WEBVTT - Assassination Week #3: How The Reagan Assassination Attempt Made Everything Worse 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.520 This is assassination week. Oh God, my left arm, pet, 0:00:03.640 --> 0:00:12.640 it hurts so much. Land doesn't feel so good. Ronald 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:19.880 Wilson Reagan. Six, six, six, six letters in any way, whatever. Um, 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:22.040 I'm Robert Evans. This is it could happen here, a 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:26.119 podcast about assassinating world leaders. Um, that's why it's called 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:28.720 it could happen here, and today we're talking about a 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:33.560 time where it did, when John Hinckley Jr shot Ronald 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:38.680 Wilson Reagan. Um, with me today James Stout, Garrison Davis, 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:42.600 Um and of course, of course, the ghost of Ronald Reagan, 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:46.880 who was a regular contributor to our to our podcasts, 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:50.199 along with the ghost of the Queen. And Yeah, now 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:55.440 the ghost of the Queen has joined the team. Very excited. Um. So, obviously, 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:58.840 John Hinckley shot Reagan. We're gonna get into a lot 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:01.400 of detail about Mr Hinckley's life. This is something that 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:05.400 is joked about a lot on the Internet, including by me. Um, 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:09.080 but you know, it's it's it's interesting because there's there's 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:11.800 two strains of people who will like come out and 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:13.720 tell you it's not cool to joke about John Hinckley 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:17.240 JR shooting Ronald Reagan. And one of them is right. 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:18.960 which are the people who are like, well, actually like 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:22.800 it's pretty messed up story, and he like it's it's 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:25.720 kind of messed up to to laugh about this family's tragedy, 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:28.320 because it was a family's tragedy, and the other people 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:30.080 are like, no, it's fucked up because he had the 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:32.560 hots for Jodie foster and what was actually going on 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:35.520 there was a lot more complicated um than that. So 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:38.040 we're gonna talk about all of the things that happened 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:39.920 in this shooting, which was messed up and which I 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:43.399 probably shouldn't joke about on twitter, Um, because it's actually 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:47.080 really bleak Um, and in order to understand both why 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:49.600 it's sad on a personal level and why it's a 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:53.160 tragedy for the entire country. Um, yeah, I'm just gonna 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:57.320 start by talking about John Warnock Hinckley Jr, who was 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:02.080 born on May nine and more Oklahoma, which is about 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:03.800 two and a half hours from where I grew up 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:07.280 in Oklahoma. Unlike me, John's Dad, who was John Warnock 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:10.760 Kinkley SR, was the chairman and president of Vanderbilt Energy. 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:12.840 So they had lots of money, a lot of a 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:17.760 lot of walking around money and vanderbilt money. Yeah, and 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:20.600 like most people who have good money, they don't stay 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:24.680 in Oklahoma. Um, they have any owls and the vanderbilt 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:27.920 is big must. I'm certain they did add owls to 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:31.480 this story. As you picture John's childhood. Um, so their 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:33.720 richest hell and they get the funk out of Oklahoma 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:36.000 and moved to Dallas Texas when John was four, which 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:38.240 is so far weirdly like my life in a lot 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:40.800 of ways, although I was a bit older. Um, maybe 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:44.440 that's why I didn't get the madness. So that's not why. Normally, 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:47.720 getting kids away from Oklahoma really really fix his stuff. 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:51.280 But John was taken. John was taken to the only 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:55.119 place more toxic than small town Oklahoma, a wealthy neighborhood 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:58.840 in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex. He attended highland park 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:02.160 high school. This school where I would later lose several 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:06.640 speech and debate competitions and when one or two as well. Um, 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:08.800 it's where, if you if you're in the DFW area, 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:11.720 the rich kids who don't have good drugs go to 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:14.640 highland park, but which rich kids with good drugs go 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:17.760 to Jesuit because they're private school kids. But Highland Park 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:20.079 is like the rich kids who are gonna like try 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:22.320 to sell you a shitty ditch weed. Anyway, these are 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:25.760 this is important Dallas Fort Worth context, and I assume 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:28.520 it was the same when he was a child. Um, 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:30.959 as far as I've ever found any information, he was 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:34.839 a pretty your normal young man for that time and place. UH, 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:39.120 there's no one really seems to notice anything particularly different 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:42.720 about him. Um, he does reasonably well in school. Uh, 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:45.360 later in life he's going to express some racist thoughts 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:48.200 in his diary and in other writings prior to the shooting. 