Watching the continuous replays of the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, it is evident an inch or two made the difference between a comparatively minor wound and a fatal one.
Our nation has suffered the murder of four commanders-in-chief (Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy).
There have been numerous attempts on sitting presidents and, in a few extraordinary cases, the difference of that same margin — an inch or two — meant the difference between four assassinated presidents and double that number or more.
###
One of the most astonishing of the attempted presidential assassinations was against Andrew Jackson, our seventh president.
On Jan. 30, 1835, as he neared the end of his second term, Jackson was walking up the stairs of the Capitol building when an unemployed and unhinged handyman named Richard Lawrence emerged from behind a pillar and pointed a single-shot derringer point blank at Jackson. The gun did not fire.
Undaunted, Lawrence pulled another gun from his pocket, aimed and pulled the trigger again. Incredibly, it also did not fire.
Lawrence would not get a third chance. A group of men wrestled him to the ground while the enraged president hammered him relentlessly with his walking stick.
Diagnosed as insane, Lawrence spent the rest of his life in an asylum.
###
Theodore Roosevelt was campaigning Oct. 14, 1912, in Milwaukee, hoping to win an unprecedented third term. He ascended to the presidency with the assassination of William McKinley in 1901 and had been reelected to a four-year term in 1904. He sat out the 1908 campaign but was back on the trail four years later.
In Milwaukee, Roosevelt had just stepped into an open-topped car to head to a campaign rally when an unemployed bartender, John Schrank, took out a .38 caliber pistol and fired a round into Roosevelt’s chest.
Luckily for Roosevelt, the velocity of the bullet was substantially slowed by the former president’s steel-reinforced eyeglass case, which sat in his suitcoat pocket along with a folded, 50-page speech. The bullet still penetrated Roosevelt’s chest, but he insisted on giving that 50-page speech before going to the hospital. It took him about an hour and a half, all the while blood seeping into his while shirt.
Doctors found the bullet lodged in the muscles of Roosevelt’s chest and the physicians decided it was best not to remove it. Roosevelt did not win a third term despite his heroics.
Shrank claimed the ghost of McKinley insisted he shoot Roosevelt.
###
Theodore Roosevelt’s cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was president-elect and three weeks from taking office as the 32nd president when he appeared at a rally Feb. 15, 1933, in Miami.
Roosevelt gave a short speech in Bayfront Park while standing up in the back of an open-topped presidential convertible. As he finished and sat down to great applause, an unemployed bricklayer named Giuseppe Zangara pushed forward through the audience and jumped on an empty chair near the car.
In jumping on the chair, Zangara rudely bumped a woman later identified as Mrs. W.H. Cross, the wife of a prominent Miami doctor. Turning toward Zangara, she saw him brandishing a gun and reached up just high enough to deflect Zangara’s arm.
Hearing the gunfire, other bystanders jumped in, but Zangara squeezed off five shots before being subdued. The gunfire slightly wounded a few bystanders, but mortally wounded Chicago Mayor Anton Cermack, who had been standing next to Roosevelt’s car.
Zangara died in the electric chair a few months later.
###
Gerald Ford, the 38th president, served in the Oval Office for only two years and five months, but he holds the dubious distinction of having two attempts made against his life.
On Sept. 5, 1975, while walking toward the state capitol building in Sacramento, California, Ford stopped to shake hands with people who had lined the street. One of those people was Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a longtime member of the Charles Manson Family.
As Ford got within a few feet of her, Fromme pulled out a Colt M1911 pistol and pulled the trigger. The gun did not fire. Ford was whisked to safety. It was later learned that, when Fromme loaded a magazine into the gun, she neglected to load a round into the gun’s chamber.
Only two weeks later, a seemingly nondescript housewife, Sara Jane Moore, waited for Ford after he had made an address to the World Affairs Council in San Francisco.
Grabbing a .38 caliber pistol as Ford walked toward his car, Moore squeezed off a first shot that missed Ford by a few inches. Just as Moore squeezed the trigger for a second shot, her arm was hit by an alert bystander named Oliver Sipple, probably saving Ford’s life.
###
Ronald Reagan, the 40th president, was leaving a hotel in downtown Washington, D.C. when shots rang out. A Secret Service agent pushed Reagan into the presidential limo, but one of the bullets fired by John Hinckley Jr.’s .22 caliber pistol grazed the size of the limo and slammed into Reagan’s left side.
As the limo pulled away, it seemed Reagan was unhurt; but the Secret Service agent soon saw blood coming from Reagan’s mouth and countermanded the order to take Reagan back to the White House. Instead, he was brought to George Washington University Hospital, a decision that likely saved Reagan’s life.
The bullet took a fortunate turn when it deflected into Reagan’s body. It missed his internal organs, but the president was suffering from internal bleeding and his blood pressure had dropped to a life-threatening level.
The surgeons successfully removed the bullet and Reagan returned to the White House and completed two full terms in office.
###
While the “what-ifs” of history can be fascinating to ponder, the reality is, our political history has been spared a much bloodier ledger by a trio of malfunctioning pistols, a thick wad of paper, two regular “faces in the crowd” and a fortunate deflection.