Congress Style Assassinations

In American history, there has been a relatively small number of members of Congress who have been killed or wounded while in office. Not all members included in the list were the targets of assassins. Some died in duels or were not intentionally targeted. This list does not include instances when members died in accidents or suicides. Fourteen members have been killed and eight have been seriously wounded by assailants. Additionally, the circumstances surrounding the deaths of at least three members are disputed and they may have died as a result of natural causes or accidents.

The four incidents below are the ones recalled by the media in the wake of the Giffords shooting.  But the list is a long one. See below.

Rep. Jonathan Cilley

Jonathan Cilley of Maine was killed in a duel with Rep. William Graves of Kentucky Feb. 24, 1838. Cilley had accused Graves of bribery on the floor of the House to which Graves responded by challenging him to a duel with pistols.

Graves killed Cilley after three rounds. After the duel, the House voted to ban all forms of dueling between members in Washington, D.C. Although the House considered censuring Graves, not enough votes were garnered and Graves was largely unpunished for killing one of his colleagues.

Sen. Charles Sumner

Reps. Preston Brooks and Laurence Keitt, both of South Carolina, severely beat Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts so badly he needed three years to recover. Brooks beat Sumner over an anti-slavery speech that verbally attacked Sen. Andrew Butler of South Carolina, a relative of Brooks.

Brooks and Keitt eventually resigned after the House voted to censure Keitt and the state of Maryland prosecuted Brooks. The assault, which took place May 22, 1856, was a precursor of tensions between the north and south which would eventually lead to the Civil War.

Puerto Rican Nationalists

Four Puerto Rican nationalists stormed the Capitol March 1, 1954. The House was in session as they were taking a vote regarding the employment of Mexican migrant workers.

Five Congressmen were wounded by gunfire from the visitor's gallery: Alvin Bentley of Michigan, Ben Jensen of Iowa, Clifford Davis of Tennessee, George Fallon of Maryland and Kenneth Roberts of Alabama. All five survived the 30 shots which rang out from above the floor. All four perpetrators were eventually sentenced to long prison terms.

Rep. Leo Ryan

Rep. Leo Ryan of California made a trip to Guyana to try to ascertain why members of his congressional district were disappearing into the jungle. When he and his team attempted to leave by airplane the encampment of cult leader Jim Jones of People's Temple, five of Ryan's delegation including Ryan were killed in an ambush November 18, 1978, at the airfield.

The Ryan incident was the last time a sitting member of Congress was assassinated. Ryan's assistant Jackie Speier who survived the attack, went on to serve in the California legislature 20 years before being elected to Congress in 2008.

The complete listing from Wikipedia is below.

Members of Congress Assassinated:

