1. What was his legal state of residence on 30 March 1981?
It was either Los Angeles, CA or Texas. Not sure which was his "legal residence" but those were his two locations.
2. Was it possible for him to purchase the weapon he used legally?
He had been stalking President (at the time) Carter previously and had been arrested on a firearms charge in Nashville. I don't think he got a felony charge from that, and I don't think he was involuntarily confined previously. So I think he would have been qualified. Today the firearm charge and stalking a president would be handled much more seriously (terrorism) and he would have gotten thrown away with a felony conviction and he would have been DQed. Almost certainly, if he was a CA or TX resident, as I assume he was, he bought the gun legally, but today, we can be certain that his same actions would have given him a felony charge, prison time and DQ.
3. Was CCW possible for him at that time, and if so, what where the application requirements?
No way. Neither TX nor CA would have issued this guy a permit at the time. Today he also would not get a permit because of a previous firearms-related arrest probably.
4. How did he acquire this weapon?
Unknown, but he could have just bought it at a gunshop.
5. What did he use to shoot - weapon and ammunition?
Piece of junk Rohm RG-14, 22cal, I guess it's something similar this:
http://gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.asp?Item=45431604 . Not legal to import into CA or TX today. If he had been using a weapon in a caliber designed for use on humans (9mm and up) we would have been saying President Bush a few years earlier. The Gipper got very very lucky that the shot hit a rib bone, which blocked it from going into the heart. Any more powerful bullet would have shattered the rib bone and quite likely been fatal. Likewise for Jim Brady: he was hit in the head. It is tragic that he was left disabled, but if the bullet had been bigger, or had expanded, I assume Mr. Brady would have had a worse outcome.
Btw, he used some crazy thing described as "exploding ammo" that didn't work. Something called "Devastator" bullets. I don't know anything about these.
6. I vaguely remember something about him trying to take firearms on an airplane prior to 30 March. Is this true, and what happened?
There was some firearms charge in Nashville. I don't know what that was. I'm almost certain it would have been a multiple felony charge today, because it involved the president, among other things.
Looking at it over-all, you could say that in this incident, gun control laws failed, in the sense that they didn't do anything to prevent this unstable, dangerous guy from getting a handgun. But it's hard to imagine any kind of laws that would have actually helped. Nuts are nuts, and when they can't get guns they go nutty with something else (a car, a bomb, whatever).
Also, looking back shows how much times have changed. This guy WOULD get a much more serious charge for his earlier incident today and would have ended up DQed and probalby in prison. In some ways, the legal climate has changed enough to DQ him, even if the laws themselves are not substantially different. Also today presidents take security a lot more seriously. I would imagine that there are normally layers of some kind of armor (a light ballistic vest, etc) protecting the pres in almost all his public appearances today.
