not explode in any case.

The would be assassin was Vladimir Arutyunian. He was arrested and convicted of the crime before being sentenced to life in prison.