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:50.720 It doesn't really seem to have ever been a motivating 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:52.840 factor in his life and to the extent that he 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:56.000 had regressive beliefs, they seem to have been due to 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:58.080 the fact that he grew up in a sheltered, rich, 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:04.120 all white environment. Um, and that's not great for you. Um, shocked. Yeah, 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:08.880 shocked one in Texas no less one right up in 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:11.880 the new republic describes his childhood this way. Perhaps it 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:14.880 is fear of what lies outside that makes the interior 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:17.480 of the family so rigid and subdued, like life in 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:20.080 a well run bunker. The world of the hinkleys was 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:22.800 the rootless middle class sun belt culture that nurtures pro 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:28.000 family values, Christian fundamentalism and occasional mass murderers. Families move frequently, 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:32.480 but without compromising their parochialism. Everywhere people are White, Christian Republican. 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:35.960 Joanne explains John's egregious prejudices by saying he had never 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:39.120 been around people of other races. Somewhere outside there are 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:42.440 malign elements, minority groups, rock musicians, big government and the 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:46.440 cynical Gosmus cosmopolites who dominate the media. Mothers in this 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:48.840 culture do not lavish attention on their children, but on 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:54.360 their furniture. Now that is a coastal liberal elite like 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:57.520 fucking paragraph. Trying to describe like people who grow up 0:04:57.520 --> 0:04:59.479 in this situation as someone else who grew up in 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:02.440 a similar area. I think most of that is pretty 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:05.160 silly and, more to the point, it doesn't get to 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:08.440 why John does this. We're getting to why John does this. 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:11.960 It's not because he grew up sheltered and a little racist. Um. 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:16.680 That is not why he shoots the president. Um. There is, however, 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:20.440 a bit of that that that does strike me as accurate. As, again, 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:22.839 a kid who grew up near here a couple of 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:25.920 decades later, which is the description of his childhood as 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:28.279 life and a well run bunker, which is kind of 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:31.320 how it feels to live in these wealthy enclaves in 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:33.680 the Dallas Fort Worth area. I grew up in plain Oh, 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:35.880 which is, you know, a couple of steps down the 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:38.520 economic rung from Highland Park, but not all that far. 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:42.720 and Um yeah, that's that's not a bad description of it. 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:45.400 It just doesn't generally lead to kids shooting the president. 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:47.520 More often it leads to them shooting up heroin and 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:50.000 then dying of heroin overdoses, which was the big problem 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:52.960 in Plano when I was a kid. That said, it's 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:54.960 also worth noting that his parents are not, as far 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:58.120 as I can find, like fifties stereotypes, like his dad's 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:01.760 not this super masculine I who's like mentally abusive to 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:05.400 his kid. His his MOM's not like checked out. Neither 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:07.840 of them are against the idea that their son might 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:10.599 have a mental illness and need help for it. In fact, 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:13.560 it seems like they're kind of more open to the 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:16.640 idea of reaching out for professional mental health for their 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:18.640 kids than a lot of parents would have been at 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:21.960 the same time period in nineteen seventy six, John Drops 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:24.000 out of Texas tech to go to Hollywood and try 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:26.080 to make it as a musician again. His parents are 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:29.960 very supportive of him. One cannot say they didn't try 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:32.360 to help their son live his dreams. When he gave 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:34.000 up on music and he wanted to be a writer, 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:36.000 they paid for him to take a class at Yale. 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:39.599 We'll get to that in a second. It doesn't go well, UM, 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:42.440 because he's yeah anyway. But John's not being honest with 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:44.640 his ambitions, nor is he open with his parents about 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:48.000 his mental health. We now know that John Developed Schizophrenia 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:50.880 as a young man and had a series of psychotic breaks. 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:52.680 When he would get money to do stuff like this 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:55.520 Yale writing class, he would take it and buy guns. 