Stoneage Ramblings

By John R. Stone

The attempt to assassinate Donald J. Trump recently is a reminder of other events of a similar nature.

I clearly remember three other attempts to assassinate a president, major political figure or a candidate for the office. None of them ended as well as this one did for Mr. Trump–two died and one nearly did.

The first was John F. Kennedy in 1963. At the time I was working for Control Data in its assembly facility in the basement of the McGill Building in downtown Minneapolis.

It was about lunch time when we were eating our sandwiches in the mechanical parts area when we heard the news. We were obviously shocked but had to go back to work.

When we left work I had to walk five blocks to Nicollet to catch a bus to my uncle’s house in Edina where I was living at the time. It was totally quiet downtown save the noise of the cars and buses. No chatter, no shouting. People just walked around stunned by the news and speechless.

Of course there was nothing on the news the next few days except about the shooter, Vice-President Johnson being sworn in, preparation for Kennedy’s funeral and more about Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby, who killed Oswald.

TV was so full of that stuff that theatres had a boom weekend, people just wanted to get away from the news.

Dr. Martin Luther King was shot the same week I entered basic training in the U.S. Army in 1968.

There is probably no worse place to be than in basic training in the Army when something like that happens. That early in military service you have the clothes you came in with and what you were issued. Not much else.

So there was no TV, very little radio and lots and lots of rumors. The biggest was that we were going to be sent to quell race riots that were sure to erupt after the death of Dr. King.

Of course the Army wasn’t going to send a bunch of raw troops with no training anywhere. Our drill sergeants were busy trying to get us from one place to another in a timely manner. Riot control? That would have been a sick joke. But some believed it anyway.

Three months later Robert Kennedy was shot in California. By that time President Lyndon Johnson had announced he would not be seeking reelection and Kennedy was campaigning for the job. I was between basic and advanced training. By now there were no riot duty rumors.

It was hard to believe that two Kennedy brothers had been assassinated in less than five years, one a president, the other seeking the job.

In 1981 President Ronald Reagan was shot. Reagan was older, at the time he was elected he was the oldest to start his first term as president. I think he was 69.

Reagan nearly died, he was hit from close range in Washington and was quickly taken to the hospital where he underwent surgery for his injuries. He survived but it had been a close call.

All of these memories came back Saturday when we turned on what we thought was going to be the evening news on a local channel and instead it was the national feed showing former President Trump had been shot.

Fortunately we could see immediately that it appeared his injury was not severe, but it was close, very close to being a fatal head shot.

It seems pretty clear to me after all these shootings that some people should not have guns. We need to figure out a way to determine who these people are beforehand and keep guns from them. This nonsense needs to stop.