Ronald Reagan probably beats God and Jesus as the go-to heavenly saint the Republican Presidential candidates will not hesitate to invoke to burnish their Conservative credentials.
I wonder how many of them will be willing to take up Reagan's call for better gun laws?
Every year, an average of 9,200 Americans are murdered by handguns, according to Department of Justice statistics. This does not include suicides or the tens of thousands of robberies, rapes and assaults committed with handguns.
This level of violence must be stopped. Sarah and Jim Brady are working hard to do that, and I say more power to them. If the passage of the Brady bill were to result in a reduction of only 10 or 15 percent of those numbers (and it could be a good deal greater), it would be well worth making it the law of the land.
And there would be a lot fewer families facing anniversaries such as the Bradys, Delahantys, McCarthys and Reagans face every March 30.
Ronald Reagan wrote that as part of an op-ed supporting the Brady Bill in 1991. The
Brady Bill, named after Reagan's press secretary, was not passed until 1993, as it faced stiff opposition from the likes of the NRA.
The March 30 anniversary in question was the day 10 years before when Reagan, Brady, and two others were shot and seriously wounded by a gunman with a history of mental illness.
Ronald Reagan's brush with gun violence did not turn him into a gun-hating liberal. He was a member of the NRA at the time that he wrote that op-ed. But even as a member of the NRA, he would not be out of the ordinary to call for more sensible gun laws, such as background checks.
So it is always quite interesting to me when these Republican Presidential hopefuls usually look for almost any opportunity to compare themselves to the likes of Ronald Reagan, but when it comes to the policies he actually put forward, suddenly they get cold feet.
Of course, as many observers have pointed out, the real life Ronald Reagan would probably be disowned by today's Republican Party. The Reagan that lives on in most of their minds bears very little resemblance with the Reagan who actually governed. But as this example further illustrates, the Republican candidates only invoke Reagan when it suits them to associate themselves with his legacy. But when it comes to actually walking in his footsteps, you never quite see any of them willing to put their money where their mouths are.