A Shooting Changed Reagan’s Presidency. Will It Change Trump?

The assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump was as harrowing as it was inexcusable, but it was not an aberration in American politics. The last time an American president was injured in an assassination attempt was 43 years ago, when 25-year-old John Hinckley Jr. shot President Ronald Reagan in Washington. How Trump’s brush with death will affect his campaign remains to be seen. But in Reagan’s case, the shooting changed him as a political figure and even influenced his policy thinking.

The most obvious effect of the shooting on Reagan’s presidency was a popularity boost. When he became president, his national approval was around 51 percent across the country . But following the assassination attempt, Reagan’s popularity, already on an uptick, soared — fueled in part by his sympathetic handling of the incident. (Reagan reportedly told a joke to his wife before he went into surgery: “Honey,” he said, borrowing a line from boxer Jack Dempsey, “I forgot to duck.” He treated the medical personnel at George Washington University Hospital with humor as well: “I hope they are all Republicans,” he quipped. His doctor, a liberal named Joseph Giordano, replied, “Today, Mr. President, we are all Republicans.”) By May, his approval rating had risen to 68 percent , suggesting some support even from registered Democrats.

Reagan spoke about being shot during his first term. In his first address to Congress after taking a bullet, in April 1981, Reagan expressed immense gratitude for the prayers of a nation and the support of its representatives: “I’d like to say a few words directly to all of you and to those who are watching and listening tonight, because this is the only way I know to express to all of you on behalf of Nancy and myself our appreciation for your messages and flowers and, most of all, your prayers, not only for me but for those others who fell beside me,” he said.

The assassination attempt also had a concrete effect on Reagan’s advocacy concerning gun policy. By the standards of today’s GOP, Reagan was already somewhat moderate on guns; as governor of California, in 1967, he signed into law a ban on the open carrying of loaded firearms in the state — a response to armed demonstrations by the Black Panthers that remains on the books to this day. And he did it with the blessing of the NRA, which endorsed the law and, later, his presidential run in 1980.

But after the shooting, Reagan went further. Under the Clinton administration, then-Rep. Chuck Schumer introduced the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, named for James Brady, Reagan’s press secretary who was shot in the head in the same attack and who died as a result of those injuries decades later in 2014. It is the most sweeping gun reform bill passed by Congress to date. Before it passed, it underwent various iterations, several of which failed. But in 1991, Reagan did something few presidents do: He penned an op-ed in The New York Times .

It was one of Reagan’s most graphic descriptions of his shooting: “It was on that day 10 years ago that a deranged young man standing among reporters and photographers shot a policeman, a Secret Service agent, my press secretary and me on a Washington sidewalk,” he wrote. “I was lucky. The bullet that hit me bounced off a rib and lodged in my lung, an inch from my heart. It was a very close call. Twice they could not find my pulse.”

As Reagan saw it, “four lives were changed forever, and all by a Saturday-night special — a cheaply made .22 caliber pistol —purchased in a Dallas pawnshop by a young man with a history of mental disturbance. This nightmare might never have happened if legislation that is before Congress now — the Brady bill — had been law back in 1981.”

Hinckley’s motivations — to impress actress Jodie Foster —were far from political. But by pulling the trigger he created a citable moment in Reagan’s past from which the former president could continue to draw and galvanize support.

Trump’s experience will surely affect him in unpredictable ways. It’s already had an effect on his campaign: In interviews following the shooting, the former president said he’d rewritten his acceptance speech for the Republican National Convention to emphasize national unity, though his address was also typically Trumpian at times. “I’m not supposed to be here, I’m supposed to be dead,” he told the New York Post .

It is impossible to predict exactly how the assassination attempt on Trump’s life will alter our politics in the coming months — though if the proliferation of conspiracy theories on social media is any indication, it won’t be for the better. And the post-shooting Trump likely won’t resemble the post-shooting Reagan; the modern GOP shows no sign of moving on gun reform, and public polling does not show the kind of mass approval for Trump among the American electorate that Reagan enjoyed. Whether Trump can secure reelection remains to be seen.

What is certain is that the shooting has contributed to rising fears of a return to an era of political violence not seen in decades. A little over 40 percent of American presidents, no fewer than 19, have been targeted by assassins. Following the failed assassination of Andrew Jackson in 1835, the time between the shooting of Reagan and Trump was the longest period in American history in which a bullet has not been directed toward a current or former president — a remarkable 43 years that came to a shocking end last week.