Sarah Brady, gun control advocate, dies at 73

Sarah Brady, who became a gun-control advocate after her husband James Brady was shot during an attempt on the life President Ronald Reagan, died Friday at 73.

“In the history of our nation, there are few people, if any, who are directly responsible for saving as many lives as Sarah and Jim,” said Dan Gross, the president of the  Brady Campaign and Center to Prevent Gun Violence, in a statement.

{mosads}“There are countless people walking around today who would not be were it not for Sarah Brady’s remarkable resilience, compassion and – what she always said she enjoyed the most – her hard work in the trenches with this organization, which she continued right up to the very end,” he said.

Brady and her husband became advocates for greater gun control after he was severely wounded in the 1981 assassination attempt. Brady was Reagan’s press secretary at the time, and he was injured along with others in front of the Washington hotel where the shooting occurred.

They were instrumental in passing the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which required that most people buying firearms undergo a background check first.

James Brady died in August.