Attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan

On March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot and wounded by John Hinckley Jr. outside the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., as Reagan returned to his limousine following a speaking engagement. Hinckley, who had developed an erotomanic obsession with actress Jodie Foster after repeatedly viewing the 1976 film Taxi Driver, believed the attack would impress her. He had previously stalked President Jimmy Carter and was arrested on a firearms charge in Nashville in October 1980, an incident not connected at the time to presidential security concerns.

At 2:27 p.m., as Reagan exited the hotel's "President's Walk" toward his limousine, Hinckley fired six shots from a Röhm RG-14 .22 LR revolver in 1.7 seconds. The first shot struck White House press secretary James Brady in the head. The second struck D.C. police officer Thomas Delahanty in the neck. A bystander, Alfred Antenucci, and Secret Service agents moved to subdue Hinckley. Special Agent Jerry Parr pushed Reagan into the limousine; in doing so, Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy placed himself in the line of fire and was struck in the chest. The final bullet ricocheted off the limousine and struck Reagan under his left arm, breaking a rib, puncturing a lung, and lodging near his heart.

Reagan was taken to George Washington University Hospital, where he underwent emergency exploratory surgery and was later found to have lost more than half his blood volume. He was released from the hospital on April 11, 1981. Brady, McCarthy, and Delahanty all survived their wounds; Brady suffered permanent brain damage requiring a wheelchair, while Delahanty developed permanent nerve damage and eventually retired from the police department due to disability.

In the hours following the shooting, questions arose about the constitutional line of presidential succession. Secretary of State Alexander Haig stated at a White House press briefing that he was "in control here" pending the return of Vice President George H. W. Bush, a claim that was constitutionally inaccurate, since Haig was fourth in the line of succession behind Bush, House Speaker Tip O'Neill, and Senate President pro tempore Strom Thurmond. Neither Section 3 nor Section 4 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment was formally invoked. Bush returned to Washington from Texas and assumed oversight of the government response that evening without a formal transfer of power.

On June 21, 1982, Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity on all counts and was confined to St. Elizabeths Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Washington, D.C. He remained under institutional or supervised psychiatric care for decades, being permitted to live full-time with his mother under court supervision in September 2016.

James Brady died on August 4, 2014, in Alexandria, Virginia, at age 73. The District of Columbia Medical Examiner subsequently ruled his death a homicide resulting from the 1981 wounds. In 2015, federal prosecutors announced they would not pursue additional charges against Hinckley in connection with Brady's death, citing double jeopardy protections related to the earlier insanity verdict and the ex post facto implications of the "year and a day" rule that had applied at the time of the shooting.