I decided to look up and make a list of political, insane or just plain deluded and goofy assassins who shot American Presidents or at least tried to. There have been a lot of them, and witnessing two such attempts this year makes me fear for more. Many of them were politically motivated but are also wrapped around mental illnesses and beliefs they, the shooter, could save the country by such an act. It reminds me of the Marvel Comics premise that the best bad guys in comics and cinema all truly believe they are right in their actions. Most of these shooters do not possess super-villain level brains and plans. Some however make you wonder…
President Andrew Jackson.
Attacker: Richard Lawrence, unemployed painter. Mentally deranged.
Attack: January 30, 1835. Capitol Building, Washington DC
Jackson was confronted by Lawrence leaving a funeral in the East Portico. Lawrence snapped a pistol shot at Pres Jackson, but only the cap fired. “Old Hickory” then charged his attacker with his cane held aloft. Lawrence drew a second pistol, but it misfired as well. Lawrence was subdued by onlookers and confined to an asylum for the remainder of his life. Lawrence claimed Jackson killed his father-not true. He also believed he was King Richard III and the president’s opposition to a bank denied him money he would be owed by Congress. At trial he dressed as royalty and was indignant at being judged by commoners.
President Abraham Lincoln.
Attacker: John Wilkes Booth. Successful actor and pro-confederate supporter of slavery and anti- immigrant. Politically motivated. “Death to tyrants.”
Attack: Famous attack at a theater. Booth shot Lincoln in the head with a .44 pistol from behind at Ford’s Theater, Wash D.C. Lincoln’s bodyguard was across the street having a beer at the time. Booth and confederates previously planned to kidnap Lincoln and/or the vice president. Booth was tracked to a barn in Virginia after he shot Lincoln and was shot by a U.S. soldier. His fellow conspirators were captured and hung.
President James A. Garfield.
Attacker: April 15,1865. Charles Guiteau. Born in Freeport, IL. Worked as a lawyer, preacher, bill collector and lived briefly in a utopian religious community in NY. Autopsy found syphilis and current texts believe he was schizophrenic. Attack attributed to belief he helped Garfield win presidential election and was owed an ambassadorship and the death would save the country.
Attack: Guiteau stalked the president for weeks and then ambushed Garfield in Wash D.C. at a train station shooting him twice with a .44 pearl handled revolver. One shot hit the president’s elbow and the second entered his back. It took Garfield two months to die from the survivable wounds. Doctors with unwashed hands and instruments introduced infection into the president. At trial Guiteau argued it was the doctors and not his bullet who killed President Garfield. He was found guilty and hanged.
President William McKinley.
Attacker: Leon Czolgosz. Anarchist who believed all rulers “should be exterminated.”
Attack: September 6, 1901. Czolgosz shot President McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. Czolgosz converted to Anarchism after finding working conditions unfair and elites controlling society. He came to believe shooting the president “the enemy of the good people” would change the country. It did. McKinley died of subsequent infection, and upon his death, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt became president. Czolgosz was found guilty following an 8-hour trial and electrocuted.
President Candidate Theodore Roosevelt.
Attacker: John Flammang Schrank. Delusional. Said to have been told by deceased President McKinley in a dream Teddy Roosevelt was responsible for McKinley’s murder and Schrank should avenge him.
Attack: September 15, 1912. Schrank stalked Roosevelt from Louisiana to Wisconsin before shooting Presidential Candidate Teddy Roosevelt (Bull Moose Party) in the chest with a .38 Colt revolver at close range while Roosevelt was making a campaign speech in Milwaukee, WI. Roosevelt decided he was not mortally wounded and stopped the angry crowd from harming Schrank. Roosevelt then gave a one-hour speech before leaving for medical treatment. The bullet penetrated Roosevelt’s folded winter coat, a folded copy of the speech and an eyeglasses case. The bullet broke his fourth rib and lodged near his lung, but the doctor’s elected to leave the bullet in place. Schrank was declared insane and committed to asylum for the rest of his life.
President Elect Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Attacker: Giuseppe Zangara. Bricklayer driven mad by constant sharp pain in his abdomen. Came to believe the Roosevelt was causing his gall bladder adhesions.
