In the wake of last month’s shooting in Tucson, Arizona, in which U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords was the primary target, Congress’s research arm found that more than 20 attacks have been made on lawmakers and their staff since the establishment of the legislative branch.

 

Records show that at least 21 attacks involving 24 members of Congress have occurred since 1789, according to a new report from the Congressional Research Service. More than half (11) of these assaults were thwarted or resulted in no serious injuries to representatives or senators.

 

Lawmakers were wounded in three of the incidents, and seven members died during the remaining seven assaults. Staffers were physically harmed in four of the attacks.

 

Two of the incidents led to the passage of new laws. After Rep. William J. Graves (Whig-Maryland) killed Rep. Jonathan Cilley (D-Maine) in a shooting duel on February 24, 1838, Congress prohibited the issuing of challenges to duels within the District of Columbia. (It was already illegal to hold a duel in D.C.) Following the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy (D-New York) on June 6, 1968, Congress made it a federal offense to assassinate, kidnap or assault a member of Congress. It was this law that the Justice Department used to prosecute Jared Loughner in the attack on Gabby Giffords.

 

Other notable violent attacks include the assassination of Rep. Thomas Haughey (R-Alabama) while giving a campaign speech in 1869; the assassination of Rep. John M. Pinckney (D-Texas) at a public meeting regarding liquor laws in 1905; the assassination of Sen. Huey Long (D-Louisiana) inside the State Capitol Building in Baton Rouge in 1935; the 1954 shooting of five members of the House of Representatives by Puerto Rican nationalists inside the House; and the killing of Rep.Leo Ryan (D-California) by followers of religious cult leader Jim Jones in Guyana in 1978. Jackie Speier, an aide to Ryan, was also wounded in the shooting. Speier is now herself a member of the House of Representatives.

 

 

A 1998 shooting inside the Capitol resulted in the death of two congressional law enforcement personnel, Jacob Chestnut and John Gibson.

-David Wallechinsky, Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Violence Against Members of Congress and Their Staff: Selected Examples and Congressional Responses (by R. Eric Petersen, Jennifer E. Manning and Erin Hemlin, Congressional Research Service) (pdf)