John Hinkley Jr on the loose.

[Spongebob]

As a side note, after reading about Hinkley's trial and the aftermath, its kind of astonishing that the federal government and several states reformed laws regarding the insanity defense, some abolishing it altogether.  Yet now, with so many mass shootings and so many deaths every year, we have almost no action in government to try and address the issue.  I don't understand why the president getting shot is so much more important than random citizens getting shot, including 6 year olds.

Look at all the damage Hinkley would have prevented had he succeeded. Ordinary people don't have the malevolent influence on their country that Reagan did in the eight years his regime held the White House.

Well, that's one way to look at it.

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Well, yes.  If it's important to address something when it happens to the president, it should be equally important when the victim is a regular citizen.

My take is that the president is a much more high profile person who attracts a lot more scrutiny and hatred from the general populace, and with mental cases, maybe even more so. The office of president carries a lot of responsibilities that most people in the rest of the population don't. I don't mean to sound dismissive with this, but replacing a duly elected president isn't as easy as replacing yet another citizen who has none of the president's responsibilities, or experiences. We've been recently subjected to an anomalous case where a president getting shot and killed would have most likely been a positive result for the world.

I disagree about the replacement part.  The POTUS has a built in backup.  In most cases it wouldn't change much if the Pres left and the VP took over for a few years.  Trump's case is probably the biggest exception in that opinion.