A Secret Service agent grabbed the gun, which contained bullets, but had no bullet in its chamber.
Last year, a tape of her interview with a mental health examiner was released. In the interview, done shortly after her arrest, Fromme explained the "X" mark that she and other followers of Charles Manson had on their foreheads:
"Well, it has different levels. On one level it is a cross that's a following cross. On another level it is an 'X' and the 'X' is we are marked out of the system as it stands. We don't go along with it."She commented on her use of LSD:
"I became aware of the possibilities of different realities as seen through different eyes, as seen through the Chicanos for example. I traveled in my mind into their world, the east Los Angeles. And then I traveled into the ghetto and I traveled into high society."Here's some video containing interviews with Ford and Fromme looking back on the incident. Notable quote from from: "Of course, I could have shot him, and to me, his life didn't mean more to the redwoods to me."
The comments there (at YouTube) don't take assassination too seriously: "She didn't kill anyone." "Fuck. We could have been rid of that dip-shit." Even those who seem to take it seriously can't be serious: "She remains unrepentant of her actions and her mullet."
Fromme is now 66 years old. She's been out of prison since 2009.
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33 comments:
"Oh. no. They're out there snipping the lines. The phone's dead! It's that Manson group. It's Squeaky and Tex and... Lenny and Squiggy."
A Secret Service agent grabbed the gun, which contained bullets, but had no bullet in its chamber.
Please No.
Those were cartridges, which consist of casing, propellant, primer and bullet. Only the pointy thingee, e.g. the bullet, leaves from the front. The casing goes out the side.
Sometimes the cartridges are called shells, but the term is better used when referring to artillery or shotguns. In pistols, the shell properly is only the casing.
PS: Cartridges come off of clips to be fed into magazines.
Assassinating Republicans is always good fun. Remember, like two years ago, when the left was all over everybody for "eliminationist rhetoric."
That was just just battlespace prep for them to come out with it.
Did Squeaky even know she would have to rack the slide first in order to fire the gun?
I thiught the story at the time was that life by herself had become too much for her, so she thought she would do something stupid, and they would have to put her in an institution and take care of her. Which is what they did.
The Squeakster. La Squeakarama.
I don't care how many drugs you took, if you think Charlie is all that, you're pretty goddamn hopeless.
Charlie's still alive, right? I think if he'd died, I'd have heard about it.
I remember the whole Manson thing well. A friend lived next door to the La Biancas. Thank god no one was home because they first went to the house on the other side of his and no one was home. While they were waiting for instructions, the La Biancas came home from the river.
That whole clan was distressingly similar to what the whole Democrats Party has become in the intervening years.
Living in a fantasy world. BLM is trying to make it real, of course.
Nelson Rockefeller woulda finally been President.
I remember that well. It was the day before my wedding (September 6). Had she successfully assassinated Ford, it would have put a real damper on the occasion. Fortunately, Squeeky bumbled her opportunity.
"I became aware of the possibilities of different realities as seen through different eyes, as seen through the Chicanos for example. I traveled in my mind into their world, the east Los Angeles. And then I traveled into the ghetto and I traveled into high society."
So, the Mansons were the original Social Justice Warriors.
"So, the Mansons were the original Social Justice Warriors."
Helter Skelter is finally beginning.
Get to the dune buggies.
I am Laslo.
The Drill SGT said...
...that he doesn't know what a "bullet" is.
I read so many stupid, wrong, made-up definitions of words here that it sometimes seems as though many Althouse readers - and occasionally Althouse - don't have access to dictionaries.
1. a. A usually metal projectile in the shape of a pointed cylinder or a ball that is expelled from a firearm, especially a rifle or handgun.
b. Such a projectile in a metal casing; a cartridge.
Another:
b. the entire cartridge
I once dated a girl who claimed her grandmother was an original member of the Manson Family.
When she was little her grandmother would take her to the park to eat ice cream and point out the people Charlie would've wanted killed. Which was pretty much everybody.
As she became older her grandmother taught her about make-up and how to apply lipstick to her forehead to make an 'X'; you know, girl things.
I took her to Denny's once: when she ordered 'pigs in a blanket' she just laughed and laughed and laughed, then asked for an extra fork. It made some patrons nervous; she said Charlie would've wanted them killed, too.
She had a thing about forks: her grandmother had given her one as an heirloom that came from the Spahn Ranch, and when she sucked my cock she would lightly trace the tines on my balls. I wasn't too worried, because I held a knife to her throat, just like she asked.
Eventually, it just got too weird: lipstick 'X's on her forehead, The Beatles' 'White Album' played backwards incessantly, her constant nagging for me to get a tattoo of Charlie on my back. Also: the crime scene photos in little frames on the bedroom night-stand splattered with candle wax.
It finally fell apart one night when we were having anal sex and she started to yell out the name "Charlie!" over and over. Afterward she said I got it wrong, that I should just said "Shut Up, Bitch" because that is what Charlie would've done.
She was sad that I was leaving, but she made a point to say that Charlie wouldn't have wanted me killed, so I felt a bit better about that. Still, she scratched "Helter Skelter" on the side of my car with a key. The plus to that was that people wouldn't park near me, even in a crowded parking lot.
