Being born in the 1960 assassination attempts on Presidents or candidates for President seemed to be a common occurrence during my childhood. It was something I came to expect, but since Reagan was shot in 1981 security seems to really have improved. Yesterday was a black mark on a much improved system.
Assassination attempts on Presidents/Candidates since 1960
Dec. 11, 1960: Richard Paul Pavlick plans to crash into the car of President-elect John F. Kennedy and blow it up with dynamite, but changes his mind when he sees the president’s wife and children with him. Pavlick is still intent on carrying out the plot at a later date, but he is arrested before he could do so.
Nov. 22, 1963: Kennedy is shot and killed during a motorcade in downtown Dallas; Texas Gov. John Connally is also wounded. Two days later, Lee Harvey Oswald, who is in custody and suspected of the assassination, is killed by nightclub owner Jack Ruby while being transported by police. A commission led by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren will subsequently declare that Oswald was the lone assassin.
June 5,1968: Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is shot and killed by Sirhan Sirhan in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after winning the California primary.
March 15, 1972: Arthur Bremer shoots Democratic presidential candidate George Wallace in Laurel, Maryland, leaving Wallace paralyzed. (Bremer had previously sought to shoot President Richard Nixon but was unable to do so.)
Feb. 22, 1974: Samuel Byck hijacks a DC-9 with the intention of crashing it into the White House to kill Nixon, but he is fatally shot by police before he could do so.
Sept. 5, 1975: Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a supporter of mass murderer Charles Manson, tries to shoot President Gerald Ford in Sacramento. Her gun misfires.
Sept. 22, 1975: Sara Jane Moore shoots at Ford in San Francisco but misses.
March 30, 1981: John Hinckley Jr. shoots President Ronald Reagan as he exits the Hilton Hotel in Washington, seriously wounding the president. Press secretary James Brady is wounded as well; his death 33 years later would be ruled a homicide.
1993: A plot to blow up President George H.W. Bush by car bomb is foiled in Kuwait. The assassins were in the employ of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Nov. 11, 2011: Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez fires multiple shots at the White House, striking the building but not injuring any members of President Barack Obama’s family or anyone else.
2018: Pipe bombs are mailed by Cesar Sayoc Jr. to a number of leading Democrats, including Obama, former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and future President Joe Biden. None harm their target.
July 13, 2024: Former President Donald Trump is shot and wounded during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. One attendee of the rally is killed. The Secret Service kills the shooter; FBI subsequently identifies the would-be assassin as Thomas Matthew Crooks.
Assassination attempts on Presidents/Candidates since 1960
Dec. 11, 1960: Richard Paul Pavlick plans to crash into the car of President-elect John F. Kennedy and blow it up with dynamite, but changes his mind when he sees the president’s wife and children with him. Pavlick is still intent on carrying out the plot at a later date, but he is arrested before he could do so.
Nov. 22, 1963: Kennedy is shot and killed during a motorcade in downtown Dallas; Texas Gov. John Connally is also wounded. Two days later, Lee Harvey Oswald, who is in custody and suspected of the assassination, is killed by nightclub owner Jack Ruby while being transported by police. A commission led by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren will subsequently declare that Oswald was the lone assassin.
June 5,1968: Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is shot and killed by Sirhan Sirhan in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after winning the California primary.
March 15, 1972: Arthur Bremer shoots Democratic presidential candidate George Wallace in Laurel, Maryland, leaving Wallace paralyzed. (Bremer had previously sought to shoot President Richard Nixon but was unable to do so.)
Feb. 22, 1974: Samuel Byck hijacks a DC-9 with the intention of crashing it into the White House to kill Nixon, but he is fatally shot by police before he could do so.
Sept. 5, 1975: Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a supporter of mass murderer Charles Manson, tries to shoot President Gerald Ford in Sacramento. Her gun misfires.
Sept. 22, 1975: Sara Jane Moore shoots at Ford in San Francisco but misses.
March 30, 1981: John Hinckley Jr. shoots President Ronald Reagan as he exits the Hilton Hotel in Washington, seriously wounding the president. Press secretary James Brady is wounded as well; his death 33 years later would be ruled a homicide.
1993: A plot to blow up President George H.W. Bush by car bomb is foiled in Kuwait. The assassins were in the employ of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Nov. 11, 2011: Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez fires multiple shots at the White House, striking the building but not injuring any members of President Barack Obama’s family or anyone else.
2018: Pipe bombs are mailed by Cesar Sayoc Jr. to a number of leading Democrats, including Obama, former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and future President Joe Biden. None harm their target.
July 13, 2024: Former President Donald Trump is shot and wounded during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. One attendee of the rally is killed. The Secret Service kills the shooter; FBI subsequently identifies the would-be assassin as Thomas Matthew Crooks.
