A short history of lone nuts shooting US presidents. [View all]

[DanTex]

Looking at the history of US presidential assassinations and attempts, there is no precedent at all for the kind of large conspiracy that JFK CTers believe in. Presidential assassinations and attempts are almost always the work of lone nuts, or else small groups of nuts without ties to any powerful interests in the government/CIA/MIC/mafia or any of the other usual suspects.

Four presidents have been assassinated:
• Lincoln: killed by John Wilkes Booth, Confederate sympathizer who had two co-conspirators, but with no ties to outside organizations or powerful interests.
• Garfield: killed by Charles J. Guiteau, a lone nut.
• McKinley: killed by Leon Czolgosz, a lone nut/anarchist.
• JFK: killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, a lone nut/Castro sympathizer.

Two presidents have been shot but not killed:
• Teddy Roosevelt: shot by John Flammang Schrank, a lone nut.
• Reagan: shot by John Hinkley Jr, a lone nut.

Four presidents have been shot at but not hit:
• Jackson: shot at by Richard Lawrence, a lone nut.
• FDR: shot at by Giuseppe Zangara, a lone nut.
• Truman: gunmen Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola stormed Blair house to try and kill Truman. They were Puerto Rican separatists, with no links to outside groups or powerful interests.
• Ford: shot at by lone nut Sara Jane Moore. On another occasion, Lynette Fromme, another lone nut, pulled a gun on him but didn't fire.
Also, during both the Clinton and W presidencies, a lone nut fired shots at the White House from outside the gate.

Looking at Wikipedia's list of presidential assassination plots, the only events that could be considered organized conspiracy by powerful interests to assassinate the president would be:
• Saddam Hussein tried to have Bush Sr assassinated in Kuwait. (Probably the biggest conspiracy to kill a US president ever, and ironically a member of the BFEE was the intended victim)
• Osama bin Laden tried to have Clinton assassinated in Manila.

But nothing along the lines of a conspiracy involving the CIA or any other part of the government, or any powerful economic interests outside of government, or anything remotely resembling the kind of plot that would satisfy JFK conspiracy theorists' desires that the most powerful man in the world be taken down by an equally powerful adversary.