For sex you can put up with a lot of crazy, but there are limits.
I am Laslo.
@The Drill SGT
I'm using the terminology that was in the NYT.
Also, the fact that there were additional connected components does not undermine the truth of the fact of the bullets being in the gun but not in the chamber.
" Squeaky's in prison, I'm in misery
Squeaky's in prison, I'm in misery
that little Red Riding Hood
really does it for me"
California Prison Blues
Loudon Wainwright III
"I'm using the terminology that was in the NYT".
"Also, the fact that there were additional connected components does not undermine the truth of the fact of the bullets being in the gun but not in the chamber."
Shorter Althouse, "those aren't my words, but I'm right anyway."
I'm a gun owner. I know the technical term is cartridge. But the definition of bullet, per dictionaries and common use includes "cartridge".
Of all the various, and oft hilarious, misunderstanding of firearms, this falls WAY to the back of the pack.
One can also use the more generic "rounds" instead of cartridges - i.e. "I have 10 rounds in the mag and one in the chamber". Too bad my state is run by retards, or I'd have 13 in the mag.
Ann Althouse said...
Also, the fact that there were additional connected components does not undermine the truth of the fact of the bullets being in the gun but not in the chamber.
Maybe,
But your lawyerly usage is technically embarrassing for you...
I traveled in my mind into their world, the east Los Angeles. And then I traveled into the ghetto and I traveled into high society."
Then she traveled to prison. Unfortunately she travelled out again. Unfortunately, because the fact that she is old does not mean that she's not dangerous.
According to an interview with the Secret Service agent that I read at the time, he was trained to grab the gun putting the web between his thumb and forefinger between the hammer and the gun. That prevents the hammer from making contact with the firing pin, but it hurts like H**l. The agent said he didn't feel pain at the time, but he later realized that the web between his thumb and forefinger was bloody. Conclusion: the gun was cocked (a Colt model 1911 is single action and must be cocked before pulling the trigger does anything) and she really did pull the trigger on a cocked pistol. She was too dumb to rack the slide and chamber a round, but she really did try to kill Ford.
Well, she's out now and no doubt waiting for another Republican president to try to shoot.
According to Wiki, Fromme intentionally removed the cartridge in the chamber before confronting Ford.
@Steven Davis, I couldn't believe that Wiki would publish such BS, but, indeed, what the article says is "In 1980, Fromme told The Sacramento Bee that she had deliberately ejected the cartridge in her weapon's chamber before leaving home that morning."
That's what it says, but the only way to eject a round from the chamber on a Colt Model 1911 is to rack the slide. If the magazine is in position, then racking the slide automatically loads the round at the top of the magazine into the chamber so it remains loaded. She could have taken out the magazine, racked the slide, to eject the round, and reinserted the magazine. Is that plausible? My opinion is that it's more plausible she stuffed the partly-loaded magazine in the gun, cocked it, and tried to shoot Ford. She may have had hands too weak to rack the slide (perhaps it moved a little and she thought she was good to go) or just never knew that she was overlooking a key step.
@Big Mike
Yeah, could be any number of scenarios, but I would think that anyone involved with the Manson family would know how to use a 1911, but then again, they did specialize in knife work.
Would the good Prof be as flippant about a similar misuse of legal terminology?
Didn't Sara Goode also make an attempt on Ford?
@Steven Davis, have you ever racked a slide and discovered that you hadn't pulled it back far enough to chamber a round from the magazine? 1911s don't have loaded chamber indicators.
Yes, my .45s are all single action, and one is a compact 1911 that is over 30 yo. I'm not sure why it matters
I remember that well. It was the day before my wedding (September 6). Had she successfully assassinated Ford, it would have put a real damper on the occasion. Fortunately, Squeeky bumbled her opportunity.
@Steven Davis, note my post at 2:06. Secret Service agents are trained to slide the web between their thumb and forefinger between the hammer and the back of the slide, and the blood he found later in that web of skin suggests that the hammer was cocked and the trigger pulled.
If true, then the most likely scenario for Fromme was that she cocked the hammer, racked the slide -- but not far enough to chamber the round -- and pulled the trigger. Many women cannot rack the slide on a 1911 unless the hammer is already cocked, and not racking the slide far enough to chamber a round from the magazine is an easy mistake to make if you're not an experienced shooter.
That's all I'm saying. I think she meant to kill President Ford, and screwed it up. Being a party to the murder of James and Lauren Willett didn't seem to bother her; why should pulling the trigger on President Ford?
Fromme famously requested leniency on the basis that the gun didn't fire in her assassination attempt, which is the only case I can think of that takes the chutzpah of a person who murders their parents and asks for consideration because he is an orphan, and turns it on its head.
Ann Althouse said...
@The Drill SGT
I'm using the terminology that was in the NYT.
9/5/15, 11:15 AM
So your defense is that due to your malicious ignorance of such matters, you relied on a publication known for its malicious ignorance?
Gotcha Mike. and I can see that scenario. But what difference, at this point, does it make?
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