People consciously try to create normalcy when social events, such as an assassination attempt or any other disaster, disrupts social life.
An assassination or near assassination such as happened on the evening of the White House Correspondents Dinner is a species of a disaster, which means that there is a threat to or a partial breakdown of the procedures that allow a society to maintain itself. Chernobyl was a disaster because a large surrounding area became devoid of life and many workers died from radiation so as to cap the spread of the event. A levee may not be built high enough to protect dry land from a rising river, There are always shortcomings in planning. A disaster always means nearly being overwhelmed so that some correspondents wonder why there wasn’t a lot of TSA like doubling back lanes so as to stifle an intruder from approaching the ballroom, however inconvenient that might be for the flow of traffic..The characteristics of a disaster apply to assassinations because the general includes the particular though it has its own particular characteristics in that an assassination attempt engages with events requiring quick and expert decisionmakers to prevent the assassination to happen while those who allowed the challenger disaster had plenty of time to think that the F ring would freeze at that expected ambient temperature. But applying disasters to assassinations can illuminate what is happening to these notorious events.
People find ways to turn people into heroes even if a disaster has been, after all, a disaster, perhaps because it is the best that can be salvaged from the event. There is the legendary story of the boy who put his finger in the dike to keep part of Holland from flooding. There is the praise of the astronauts and Houston Control who allowed Apollo 15 to come back to Earth after a capsule malfunction. There is the praise of the firemen and policemen who ran up the floors in the World Trade Center before it collapsed, never mind the mistakes on preventing terrorists from getting control of planes. A notable exception is when Jesus says in advance of being taken after the Last Supper that he would be betrayed and that Peter would denounce Him three times. No compassion; only blame. Which shows just how precious Jesus is. The same praise occurred right after the assassination attempt in Washington. President Trump praised the Secret Service for having acted so quickly. Then he praised himself for being in a dangerous occupation but stoically accepted so that he could do good things.
People always act surprised at the advent of a disaster. There are bad snowfalls every winter but act as if the enormity is unusual when somewhere or other there will be a bad storm that leads to a lot of snow, disabled cars and even some deaths. People were surprised to find the frozen f ring until Feynman did so, it is always surprising that something unsettling actually happens. Similarly, people were shocked at the assassinatin attempt in Washington even though there were two previous attacks on Trump in his second term. People are unnerved by any displacement of the social order even if it has already taken place, order readily restored, or maybe not, when it took a generation to recover from the disaster of the bombing of Germany in World War II.
People also find solirity with even their opponents when disaster strikes. People think they will cooperate together in the common emergency. Texans rallied with New Yorkers after 9/11 or at least said so before retreating to their mutual animosity. The preference is to think people find their common humanity, that their differences are superficial, even though we know that social class and other differences show disparate outcomes in times of disaster. Poor homes are damaged more because of shoddy construction or inauspicious places to live and better off people get better insurance coverage because of insurance experts holding out for better deals. Similarly, people after the Washington assassination attempt announced their solidarity with one another despite their political differences. Trump raised the woman who chaired the correspondents dinner for her bravery even though all she did was to sit next to Trump on the dais by being hustled out of the room. Congresspeople of all stripes point out that the assassination attempt was thwarted even though the Democrats and Republicans will soon enough be at loggerheads again, that to me a proper recognition that assassination is a terrible and unconstitutional way to replace a President. The era of good feeling will pass.
People also find ways to find meaning from disaster. There are platitudes that suffering and survival makes you strong. Pope Leo I said about the plague in the fifth century that the Jews did it which was a reasonable and humane explanation because it meant that it was not necessary for people to blame their own shortcomings for the plague though Christians over the years have blamed their own iniquities as causing disaster. Less religious thinkers will blame the Corps of Engineers for badly planned dams or blame single crop farming for crop failures. Trump blamed the assisnation attempt on the fact that he was an effective president and only effective presidents are targeted, though Garfield was not an important reformer and Trump contradicted himself by saying the assailant was a wacko, which implied that he was beyond politics. It was a self serving explanation.
In general, the response and function of the feelings attendant to an assasination or any disaster is to reclaim the sense of social normality through showing good works and fealties of solidarity and techniques to improve the relevant aspect of the social order and despite the disorder that remains in the social compact whereby orderliness allows for a sense of prosperity or at least succor. Disaster has to be a surprise.