| [Ben]: | Unsuccessful Presidential Assassination Attempts | No discussion found | Just thinkin' today and I did a little research about Presidential assassination attempts. A list can be found here, but I thought I'd give my thoughts on a couple.
Theodore Roosevelt
October 13, 1912: No longer president, Roosevelt was running for the Progressives. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, John Schrank shot Roosevelt once with a revolver. A thick, folded, prepared speech in Roosevelt's breast pocket slowed the bullet. Roosevelt insisted on giving his speech with the bullet still lodged inside him. He later went to the hospital, but the bullet was never removed. Schrank said that the ghost of William McKinley had told him to avenge his assassination. Schrank was found legally insane and was institutionalized until his death in 1943
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A speech long enough to slow a bullet is a speech long enough that I'd want to get checked out before I did it.
Richard Nixon
February 22, 1974: Samuel S. Byck planned to kill Nixon by crashing a commercial airliner into the White House. Once on the plane, he was informed that it could not take off with the wheel blocks still in place. He shot the pilot and copilot before killing himself.
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Lesson 1: Don't say things that make a killer mad.
Lesson 2: Giving in to a killer's demands won't necessarily save your butt.
Lesson 3: Carry.
Gerald Ford
* September 5, 1975: In Sacramento, California, Lynette Fromme, a disciple of Charles Manson, drew a revolver on Ford when he reached to shake her hand in a crowd. There were no bullets in the gun. Fromme was sentenced to life in prison, where she remains.
* September 22, 1975: In San Francisco, California, Sara Jane Moore fired a revolver at Ford from 40 feet away. The shot missed Ford because a bystander grabbed Moore's arm. Moore was sentenced to life in prison.
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Ford was not a hit with the ladies, apparently. Oh, and Lynette should get out of jail September 5th, 2005. Yay!
Bill Clinton
October 29, 1994: Francisco Martin Duran fired at least 29 shots with a semi-automatic rifle at the White House from Pennsylvania Avenue, outside the south lawn, thinking that Clinton was among the men in dark suits standing there. No one was hurt and Duran was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
September 11, 1994: Frank Eugene Corder, an army veteran and student pilot, stole a Cessna plane and crashed into the White House's south lawn, striking the West wing. Corder was killed in the crash.
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If you fire 29 shots at a group of men and no one gets hurt, maybe you're doing something wrong.
I did a double take at date on the last one. I'd forgotten entirely about that. |
| 2005-07-26
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Unsuccessful Presidential Assassination Attempts |
