John Hinckley Jr., the man who tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan, really wants people to stop asking him to kill Donald Trump. The 69-year-old spoke up on X Thursday after some users replied to his posts after Trump’s election win—which were innocuously promoting his art and website—with comments saying “We need you” and encouraging him to come out of “retirement.” “I’m a man of peace now!” Hinckley wrote. “Please stop with all the negative comments!” A Secret Service source told TMZ earlier in the week the agency is “aware of the social media posts” but wouldn’t comment “on matters of protective intelligence.” Hinckley shot Reagan along with his press secretary, a Secret Service agent, and a police officer outside the Washington Hilton Hotel on March 30, 1981. He did so in an effort to impress the actress Jodie Foster, with whom he’d become obsessed after seeing Taxi Driver. Hinckley, who was found not guilty by reason of insanity, was released from a psychiatric hospital in 2016 under restrictions that were eventually lifted in 2022. Earlier this year, he condemned the attempted assassination of Trump in Pennsylvania, saying that violence “is not the way to go.”
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