Attempted assassination of Trump: The long history of violence against U.S. presidents

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump is surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents as he is helped off the stage at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on Saturday.& (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar) by Thomas Klassen, York University, Canada Political assassinations in the United States have a long and disturbing history. The attempted assassination of Donald Trump, who narrowly escaped death when a bullet grazed his right ear while he was speaking at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, highlights the danger of those seeking votes in a country whose constitution guarantees citizens the right to bear arms. Trump joins a not-so-exclusive club of U.S. presidents, former presidents and presidential candidates who have been the target of bullets. Of the 45 people who have served as president, four have been assassinated while in office. Given the near mythic status of U.S. presidents, and the nation’s superpower role, political assassinations strike at the very heart of the American psyche. In this Nov. 22, 1963 photo, President John F. Kennedy rides in a motorcade with his wife Jacqueline moments before he was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas.& (AP Photo, File) Abraham Lincoln’s killing in 1865 and that of...