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:58.000 He did go to Yale, but it was mainly to 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:00.560 Stalk Jodie Foster, who was going to ill at the 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:03.320 same time. Um, now this is all occurring in the 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:05.840 late nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties, which is the 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:09.240 fucking Dark Ages for treatment of this particular condition and 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:11.120 a lot of other conditions. There are not a lot 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:14.160 of good options. Among other things, I just said, he's 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:15.920 not open with his parents about the fact that his 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:18.800 mental health is declining. I don't know how he really 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:21.440 could have been I don't understand. I don't think it's likely. 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:24.320 It's certainly not the case. This didn't happen to John, 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:25.960 but I don't think it's very likely for a young 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:28.880 man in this time and place to be well equipped 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:31.760 by his education or society to express what is going 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.320 on in his head to his parents. Um, and it's, 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:36.360 you know, to be fair to his parents, they're not 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:40.000 equipped with a lot of like, you know, an ability 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:42.080 to really help him out here, and they're doing the 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:45.320 things you would want them to do. Again, they repeatedly 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:48.320 are bringing in professionals to try to help. Um. None 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:51.640 of it is particularly useful, but it's not for lack 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:55.200 of trying. Um, like a lot of people who struggle 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:58.080 with similar mental health issues, John Seeks refuge in fiction. 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:01.560 Unfortunately for everybody, the movie that he finds himself most 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:04.520 drawn to is taxi driver, and I think most people 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:09.840 are aware of this part of it. It's a bad choice. 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:12.520 That's a really bad choice. Yes, if he had found 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:14.520 maybe adventure time or something, it would have been a 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:18.920 lot healthier, but instead taxi driver. If you haven't seen it. 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:22.600 There's the main characters. His Kid, Travis bickle, played by 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:24.840 a very young Robert de Hero. It is weird to 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:27.160 watch him because we're also used to old man Bob 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:31.840 Denro Um, who is thinking about assassinating like a presidential candidate, 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:36.520 and then kind of through movie magic, rescues a child prostitute, 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:41.520 played by Jodie Foster, from a pimp. Um, and Hinckley 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:44.080 thinks the movie is kind of talking to him and 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:47.679 providing him with like information about how he can fix 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:51.080 his own life. He starts dressing like Travis bickle. He 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:53.959 starts wearing like an army jacket and boots and drinking 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:56.880 the way that bickle drank. He starts buying guns. He 0:08:56.920 --> 0:09:00.560 gets really into guns for you know. Um, he starts, 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:02.680 you know, in letters that he's writing home to his parents. 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.480 He starts talking about this relationship he has with a 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:08.880 woman named Lynn, who isn't real but who sounds a 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:11.440 lot like one of the women that Travis Beckel has 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:15.559 an interest with in the movie. Um. And Yeah, this 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:17.920 is kind of the start of his obsession with jodie foster. 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:19.880 And there are people who will like say that he's 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:22.600 a pedophile because she's thirteen. In the movie. That doesn't 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:25.560 seem to be the case when he is actually stalking 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:27.880 her and most obsessed with her. She is eighteen and 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:30.560 he is stalking her in real life and calling her 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:33.040 on the phone and stuff, which is like bad and 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:35.920 messed up. But he's not into her because she's young. 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:38.080 In this movie. He's into her because he's he's kind 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:40.839 of losing his mind and obsessing with her. Right. So, 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:42.960 while this is all going on kind of in the 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:47.400 late stages of this, his parents bringing a psychiatrist Um again, 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:50.240 they're they're willing to fund and support him and seeking 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:53.800 professional help. The doctor they wound up getting for him. 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:56.080 I don't know if he's a bad doctor for the time, 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:58.640 but he's wrong as Hell. He kind of looks at 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:01.640 the fact that John has been normal, quote unquote and 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:04.280 quote unquote, in high school and like at the start 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:06.920 of his college career, and so he looks at this 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:09.840 kid who's like seems to be developmentally normal up to 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:12.199 a certain point and then goes off the rails and says, well, 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:14.280 it's because you were sheltered and coddled by your rich 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:17.640 parents and you're just lazy, right. That's that's that's what 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:20.199 this guy says. So a big part of his like 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:22.760 advice to mom and dad is you gotta cut him off. 