When the gun lobby lost and America won: 25 years later, the Brady Bill is a case study in courage and common sense
Bruce Reed, a White House Chief Domestic Policy Advisor to President Clinton, reflects on the passage of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act
No issue has become a larger symptom of American political paralysis than guns. A total of 96 Americans die by firearms each day and from Las Vegas, Parkland, Pittsburgh, and Thousand Oaks to the ongoing shootings across the country, gun violence repeatedly shocks the nation’s conscience — and so does Washington’s stubborn refusal to act. The impassioned students from Parkland speak for an entire generation that has never seen anything happen on guns except an endless cycle of shots, thoughts, and prayers.
Today’s interminable rut of gun politics is all the more reason to commemorate the Brady Bill, which Bill Clinton signed into law 25 years ago this week. Few laws have represented a clearer triumph of courage over gridlock or proved so successful at preventing crime and saving lives.
When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, the prospect of passing gun safety legislation was every bit the uphill battle it is now. In October 1993, a record 51% of Americans told Gallup they had a gun in their home. Today that number is 43%. Back then, the National Rifle Association’s approval rating was 22 points higher than disapproval. In the years since, the NRA’s net approval has been cut in half.
Then as now, a quarter century had gone by since Washington had last strengthened the nation’s gun laws. The assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy spurred Congress to pass the Gun Control Act of 1968 banning felons from buying guns and making gun dealers obtain a federal license. But the National Rifle Association soon learned to intimidate Congress by mobilizing gun owners against any member who dared support a gun bill. In 1986, the NRA pushed through the Firearm Owners Protection Act to ease gun sales and limit federal enforcement.
The NRA’s next target was the Brady Bill, introduced in 1987 to require background checks for the purchase of firearms. James Brady, President Reagan’s press secretary, had been wounded in the attempt on Reagan’s life by John Hinckley, who had purchased a “Saturday night special” at a Texas pawn shop while under psychiatric care. Despite the tireless efforts of Brady’s wife, Sarah, and the eventual support of Ronald Reagan, the bill stalled repeatedly in the late ’80s and early ’90s. With the nation’s capital mired in gridlock, Brady Bill supporters wondered whether Washington would ever muster the gumption to defeat the NRA.
Bill Clinton was a New Democrat from a southern state no Democratic presidential nominee has carried since. “Half the folks had hunting and fishing licenses,” he liked to point out. “We still close schools and plants on the first day of deer season. Nobody is going to show up anyway.” But twice as governor, he vetoed NRA-backed legislation that would have preempted Arkansas cities from enacting stricter gun laws than the state. He was determined not to let the NRA hold Washington hostage, either.
The Brady Bill had other fierce champions willing to take on the gun lobby, including Ohio Rep. Ed Feighan, its first sponsor; New York Rep. Chuck Schumer; Ohio Sen. Howard Metzenbaum; and Senate Judiciary Chairman Joe Biden, who ushered the bill through conference and broke an NRA-backed filibuster to win final passage in November 1993. In the end, the bill had the support of a third of Republicans in Congress.
Today, no tragedy seems capable of moving Congress to pass a gun safety bill. Yet the Brady Bill is proof of the difference gun laws can make. Since 1993, the Brady Bill has stopped more than three million felons, fugitives, and other prohibited purchasers from buying guns. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) has conducted 300 million background checks since the FBI launched it 20 years ago this month.
Together with other efforts to reduce violent crime, the Brady Bill has helped cut America’s gun homicide rate nearly in half. In 1993, seven of every 100,000 Americans were the victims of gun homicide. Since 2000, the rate has averaged about four of every 100,000. That means roughly 10,000 fewer Americans are shot to death every year.
James Brady died in 2014, followed by Sarah Brady a year later, but their legacy lives on. Beyond a history lesson, the Brady Bill is a blueprint for gun safety in the future. The next step is to expand the law to require background checks for all gun purchases, not just sales by licensed dealers. Parents, police, Parkland students, and 96% of Americans support making background checks universal.
When he signed the law, President Clinton offered it as proof of what we can accomplish if we stop “trying to make the American people afraid that somehow their quality of life is going to be undermined by doing stuff that people of common sense and good will would clearly want to do with every law enforcement official in America telling us to do it.” The Brady Bill’s success is a case study in courage, good will, and common sense. As Clinton said then, “We cannot stop here.”
Bruce Reed is CEO and Founder of Civic, a bipartisan policy ideas company. He also serves as Co-Chair of the Aspen Institute Future of Work Initiative. Reed served for more than a decade as a top White House policy adviser under Presidents Clinton and Obama. As President Clinton’s chief domestic policy adviser, he oversaw a host of domestic and social priorities, including crime, education, and welfare reform. In the Obama administration he served as Executive Director of the Bowles-Simpson debt reduction commission and Chief of Staff to Vice President Joe Biden.
Reed also served as the first president of the Broad Foundation and as CEO of the Democratic Leadership Council. He began his career as chief speechwriter for Sen. Al Gore, DLC policy director for Gov. Bill Clinton, and deputy campaign manager for policy of the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign. He has been a contributor to Slate, The Atlantic, and The New Republic and co-authored The Plan: Big Ideas for Change in America with Rahm Emanuel. He is a native of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and graduated from Princeton and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