Attack: February 15, 1933. During a speech at Bayfront Park, Miami, FL the five foot tall Zangara stood on a wobbly folding chair to see over the crowd and fired six rounds at Roosevelt, who was unharmed. Five people were hit including popular Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak who sat next to Roosevelt. Cermak died 19 days later from complications. Two weeks after that Zangara was executed for the murder of Cermak. Zangara was believed to have acted alone, but conspiracy rumors circulated claiming Zangara was a hitman hired by Al Capone’s faction back in Chicago to kill Cermak.
President Harry S. Truman.
Attackers: Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo. Puerto Rico independence activists.
Attack: November 1, 1950. Blair House, Wash D.C. The White House was being renovated, and Truman was living in Blair House across the street. While he was taking an afternoon nap the two potential assassins invaded the grounds and walked up to the front door of Blair House before they were confronted by a Secret Service Agent and D.C. Police officers. A shootout occurred with the assassins armed with at least one 9mm Luger, and the Secret Service Agent Leslie Coffelt was killed after he managed to kill Torresola. Truman wandered down to the front door to see what was going on with all the shots fired. Later that day Truman was quoted as saying “A President has to expect these things.” Collazo was apprehended on scene and sentenced to death for the killing of the Secret Service Agent. Truman commuted the sentence to life in prison in 1952, and strangely, President Jimmy Carter ordered Collazo’s release from prison in 1979.
President John F. Kennedy
Attacker: Lee Harvey Oswald. Communist with delusions of grandeur and believing he was a great man, and people should look up to him.
Attack: November 22, 1963. Everyone should know this story- but history is not always revealed to subsequent generations. Lee Harvey Oswald was a former Marine who became a Communist and moved to Russia. When he was not treated as great man and hero of Communism, he was given a factory job, and he left Russia to return to the U.S. with his new Russian wife. Oswald had a rocky marriage and at the end became fixated on moving to Cuba and embracing Castro or getting back together with his wife. When neither his wife or the Cubans wanted him, he decided to kill President Kennedy with three shots from an Italian surplus rifle and scope riding past the Dallas Book Depository window. The subsequent investigation was the largest single document in the history of the world at that time. Yet controversy remains about how it happened, if there were other shooters or conspirators like Castro, and apparently all attempts to recreate the shots made by Oswald with his equipment have failed to duplicate the hits. Oswald fled the scene and was arrested in a Dallas movie theater. While being moved by police for a court hearing, Oswald was shot to death by a local night club/bar owner, Jack Ruby.
President Gerald Ford
Attackers: Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme and Sara Jane Moore. Fromme was an original Manson Family member and was protesting destruction of California Redwoods. Moore was a far-left activist.
Attacks: President Ford survived two attempted assassinations in one month in California. September 5, 1975. Walking out of a hotel Squeaky Fromme, wearing a Little Red Riding Hood outfit, drew a .45 handgun from an ankle holster (A .45 in an ankle holster? Now that’s crazy!) She aimed at the President, but a Secret Service Agent took the gun away before she could fire a shot.
Fromme, the first female to try and assassinate a President, received a life sentence. She remained a devoted Charlie Manson follower. When she heard Manson (also in prison for life) was stricken with Cancer, Fromme escaped from her prison for 40 hours. She was recaptured and eventually paroled in 2009 after serving 34 years.
September 22, 1975. Ford was walking from a hotel to a limo when Sara Jane Moore managed to fire two shots at the President from a .38 revolver and estimated to have missed him by 5 inches. A former Marine bystander heard the first shot and grabbed Moore’s shooting arm as she pulled the trigger the second time. The shot went wild and hit a bystander. Moore, a former FBI informant had been arrested two days earlier, and was interviewed and released by the Secret Service. She bought the .38 after she was released. Moore was quoted saying she hoped killing the President would somehow change the world and after she was sentenced, said she realized she had not changed the world and “It accomplished little except to throw away the rest of my life. And, no, I’m not sorry I tried because at the time it seemed a correct expression of my anger.” She was sentenced to life in prison and paroled in 2007.
President Ronald Reagan
Attacker: John Hinckley Jr. Mentally ill. St Elizabeth Hospital diagnosis: “Mr. Hinckley is suffering from a severe, chronic mental disorder. It is our opinion that this can best be described by the following diagnoses: Schizotypal Personality (principal diagnosis); Borderline Personality; Narcissistic Personality; Major Depression, recurrent, in partial remission; and Schizoid Personality (premorbid).”