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:25.280 You can't. Can't keep giving him stuff, can't keep giving 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:28.040 him money, can't keep taking care of him. Um. So 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:30.280 while this is happening and this guy is like making 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:32.920 them make plans for John to be less reliant on 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:36.160 his parents, John Hankley is getting way more into guns. 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:38.840 He does a lot of target shooting. He also plays 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:41.439 a lot of Russian roulette with himself alone in his basement, 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:45.760 which is not not great. Um, in Christmas of nineteen 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:48.480 seventy nine, he takes a very famous photo of himself 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:52.439 holding a handgun to his temple. Now John is increasingly 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:55.280 harassing jodie foster in this period. Now, what he's doing 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:57.480 is not he's not just obsessing with her and it's 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:00.240 one sided. He is reaching her on the phone. They 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:05.080 talk a couple of times, yes, they do. She is 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:09.079 always very terse in their calls. Always you can tell 0:11:09.240 --> 0:11:11.760 is kind of frightened, but is very controlled and careful. 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:14.720 I would describe the way she handles this is very 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:18.080 responsible and, like you can tell, she's talked with like people. 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:19.960 I think like her manager or something and been like 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:22.480 I have been advised, like I don't want you calling it. 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:25.640 She's very tries to be very clear here. Um, and 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:27.640 I think handles this as well as a person can 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:31.199 possibly handle, you know, being stalked in this way. I 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:33.200 believe he's able to get her number because, like, it's 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:37.200 the eighties and people just have numbers in the phone book. Um. Again, 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:39.400 she's kind of taking a break from Hollywood right now 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:43.320 and is going to Yale. Um, his obsession with foster 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:46.400 veers between these kind of like fantasies of like harming 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:50.480 her or harming a guy that she's with, or harming 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:54.280 himself and eventually harming the president of the United States. 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:57.040 Now he is not want to shoot the president for 0:11:57.080 --> 0:12:00.600 political reasons. He has no kind of particular her anger 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:02.600 at the president that he wants to work out with 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:06.120 a gun. He wants number one to impress her and 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:08.680 he wants everyone to know his name and know his 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:13.840 name associated with jodie foster. Right, because, again, he's very ill. Um, 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:16.480 he starts following Jimmy Carter around. He goes to like 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:19.400 three different Jimmy Carter rallies in D C and in Ohio. 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:22.400 There's video of him twenty feet away from Carter at 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:25.840 one point. He probably has a gun on him. Um, 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:29.240 like he gets really close to Carter again. One of 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:32.680 the through lines here is that, like presidential security wasn't 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:37.480 great a night. Yeah, it's not very good. Um, Carter. 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:41.680 John Thinks about shooting Carter. He's probably there and equipped 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:44.160 to do it, but he just can't get himself into 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:46.760 the frame of mind to shoot Jimmy Carter, which is 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:50.120 understandable because it is. It is Jimmy Carter right, like 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:52.120 he is a hard Amanda want to shoot to death. 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:05.360 So there's a moment where he like yeah, so he's 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:08.000 he's kind of bouncing around. After this period where he 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:12.480 like is he thinks about shooting Carter, but he doesn't. 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:16.319 He is in communication with this Nazi ideologue and they 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:19.760 almost have a meeting, but they don't. Um, that's all 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:22.880 kind of obscure, kind of unclear. And then on October 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:26.000 six nineteen eighty, he gets arrested at the Nashville airport 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:29.920 with a briefcase full of handguns and a pair of handcuffs. Now, 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:39.959 hoops hasn't been in this situation. The gun bag and oops, yeah, 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:44.160 he says he's just trying to sell them and they're like, well, 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:46.040 you still can't get on a plane with a bunch 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:52.120 of guns, Johnny. This is yeah, this is pre night eleven. 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:55.520 So he you have to assist. He's looking weird. He's 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:58.520 like sweaty and in an army jacket and talking to it, 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:02.280 and they're like, well, we've literally never searched a single 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:05.240 person before in the entire life of this airport, but 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:09.600 let's check this guy. What's this massively heavy brief case? 