What Presidents Have Been Shot?
BY Johnny Kincaid
July 15, 2024
It has been over 43 years since the United States has experienced anything like the attempt to kill former president Donald Trump on Saturday. President Ronald Reagan was only two months into his first term when he was shot, an event that was so unthinkable that Secretary of Defense General Alexander Haig announced that he was in charge. The line of succession placed Vice President George Bush in charge in the moments after the shooting, but in the ensuing chaos, Haig forgot who was supposed to take over.
In 1968, America witnessed the assassination of presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. The film brought the confusion of the moment into our living rooms just a couple of months after the assassination of Martin Luther King, JR.
John Kennedy’s assassination shocked the nation the 1963. It had been over 62 years since William McKinley was shot and killed while in office. President James Garfield was killed in 1881 while walking through a train station, and Abraham Lincoln was the first president to be assassinated while in office in 1865.
One of the things that was different about the attempt to kill Trump was the fact that it was carried live on national television. The Reagon shooting, the death of RFK, and the assassination of MLK were all captured on film by news crews and were shown (after editing) on TV as quickly as possible.
The film that we’ve all seen of the Kennedy assassination was shot on a home movie camera by Abraham Zapruder. While Life Magazine bought the rights to the film and published still frames a month after the assassination, the film was not aired on network television until 12 years later, in 1976.
The nature of live coverage is that unverified information gets reported, and the story changes multiple times, allowing conspiracy theories to abound. Social media posts have already claimed that the entire incident was staged.
The investigation will take time. There will be plenty of wild stories and accusations, as with past assassinations. The lesson that should have been learned from the lingering conspiracy theories surrounding the JFK assassination is that transparency is the best policy. In the case of the attempt on Trump’s life, all parties should be completely forthcoming with all of the facts and whys of the case.
