How many US presidents have been shot? A look back at history

Former President Donald Trump said he was shot at with a bullet that pierced his ear at a Pennsylvania campaign rally Saturday where a suspected shooter fired multiple shots, reportedly prompting an investigation into the incident as an assassination attempt and leading to widespread condemnations of political violence from Democrats and Republicans alike.

A Trump campaign spokesperson told reporters that the presumptive GOP presidential nominee was fine in a statement Saturday night.

A spectator was killed, two others were critically injured and the suspected shooter is dead according to the U.S. Secret Service. The Associated Press and CNN reported that the incident is being investigated as an attempted assassination of Trump, who is set to take the stage in Milwaukee at the Republican Party's convention next week to formally accept his party's presidential nomination.

It's not the first time a president or presidential candidate has encountered a similar situation in U.S. history.

Assassinations

Four U.S. presidents have been assassinated in the country's history: Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy. Lincoln was attending a performance at Ford's Theatre when he was killed. Garfield was at a railroad station in Washington, D.C. when he was shot, dying a couple of months later. McKinley was at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo and died several days later. Kennedy was in Dallas on a campaign trip when he was killed.

Survived shootings

Other presidents survived shootings.

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In 1912, former President Theodore Roosevelt was on the campaign trail seeking a third term. In Milwaukee, a man in a crowd shot at Roosevelt, but a speech manuscript and an eyeglasses case in his breast pocket appeared to save his life, according to the Library of Congress. Roosevelt insisted on sticking with his plans to stump at a local auditorium. "This may be my last talk in this cause to our people," he said, according to the library. He was driven to the venue and began his speech by telling the crowd he had just been shot.

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In 1981, President Ronald Reagan was wounded by a bullet fired by a shooter as the president left a hotel in Washington, D.C. after speaking to members of the AFL-CIO, according to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum. The bullet first hit a limousine before striking Reagan. "President Reagan’s wounds were not noticed until he began to cough up blood," a post from the museum's website states. He spent 12 days in the hospital.

Presidential candidates targeted in shootings, too

A presidential candidate was killed in 1968 when Robert F. Kennedy addressed a crowd of supporters at a Los Angeles hotel in June that year to deliver a campaign victory speech. A gunman hit Kennedy, who died the next day. He was a U.S. Senator at the time.

Another Democratic candidate was shot during the next presidential campaign cycle but survived. Democratic presidential candidate George Wallace – who was Alabama’s Governor at the time – was shot at a campaign event in Maryland in 1972. It left him paralyzed below his waist.

Contact Clara Hendrickson:chendrickson@freepress.com or 313-296-5743. Follow her on X, previously called Twitter,@clarajanehen.

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