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:12.120 There's a fun there's a dude just walking in with 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:14.360 a Stinger and they're like no, no, let that guy on, 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:19.200 but we gotta check John Ainkley Um. So he flies 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:22.920 to Dallas, where he buys more handguns and some explosive 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:25.600 twenty two caliber bullets. We will talk about that in 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:29.040 a little bit, but they are explosive bullets, twenty two 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:32.640 caliber bullets. There are bullets that are to explode on impact. 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.360 Is he like reading soldier of Votune magazine at this point? 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:38.920 Because this is nobody. He's like a gun culture. So 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:42.480 I haven't we have to assume. I think his family's 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:46.920 kind of casually conservative. He is kind of maybe as 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:49.360 is embodied by the Nazi thing, probably dabbling in some 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:53.720 areas again. I think that's that's certainly not good for him. 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:56.280 It's also, I don't think politics. I haven't seen any 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:58.960 real evidence that politics is a motivating factor. And what 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:02.600 this guy is doing, Um, he does get explosive bullets. 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:06.160 Probably helps that he has explosive bullets in terms of 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:09.760 making this less dangerous. These are not good explosive bullets. 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:11.920 They are meant to be fired out of a larger 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:15.120 weapon than he fires them out of, but they are 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:17.360 supposed to. Basically, the idea is this. These are twenty 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:19.960 two caliber round, so the idea is that this little 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:22.920 explosive charge in them makes them more like a thirty eight. 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:26.200 So we're not talking about like military grade weaponry or 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:29.200 anything here. Why is he doing? You may not know, 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:31.720 of course, but like if he's a massive gun dog, 0:15:32.280 --> 0:15:35.120 he's not a massive no, gun culture is different than right. 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:37.600 He's buying a bunch of handguns. He's shooting a lot. 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:40.240 I don't know that it would be. He's not particularly 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:44.280 good or knowledgeable with right. Okay, yeah, yeah, but gun 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:47.080 cultures very it's harder to get information about guns right. 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:48.880 Maybe the day, he would have gotten a lot more 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:51.840 into you like just flipping through magazines exactly. You can't 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:55.480 look something up online. Yeah, yeah, he's twenty two, good 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:59.000 for assassination, just exactly. And this is also like this 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:01.400 is what he can afford. He gets kind of he's 0:16:01.440 --> 0:16:05.640 lost his better guns right their property of the state, 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:07.920 so he winds up with this twenty two and he 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:10.120 gets these explosive bullets to try to make it give 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:13.440 more of a kick. Obviously, the thing that's going on 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:15.360 in the background here is that Jimmy Carter and Ronald 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:19.000 Reagan having a presidential election which Reagan wins. Um, we'll 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:21.600 talk a little bit about kind of that a bit later, 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:27.480 but that happens. Reagan is the president elect. Um, he 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:31.200 flies home, Hinckley flies home. Things continue to deteriorate in 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:35.000 his own life. He's continue to like travel around. John 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:37.480 Lennon is assassinated and he kind of goes a little 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:40.920 bit nuts over that because he loves John Lennon. Also 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:43.600 might kind of think that he is John Lennon. So 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:47.120 that does not help his mental state. He visits the 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:50.280 the the what is it? The shrine to him in 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:51.800 New York at one point and kind of. When he 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:54.760 gets back in March of nine, his dad cuts him 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:57.440 off basically like says, you know, you've got your here's 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:00.120 your car, here's two hundred dollars. We can't take air 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:02.120 of you anymore. John, and I think this is his 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:05.240 dad basically trying to take that psychiatrist advice of like it. 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:06.800 We need to have tough love. He has to be 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:09.320 forced to kind of get his ship together. But John 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:11.640 Hinckley is not really capable of getting his ship together 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:14.320 because he is profoundly ill. So he uses that money 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:16.440 to pay for hotel rooms in Denver where he sits 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:20.840 alone watching television with a gun. Um. Not Great Treatment 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:25.240 for schizophrenia. Reagan wins the election, uh, in what was 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:28.960 a sweep electorally but fairly tight in terms of popular vote. 