Would-be assassin who inspired stricter gun control freed
NORFOLK: John Hinckley Jr, who shot and wounded President Ronald Reagan in 1981, was freed from court oversight Wednesday, officially concluding decades of supervision by legal and mental health professionals.
Hinckley, who was acquitted by reason of insanity, spent the decades before that in a Washington mental hospital.
Freedom for Hinckley will include giving a concert — he plays guitar and sings — in Brooklyn, New York, that’s scheduled for July.
He’s already gained nearly 30,000 followers on Twitter and Youtube in recent months as the judge loosened Hinckley’s restrictions before fully lifting all of them. But the graying 67-yearold is far from being the household name that he became after shooting and wounding the 40th US president — and several others — outside a Washington hotel.
Today, historians say Hinckley is at best a question on a quiz show and someone who unintentionally helped build the Reagan legend and inspire a push for stricter gun control.
“For the president himself to have been so seriously wounded, and to come back from that — that actually made Ronald Reagan the legend that he became ... like the movie hero that he was,” said Barbara A Perry, a professor and director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.
Reagan showed grace and humour in the face of death, Perry said. After being shot, the president told emergency room doctors that he hoped they were all Republicans. He later joked to his wife Nancy that he was sorry he “forgot to duck”.
The assassination attempt paralysed Reagan press secretary James Brady, who died in 2014.
In 1993, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Brady Bill, which required a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases and background checks of prospective buyers. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence are named after Brady and his wife Sarah.
The shooting also a Secret Service agent and a Washington police officer.
Friedman, the federal judge overseeing Hinckley’s case, said on June 1 that Hinckley has shown no signs of active mental illness since the mid-1980s and has exhibited no violent behaviour or interest in weapons.
“This is the time to let John Hinckley move on with his life, so we will,” the judge said.