Reports the New York Times:

Lynette ”Squeaky” Fromme was just 26 years old when she pointed a semiautomatic .45- caliber pistol at Ford in September 1975 in Sacramento, Calif. Secret Service agents grabbed her and Ford was unhurt.

This sentence is factually true, but the Secret Service agents’ role in preventing Ford’s assassination is cast in a different light when you read the Wikipedia entry:

The pistol’s magazine was loaded with four rounds, but none were in the firing chamber. She was immediately restrained by Secret Service agents, and while she was being further restrained and handcuffed, managed to say a few sentences to the on-scene cameras, emphasizing that the gun did not “go off”.^[8] Fromme subsequently told The Sacramento Bee that she had deliberately ejected the cartridge in her weapon’s chamber before leaving home that morning, and investigators later found a .45 ACP cartridge in her bathroom.^[9]

It’s interesting, because the underlying message of the NYT article is, “Look how competent the government is. The President is safe. All is well.” If the gun had been loaded, would there have been time for it to go off? Seems likely, since the line between “pointed at the President” and “pulled the trigger” is about a quarter of a second.