Should history remember Trump shooter? The pros (and cons) of making his name known
Do you recognize the names Richard Lawrence and John Flammang Schrank? How about Sara Jane Moore, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme and John Hinkley, Jr.?
Unless you’re a history buff or grew up in the 1960s these would-be assassins of U.S. presidents have been relegated to a footnote in history — which could also be the fate of Thomas Matthew Crooks in the wake of his attempt to assassinate former President Donald Trump.
While the history of Saturday’s shooting is still being written, scholars and authors point to past figures to indicate how the world will remember the 20-year-old. Some argue that naming him at all feeds into a cycle of notoriety and infamy that should be avoided by historians and journalists alike.
“I wholeheartedly agree with not naming, memorializing or glorifying these people who devastate communities,” said Mark Barden, co-founder of Sandy Hook Promise, whose son Daniel was among 26 killed in the 2012 elementary school shooting.
Trump’s shooter will be remembered more like Arthur Bremer, who attempted to kill presidential candidate George Wallace in 1972, because he nearly changed the course of history, said Mel Ayton, the British author of Hunting the President: Threats, Plots and Assassination Attempts – From FDR to Obama.
“The American public remember assassins Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan and John Wilkes Booth, amongst others, in the same way, but with one proviso – they DID change American history,” Ayton wrote to USA TODAY. “Numerous cases investigated by independent researchers as well as the Secret Service have confirmed that a central motive has been notoriety and fame following a life of anonymity and failure.”
Ayton also pointed to the obscurity of Peter Kocan, a 19-year-old Australian who shot Labor Party leader Arthur Calwell in 1966 in an assassination attempt. “Unless I did something out of the ordinary, I realized I would remain a nobody all my life,” Kocan told police.
The motive for Trump’s shooting has not emerged; federal investigators briefed Congress this week as they continue sifting through the shooter’s phone and online history for clues.
Ayton argues that attempts to de-emphasize the shooter’s name to make him less infamous are foolhardy – and that they could lead to a further erosion of trust in the media and government.
“We should treat political assassins as scars on the body politic and we should show how their acts of political violence cannot be used to promote an ideology within American society,” Ayton wrote. “However, the publicity the crimes gave assassins and would-be assassins cannot be avoided in a free society.”
Echoes of John Hinkley Jr.
Trump’s attempted assassination could be a flash in the pan and soon forgotten, or it could build to a lasting legacy of the former president, much as it did for Reagan, said Del Quentin Wilber, author of Rawhide Down, The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan.
Wilber said Reagan built a groundswell of sympathy and support, forming a bond with Americans based on his vulnerability and courage in the face of death. Hinkley Jr. shot Reagan, two members of his security team and his press secretary leaving the Hilton Hotel in Washington D.C. in 1981. A bullet ricocheted off his limousine and struck him under his left armpit.
Reagan’s approval rating rose after the attack by Hinkley, who was motivated by an obsession with Jodie Foster and the 1976 film Taxi Driver.
“Hinkley had staying power because he lived, police and psychologists questioned him, then he had a big trial and his insanity defense and he has stayed in the news,” Wilber said. “What will Trump’s shooter’s legacy be? He was 20 and doesn’t have the same long paper trail.”
Secret Service snipers also killed Crooks within seconds of him shooting his rifle at the former president.
A judge granted Hinkley unconditional release in 2022. He’s been living in Virginia, selling his music performances on YouTube and iTunes and selling paintings of his cat on eBay. Hinkley responded to the Trump shooting Wednesday, "Violence is not the way to go. Give peace a chance," he wrote, in a post that drew millions of views.
Wilber will be watching to see if Trump seizes on the moment the same way as Reagan, who used humor to deflect the near tragedy, famously telling First Lady Nancy Reagan, “Honey, I forgot to duck,” before his surgery after the shooting, and whispering to the room of anxious doctors, “I hope you are all Republicans.”
Trump’s messaging in the immediate aftermath of the shooting has been one of defiance and toughness, beginning when he mouthed “fight, fight, fight” to supporters from the stage while being whisked away by Secret Service agents. He has also reverted back to political discourse, posting a meme of his bloodied face alongside a shot of President Joe Biden falling up the stairs of Air Force One.
A page from 'No Notoriety'
Perhaps history will treat Trump’s shooter with the hands-off approach championed by the “No Notoriety” movement, which started in the wake of school shootings.
Advocates in the group lobby media to use a protocol to “reduce rampage acts of mass violence due to media-inspired fame.” It urges journalists to recognize the prospect of infamy and copycat crimes. It calls for reporting the facts, motivation and mindset of shooters, but downplaying the individual's name and likeness – unless the assailant is at large.
The movement applies more to shooters attacking innocent people than targeted assassinations, said No Notoriety co-founder Tom Teves, whose son Alex and 11 others were killed in the 2012 Aurora, Colorado theater shooting. The group began by advocating against naming that shooter, who was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2015.
“We don’t know why this guy did it, but we know for certain that people go into schools, churches and theaters shooting innocent people for fame,” Teves said.
Teves said he’s disheartened that after more than a decade of advocacy the media is as “far from perfect,” repeatedly showing names and images of shooters.
USA TODAY’s policy is guided by its editors who suggest: “any reporting on shooters should be meaningful and explanatory” and should seek to “report on the verified motive, contributing factors, red flags and how the incident could have been avoided or the damage reduced.”
In the wake of the Buffalo shooting spree in 2022, then-Editor-in-Chief Nicole Carroll wrote of shooters, “We have a public-safety responsibility to let readers know who they are, but will not amplify their hate.”
Dig into shooter’s past, not his name
History should forget the shooter’s name, but learn from the warning signs and psychology behind his attack, said Barden, of Sandy Hook Promise.
“We know from the data that shows folks are inspired by these acts,” he said, noting the organization is a signatory to the No Notoriety pledge.
Barden’s group focuses on stopping the shootings before they happen, urging people to watch for warning signs from potential shooters and speak up if they spot them.
“If a person starts exhibiting warning signs, it’s incumbent on anyone to connect that person to a trusted adult,” Barden said, pointing to a jarring ad campaign called “Just Joking” that cautions against ignoring even hints at a crisis.
Sandy Hook Promise, named for a pledge to protect children from gun violence, points to its own Say Something anonymous reporting system as a model for schools and communities to implement. It allows anyone to report suspicious behavior via and app, hotline and website.
More than 270,000 anonymous reports have been received so far, Barden said, and the system claims that it has touched off investigations of at least 16 potential shooting threats and prevented hundreds of suicides.
“We’ll be watching the Trump investigation closely and hopefully we’ll learn from what is discovered to help us inform our work,” he said. “What we know already is that this isn’t inevitable and it’s preventable and we ask people to get engaged, learn more and be part of the solution.”
Nick Penzenstadler is a reporter on the USA TODAY investigations team, focusing primarily on firearms and consumer financial protection. Contact him at [email protected] or @npenzenstadler, or on Signal at (720) 507-5273.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump shooter's name will be a footnote in history
