[30 years ago this week, Congress passed the groundbreaking gun control legislation known as the Brady Bill. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of key moments and layers to the debate over gun control and guns in American society, past and present!]
On six
interconnected figures who together helped create one of the most groundbreaking
pieces of gun legislation in American history.
1)
James and
Sarah Brady: In recent years, we’ve become all too accustomed to victims
of gun violence and their loved ones working
as gun control activists; I don’t mean that each and every one of those
cases isn’t individual, important, and inspiring, just that the overall story
is too damn familiar in 21st century America. But that wasn’t the
case in the 1980s, when former Reagan administration official James Brady (who
had been severely wounded by John Hinckley during his
March 1981 assassination attempt on Reagan) and his wife Sarah became leading voices in the fight for
background checks on gun purchases. The contingencies of history are impossible
to unravel with certainty, but I think it’s very fair to say that the Brady
Bill was aptly named, that it never would have gotten anywhere without the
symbolic, strategic, and significant leadership provided by this couple.
2)
Edward
Feighan and Howard Metzenbaum: As that cute little dude from Schoolhouse Rock would remind us,
however, for a bill to become a law it takes lawmakers willing to introduce and
sponsor it, and in February
1987 these two Ohio Democratic lawmakers, Representative Feighan and Senator
Metzenbaum, did just that, introducing the Brady Bill as part of the 100th
Congress. It would eventually be voted down 228-182 in the House of
Representatives in September 1988, and would not become a law for more than
half a decade, a reflection of the power and pressure of the NRA,
the gun lobby more broadly, and its Congressional allies. But those factors
only make clearer still how courageous it was for these two elected officials
to take on those power structures, risk their own political careers in the
process, and start the ball rolling on the Brady Bill becoming a law.
3)
Chuck
Schumer and Bill Clinton: I don’t tend to get into the weeds of debates
among Democrats and the American Left on this blog, and I can promise you I
plan to continue not doing so as often as possible; see this
post on circular firing squads for why. Suffice to say, for many on the
Left Chuck Schumer and Bill Clinton represent not just a Democratic Old Guard
whose time has come and gone, but also the essence of Neoliberalism. And maybe
so, but in that case it’s even more impressive that one of Clinton’s first
signature moments as president was a pretty radical one—signing
the Brady Bill into law in November 1993, after Representative Schumer had
reintroduced it and it had finally passed the House. There might not be a lot
about politics in the 1990s that we should seek to emulate today, but I would
argue that the era’s
gun control victories definitely qualify.
Last gun
control history tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Histories or contexts you’d highlight?
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