Reagan shooter warns against violence towards Trump: ‘Not the answer

Last Saturday, former President Donald Trump nearly became the fifth U.S. president to be assassinated – and the first while out of office – as an assassin’s bullet tore through his ear during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The would-be perpetrator of this offense was 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks.

Crooks came close to joining a list of names forever held in infamy for committing such a vile deed – John Wilkes Booth, Charles Giteau, Leon Czolgosz, and Lee Harvey Oswald.

Instead, he now finds himself in the company of a man still alive in 2024 for his attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan.

At just 25 years old, John Hinkley Jr. shot Reagan on March 30, 1981, just as the president was beginning the first of what would be two terms in office. Hinkley suffered from severe mental illness and had developed an obsession with actress Jodie Foster.

He believed shooting Reagan would impress her.

Now, after Crooks’ attempt on Trump’s life, Hinkley is speaking out.

“Violence is not the way to go,” Hinckley wrote. “Give peace a chance.”

Violence is not the way to go. Give peace a chance.

— John Hinckley (@JohnHinckley20) July 17, 2024

While the post is ambiguous as Hinkley does not explicitly say he’s referring to Crook’s actions, it’s safe to assume given the timing. If there is anyone alive today who can speak to trying to take a president’s life as “not the way to go,” Hinkley is that person.

After his misguided attempt to take Reagan’s life, Hinkley was lucky to escape with his life after wounding not just the president, but Press Secretary James Brady, Secret Service Agent Timothy McCarthy, and Police Officer Thomas Delahanty.

It was 41 long years of Hinkley’s life before he was completely free of every restraint.

Hinkley spent two decades in a mental hospital and in 2003 was allowed to spend longer periods of time in the community at the discretion of U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman.

After a decision by Friedman to completely allow Hinkley to live his life as he wished as of June 2022, the failed assassin can be seen posting videos of himself playing guitar to his YouTube channel. A quick scroll through of his account of X will show his latest posts are mostly about near-identical cat painting he does.

That is all to say, Hinkley as Friedman decided is, “no longer a danger to himself or others.” There is an authenticity that emanates from his words after the consequences of his actions saw him in custody for most of his life.

As Hinkley put it, we should all be giving peace a chance.

Leftist rhetoric almost caused Trump to lose his life while Corey Comperatore’s family lost a husband and father.

President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party have spent years insisting that Trump and “MAGA Republicans” are an existential threat to “our democracy.”

While Biden addressed the nation from the Oval Office on Sunday and insisted that we all “lower the temperature,” maybe it is Hinkley’s words we should all be heeding as the president seems to be ignoring his own advice.