James Brady - # 86

James Brady dies

He was number 86 on the list.

James Brady, who has died aged 73, was the White House press secretary who was shot in the head on March 30 1981 when John Hinckley, a mentally ill college dropout, opened fire on President Ronald Reagan as he left the Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC ; Brady’s experiences led him to take on a prominent role in the subsequent campaign to tighten gun control in the United States.

Reagan was hit in the chest before being bundled into his limousine and whisked to hospital. A police officer and a Secret Service agent were also wounded. But of the four victims, Brady was the most seriously injured, sustaining a severe head wound that left him confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Watching the replayed news footage of the assassination attempt over the years took a toll on Brady, who sprawled on the ground after being shot and in the confusion was mistakenly declared dead by one news network. “I want to take every bit of [that] film,” Brady once remarked, “and put them in a cement incinerator, slosh them with gasoline and throw a lighted cigarette in.”

In the years following the shooting, he underwent a series of operations, and suffered partial paralysis, short-term memory loss, slurred speech and constant pain. Although he returned to work only briefly, Brady retained the title of presidential press secretary and continued to draw his White House salary until Reagan left office in January 1989. The White House press briefing room was subsequently named after him.

Brady also gave his name to a federal law passed 12 years after the shooting which requires a background check on people buying handguns. Under the Brady law, formally known as the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, gun buyers also had to wait five days before a handgun could be sold, although the waiting period has since been replaced by an instant background check. Restrictions introduced in the Brady law are estimated to have blocked two million gun purchases.