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Excerpt: On this day in 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot in the chest at the side entrance of the Washington Hilton on Connecticut Avenue by John Hinckley Jr. Reagan was walking to his limousine after a speech to AFL-CIO leaders when Hinckley, 25, who was standing among a group of reporters, fired six shots, hitting Reagan and three others.

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[-] Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

How would he be a martyr? Hinckley didn't shoot him because of his politics, he shot him because he was insane and thought killing a president would make Jodie Foster notice him. He was originally planning to go after Jimmy Carter.

[-] ZzyzxRoad@sh.itjust.works 3 points 11 months ago

thought killing a president would make Jodie Foster notice him.

I have to wonder if that's some narrative they came up with to prevent copy cats.

I know it's a conspiracy thought, but at some point I realized the government has zero actual reason to be transparent with the public. They could really just say whatever they want and none of us would ever know the difference.

[-] JustZ@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

I've always thought that. It's the same with a mass shooter decades back whose name I don't know. They blamed a brain tumor, and maybe he really did have a brain tumor, but that the tumor caused the aggression and lack of emotional control that caused him to murder a bunch of strangers is an absolute wild fantasy, the plot of a bad movie, and represents at best an impossible to possibility, let alone probability. Took up in a tower and started blasting. He had a typical childhood, that was absolute abuse by modern standards, had all sorts of problems, was totally decompensating, and the feds and the media latched onto this brain tumor narrative. The scientists were absolutely clear that such a narrative was total speculation and that science had no ability to make such a determination, anyway.

[-] Zoidsberg@lemmy.ca 2 points 11 months ago

Oh, I just assumed. I don't know tons about American history.

this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
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