Spencer Pettis		–	Missouri (1st at-large seat)	August 28, 1831	Thomas Biddle	Both Pettis and Biddle sustained fatal gunshot wounds during a duel on Bloody Island in Illinois.[1]
Jonathan Cilley			Maine (3rd district)	February 24, 1838	William Graves	Cilley was shot by Graves, the Whig Congressman from Kentucky's 8th district, during a duel on the Marlboro Pike inMaryland.[1]
John Montgomery		–	Pennsylvania (12th district)	April 24, 1857	Unknown(disputed)	Multiple people staying at the National Hotel in Washington, D.C. died of National Hotel Disease during this time period. It is disputed whether the "disease" was an attempt to poison hotel boarders or simply a case of accidental food poisoning.[1]
John Quitman			Mississippi (5th district)	July, 17, 1858
David Broderick			California (senator)	September 13, 1859	David Terry	Broderick and Terry, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of California, took part in a duel in San Francisco. Broderick was shot and died three days later.[1]
Edward Baker			Oregon (senator)	October 21, 1861	7th Brigade, 4th Division of the Confederate Army of the Potomac (under the command of Nathan Evans)	Baker died during the Battle of Ball's Bluff, while assigned command of a brigade in Brigadier General Charles Pomeroy Stone's division, guarding fords along thePotomac River in Virginia. The Confederate soldiers were commanded by Brigadier General Nathan George Evans.[2][3]
Cornelius Hamilton		–	Ohio (8th district)	December 22, 1867	Thomas Hamilton	Hamilton was killed by his mentally ill 18-year-old son, Thomas, in Marysville, Ohio.[1][4]
James Hinds		–	Arkansas (2nd district)	October 22, 1868	George Clark	Hinds was killed in Indian Bays in Monroe County, Arkansas after being shot in the back by George A. Clark, a member of the Ku Klux Klan and the secretary of the Democratic committee of the county.[1][5][6]
John Pinckney			Texas (8th district)	April 24, 1905	Unknown (riot started by J. N. Brown)	A political event in Hempstead,Texas turned violent when one of the participants, J. N. Brown, began shooting. Other attendees began to shoot as well and a riot broke out. Pickney, his brother Tom, and Brown were all killed at the scene.[1][7]
Huey Long			Louisiana (senator)	September 8, 1935	Carl Weiss(disputed)	Long died two days after Weiss fired a handgun at him at close range inside the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge. More recent evidence suggests that Long's bodyguards may have accidentally shot and killed Long when they open fire on Weiss, who was killed at the scene.[8][9]
Thomas Schall			Minnesota (10th district)	December 19, 1935	Lester Humphries	Schall was hit by a car being driven by Lester G. Humphries as he was walking across the Baltimore–Washington Parkway in Cottage City, Maryland; he died three days later. Humphries was arrested for reckless driving.[10][11]
Robert Kennedy			New York (senator)	June 5, 1968	Sirhan Sirhan	Kennedy was shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after giving a speech for his presidential campaign; he died about 25 hours later.[12]
Leo Ryan			California (11th district)	November 18, 1978	Peoples Temple (under the direction of Jim Jones)	While on an official visit to Guyana to investigate the activities of the Peoples Temple cult led by Jim Jones, Ryan was shot multiple times while attempting to board an airplane leaving Jonestown.[13]
Larry McDonald			Georgia (7th district)	September 1, 1983	Soviet Far East District Air Defense Forces (under orders from Anatoly Kornukov)	McDonald was a passenger on board Korean Air Lines Flight 007 which was shot over the Sea of Japan near Sakhalin island by Soviet interceptors per the orders of General Kornukov, Commander of Sokol Air Base.[14]

Members of Congress Wounded:

Charles Sumner			Massachusetts (senator)	May 22, 1856	Preston Brooks	Representative Preston Brooks, a Democrat from South Carolina's 4th district, assaulted Sumner with a cane on the floor of the Senate in the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The attack followed Sumner's verbal attacks on pro-slavery politicians.[15]
Josiah Grinnell			Iowa (4th district)	June 14, 1866	Lovell Rousseau	Grinnell was assaulted with an iron-tipped cane by Rousseau, anUnconditional UnionistCongressman from Kentucky's 7th district, on the east portico of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., in retaliation for derogatory statements he made earlier. Grinnell was pummeled on the "head and face until the cane broke," and was heavily bruised.[16]
Alvin Bentley			Michigan (8th district)	March 1, 1954	Rafael Cancel Miranda, Andres Figueroa Cordero, Irving Flores Rodríguez, Lolita Lebrón	In an event known as 1954 United States Capitol shooting incident, armed Puerto Rican nationalists shot and wounded five representatives from the Ladies Gallery of the House of Representatives in the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.[17]
Clifford Davis			Tennessee (10th district)
George Fallon			Maryland (4th district)
Ben Jensen			Iowa (7th district)
Kenneth Roberts			Alabama (4th district)
Gabrielle Giffords			Arizona (8th district)	January 8, 2011	Jared Loughner (alleged)	Giffords was shot in the head during the 2011 Tucson shooting, which occurred at a constituency meeting held in a supermarket parking lot in Casas Adobes, Arizona.[18]