James Brady, the former press secretary who was seriously wounded in a 1981 assassination attempt on then-President Ronald Reagan and an icon of the gun control movement as a result of that injury, has died according to various news agencies. He was 73.
Brady was later honored by having the White House press room named for him.
Less than three months into the Reagan administration’s first term, Brady was struck in the head by a bullet fired by John Hinckley, who was fixated on actress Jody Foster. Brady was the most seriously injured of all four people shot that day, including the president, and he never fully recovered from his wound, being confined to a wheelchair.
Brady became an icon to the gun control lobby, and with his wife, Sarah, started the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Anti-gunners pushed for 12 years and finally saw passage of the Brady Handgun Law in 1993 during the first term of the Clinton administration. With Sarah as the official spokesman of the Brady Campaign, Brady occasionally made public appearances or issued statements in support of gun control measures.
Depending upon one’s perspective, Brady either succeeded or failed in his efforts. There are stricter gun laws in several states, including New York, New Jersey, Maryland, California, Connecticut and Massachusetts. But in other states, gun laws have been considerably reformed and now millions more citizens enjoy gun rights and gun ownership then they did when Brady was wounded.
In the years since passage of the Brady handgun law, gun ownership has soared. Along with that, every state now has some kind of concealed carry statute, and there are now, according to some estimates, more than 11.1 million private citizens who are licensed to carry.
That number includes 464,732 active Washington CPLs, up more than 3,000 since TGM checked with the state Department of Licensing in July. The Evergreen State remains among the top states in terms of per capita carry licenses.
Brady was shot, along with President Reagan, a Secret Service agent and a Washington, D.C. police officer, by the mentally unstable Hinckley outside of a hotel in the District. It was illegal at the time for Hinckley to carry that unregistered gun, but the gun control law didn’t prevent his attempt, which was later revealed to be an attempt to impress Foster.
A recent federal District Court ruling declared the District’s ban on carrying guns outside the home to be unconstitutional in a case brought by the Second Amendment Foundation. The judge in that case issued a 90-day stay last week, allowing the District time to either file an appeal, or adopt a workable carry ordinance.
Congress allowed the Clinton semi-auto ban, passed in 1994, to expire ten years later, despite Brady’s appeal to renew it. However, the National Instant Check System – a main tenet of the Brady Law – remains in effect.
A spokesperson for the family did not specify a cause of death.
