Saturday’s assassination attempt of Donald Trump is widely viewed as the Secret Service’s biggest failure since 1981, when a gunman shot President Ronald Reagan just over two months into his first term. Reagan was hospitalized for nearly two weeks. Three other people were injured, including Reagan’s press secretary James Brady, who was shot in the head and left partially paralyzed. Brady and his wife Sarah would go on to become prominent gun control advocates pushing for a bill that became known as the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. Brady was also involved in a gun control organization that changed its name to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, now known simply as Brady. “Reasonable and appropriate gun violence prevention measures save lives,” says Kris Brown, the president of Brady. Brown advocates for critical gun control measures that would interrupt the Republican Party’s vision of “guns everywhere, for anyone, at any time.”
