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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/TakeOffYourMask on 2023-08-18 03:54:47+00:00.

Original Title: It seems like there was an excessive amount of assassinations of politicians in the 20th century, and that this stopped around the 80s/90s and hasn’t flared back up. Is this perception accurate and if so what was going on back then?

Yes, I’m aware that Shinzo Abe was assassinated a year or two ago and that US Congressman was shot during a baseball game and that there have been near-misses with Brett Kavanaugh and Mike Pence. I know it still happens. My question is why it happened so much more in the past and why it happens much less now. In recent decades it seems terrorists and mass-murdering psychos mainly target groups of civilians, even if they have a political agenda, rather than political targets.