Attack: March 30, 1981. Washington D.C. Hinkley failed to thrive as an adult and became obsessed with his love for actress Jody Foster who he never met. After stalking her repeatedly and failing to gain her attention or love, Hinkley decided he must kill someone famous to get her attention. Hinkley originally got in a crowd with a gun to kill President Carter but lost his nerve. On the morning of March 30, 1981, Hinkley purportedly woke up in D.C with four options on his mind- 1. Kill Senator Teddy Kennedy, 2. Kill any U.S. Congressman. 3. Kill President Reagan, or 4. Kill himself. By noon he had narrowed it down to killing Reagan and he left a love note for Jody Foster “explaining” the impending murder. Hinkley waited outside a D.C. hotel for Reagan to emerge from a speech. As the President got to the limo. Hinkley extended his RG brand .22 LR revolver loaded with Devastator brand bullets and fired six shots at the limo. Secret Service Agent Mike McCarthy was hit, as was a D.C. policeman and Press Secretary James Brady. A single bullet hit Reagan in the side before being whisked away. The bullet broke a rib and lodged near the lung nearly killing Reagan. Police, Secret Service and bystanders all piled on Hinkley. Hinkley was found not guilty of attempted murder by reason of insanity. He was remanded into the Mental Health system and remained indoors for 41 years prior to release.
President George W. Bush.
Attacker: Vladimir Arutyunian. Georgian terrorist who wanted to kill Bush because he was too lenient towards Muslims. During one court hearing he sewed his lips together and in another said he would try to kill Bush again if given the chance.
Attack: 10 May 2005. During a visit to the country of Georgia, President Bush was attending a rally with the President of that country when Arutyunian threw a grenade wrapped in a red cloth towards Bush and Mikhail Saakashvili. It landed less than 100 feet away but did not detonate. The cloth bound the activating spoon and thus it did not explode. The FBI assisted using new technology to examine 3,000 crowd photographs to isolate and locate the potential assassin. Arutyunian was tracked down and found to have bomb making materials in his home. He confessed to trying to kill Bush and was tried in Georgia. He was sentenced to life without possibility of parole.
President Donald Trump
Attackers: Thomas Matthew Crooks and Ryan Wesley Routh
Attacks: Two attempts were made to assassinate Former President Trump in two months during 2024 while campaigning for the office of President.
July 13, 2024. At an outdoor campaign rally near Butler, PA Crooks conducted pre-attack surveillance then shot at Trump from a nearby rooftop with an AR-15 type rifle and scope. Crooks fired several shots, one striking Trump in the ear lobe and also struck two other campaign attendees, one of whom died. A Secret Service Counter Sniper shot and killed Crooks with a single round to the head. The FBI is investigating the assassination attempt and has not announced motives. Social media reports have posted a number of potential motivations for Crooks who has apparently not thrived in high school or after his graduation.
15 September 2024. Presidential Candidate Trump was golfing at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, FL when a Secret Service Agent moving in advance of the Trump group saw a rifle barrel protruding from a fence line next to the golf course. The Special Agent fired four rounds towards the rifle and a male fled the area. A concerned citizen saw a male run from the area and jump into a vehicle. The citizen took cellphone pictures of the male and the vehicle plate. Law enforcement identified the vehicle on a nearby interstate using license plate readers and captured Ryan Wesley Routh without incident.
Official press releases say law enforcement found the rifle which appears to be an SKS type rifle with extended magazine and scope along with two backpacks filled with ceramic plates at the fence line. Once again, the FBI is investigating the assassination attempt and has not announced motives. Social media quickly showed an elaborate arrest record for Routh with over 100 police contacts and a felony conviction. Routh was seen in social media in Ukraine and as a fervent advocate for the nation and tried to enlist there. Failing that, he tried recruiting others. Routh self-published a book recently which said he previously supported President Trump, but he was wrong about Trump and Iran could go ahead and kill Trump and himself for his bad judgement.
I have run down this “quick” listing of assassins and potential assassins using Wikipedia and other internet resources, not to mention my ever-attentive assistant named “Alexa.” (She deserves a raise, but I can’t repeat it out loud.) I also used extensive information provided in the Bill O’Reilly books “Killing Lincoln”, “Killing Kennedy”, “Killing Reagan” and Stephen Hunter’s book “American Gunfight: The Plot to Kill President Truman and the Shoot-Out That Stopped It.” I recommend these books to you quite highly. The level of research and detail are amazing, and they highlight those historical tipping point moments which come and go otherwise unnoticed. For want of a nail the shoe was lost…