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:32.240 He's got like fifty point five percent of the popular vote, 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:35.119 something like that. It's pretty close. And soon after taking 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:36.879 office he gets hammered on a bunch of stuff. Right, 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:39.800 the economy is not great, he's this, he's he's back. 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:42.240 He's like going for a bunch of far right policies 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:44.000 to unwind the new deal, a lot of which are 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:46.080 unpopular and some of which, he said he wasn't gonna 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:49.919 do and debates with Carter. He's not. He doesn't have 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:52.800 the kind of traditional grace period most presidents get where 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:56.399 they're broadly popular. Right, Um, it's not looking great for 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:59.160 kind of the midterms, is what I'm getting at Um. 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:02.040 So Reagan's a is struggling to right the ship, trying 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:03.919 to figure out like, how do we how do we 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:07.200 fix all this? Reagan or Hinckley while this is going 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:09.879 and gets convinced that like shooting the president is a 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:12.600 pretty good idea. He doesn't have a lot of other options. 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:15.280 He's kind of like running out of money and he's 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:16.720 able to get a little bit more from his mom, 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:21.080 but he's he's increasingly unhinged and alone and desperate. On 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:23.359 March twenty nine, he checks into a hotel in D 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:26.600 C where he finds in a local paper the president's schedule. 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:29.679 He loads his twenty two caliber revolver, he writes a 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:32.399 letter to Jodie foster and he travels to the Hilton 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:35.720 where the president is set to deliver speech to union workers. 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:40.600 Here is how John's letter to uh to her ends. Quote. 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:42.920 I will admit to you that the reason I'm going 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:45.320 ahead with his attempt now is because I just cannot 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:47.600 wait any longer to impress you. I've got to do 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:50.280 something now to make you understand in no uncertain terms 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:52.040 that I am doing all of this for your sake. 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:54.920 By sacrificing my freedom and possibly my life, I hope 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:57.440 to change your mind about me. This letter is being 0:18:57.440 --> 0:19:00.520 written only an hour before I leave for the Hilton Hotel. Jody, 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:02.560 I'm asking you to please look into your heart and 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:04.960 at least give me the chance, with this historical deed, 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:07.520 to gain your respect and love. I love you forever, 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:15.640 John Hankley. It's not great. Yeah, yeah, not a great 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:19.199 letter to get, not a great letter to send. was 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:22.600 was this actually like delivered in the mail? I believe so. Yeah, 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:24.600 I think this she ends up getting this. I mean, 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:27.360 like she has to come to court and stuff when 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:29.600 he goes on trial. It's like something he kind of 0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:31.840 demands and I think she does to just make it 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:36.119 easier for things to move along. Um, obviously she. She 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:38.320 does nothing wrong at any point in this process. She's 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.040 just living her life and this guy is out of 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:43.280 his out of out of his head and has easy 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:48.200 access to guns, Um, which is a problem at PM 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:52.280 on March nine. One John Hinckley JR opens fire at 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:55.560 the president's entourage from just a few feet away. Reagan 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:57.640 had been speaking to a bunch of union guys at 0:19:57.640 --> 0:19:59.919 this this thing at the Hilton Anyway, and they're kind 0:19:59.920 --> 0:20:03.680 of like walking out into towards the Lima when this happens. 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:07.720 John's first shot hits James Brady, the press secretary and 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:11.200 former PR man for Philish loafly in his head. Uh. 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:14.320 He then wounds a police officer and a secret service agent. 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:17.359 He actually does not hit probably doesn't. I don't. I 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:19.160 think there's still a little bit of debate because it's 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:22.280 like ballistics are kind of fucky. But he probably doesn't 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:25.879 directly hit Reagan. Instead around fragments and bounces off the 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:29.400 armored limousine, penetrating the president's lung. None of the explosive 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:32.000 bullets explode because they're not the right bullets for the gun. 0:20:32.080 --> 0:20:34.639 The barrel is too short, Um, so it doesn't. It 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:37.440 might even do less damage than it would have done, 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:40.960 although maybe they fragment because they're these weird explosive bullets 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:43.560 and that's why Reagan gets hurt. Anyway. Hard to say. 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:46.560 Nobody really understands ballistics. That all that well. Today there's 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:49.040 a lot of debate over how all this stuff works. 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:52.239 Reagan had been in office for sixty nine days and 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:54.600