Shooting at Donald Trump rally: How attacks on presidents and candidates have shaped US history

The shooting of former President Donald Trump on Saturday was just the latest act of political violence that has often marked US history.

Trump said he was “fine” after a bullet grazed his ear at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The attacker was killed by Secret Service agents and another person at the event died. Authorities are investigating Saturday’s attack as an attempted murder.

The assassinations of Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, and William McKinley eventually led to the Secret Service protecting them, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy shocked the nation and led to even tighter security measures around the president.

Nevertheless, Gerald Ford was the target of two high-profile assassination attempts within 18 days, and Ronald Reagan was seriously wounded by a gunman’s bullet at the beginning of his presidency in 1981.

Almost every modern president has been the target of an assassination attempt. The Secret Service has thwarted almost all of these attempts, and only a few of them resulted in injuries.

Leading politicians around the world have also become victims of political violence, including Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme.

Even before Saturday’s incident, polls showed voters were worried about potential violence surrounding this year’s presidential election. A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll of swing states in May found that half of voters had those fears, including about equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. And they were even more prevalent among independents, the poll found.

Here is a look at some previous attempts on the lives of US presidents and presidential candidates:
Donald Trump

• During Trump’s 2016 election campaign, a 20-year-old British man attempted to grab a gun from a Las Vegas police officer at a Trump rally there. He later told police he was trying to kill Trump and pleaded guilty to firearms violations and public disorder.

Ronald Reagan

• On March 30, 1981, John Hinckley Jr. fired six shots at the president in Washington, hitting Reagan and three other people. The president was seriously injured but recovered after emergency surgery. The other three victims also survived. Hinckley was immediately arrested and placed in a mental institution until 2016, 12 years after Reagan’s death.

Gerald Ford

• Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a follower of cult leader Charles Manson, attempted to shoot Ford in Sacramento, California, on September 5, 1975. Three weeks later, Sara Jane Moore shot Ford in San Francisco, making the two women the most notorious female assassins in U.S. history.

Robert F. Kennedy

• Sirhan Sirhan shot Kennedy, then a candidate in the Democratic primary, in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968, less than five years after the assassination of his older brother. Sirhan was sentenced to life in prison. Kennedy’s son, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is running as an independent presidential candidate in 2024.

John F. Kennedy

• On November 22, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald shot the President in Dallas, Texas. The assassination still sparks debate about whether Oswald acted alone, after Oswald was killed two days later by restaurant owner Jack Ruby.

Theodore Roosevelt

• Roosevelt was a former president who was seeking a return to the White House when he was shot while giving a speech in Milwaukee on October 14, 1912. Protected by the 50-page text of his speech and an eyeglass case in his pocket, he continued speaking and recovered, but eventually lost to Woodrow Wilson. Would-be assassin John Schrank was declared insane and institutionalized until his death.

William McKinley

• McKinley was shot in Buffalo, New York, on September 6, 1901, and later died of his injuries. He made Vice President Roosevelt president. The anarchist Leon Czolgosz was found guilty of the assassination attempt and executed.

James Garfield

• Garfield was shot in Washington on July 2, 1881. He died two months later from his injuries. The writer and lawyer Charles Guiteau was found guilty of the crime and sentenced to death.

Abraham Lincoln

• Lincoln was shot in Washington on April 14, 1865, by John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor and Confederate sympathizer. The man died after a manhunt lasting almost two weeks.