Would-Be Reagan Assassin John Hinckley Jr. Leads A Strange Post-Release Life

John Hinckley Jr. sitting on fence wall in front of the White House. The picture is undated, but believed to have been taken less than a year before his attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. Source: Bettman / Cuntributor / Getty

When Ronald Reagan was shot on March 30, 1981, the world was stunned. Who could have committed such a violent act? The man behind the gun was John Hinckley Jr., a mentally unstable young man who allegedly wanted to impress Jodie Foster. His attack injured four people: a Secret Service agent, a police officer, and White House press secretary James Brady, as well as President Reagan, and earned him 25 years of psychiatric care.

In 2016 he was released from a psychiatric institute (he was found not guilty by reason of insanity), but he was given strict orders for life on the outside world. Some of them, like not having access to firearms, make sense. Other stipulations for his release are much more weirdly specific.