United Against Gun Violence. Period.

Currently gun violence is the #1 cause of death for children in the United States. Read that again if you have to. Speaking plainly, the scourge of gun violence takes our kids first in the course of claiming some 40,000 lives every year. At this writing there have been 383 U.S. mass shootings in 2026. There are harms we can meticulously work to avoid, but gun violence finds us wherever we are. 

The nonprofit’s namesake, Ronald Reagan’s Press Secretary James Brady, was shot in the head on an otherwise uneventful Monday in 1981. Brady survived with life-changing deficits, and he and his wife, Sarah – unrepentant gun owners both – became vehement advocates for responsible gun ownership, ultimately seeing passage of the law that bears their name. 

“The Brady Bill is the very reason we have the background check system for buying firearms that we do today,” says Sarah Morgan, Brady United’s major giving manager. The Brady United mission is not elimination of firearm ownership, but normalization of responsible gun ownership and the codifying of common-sense gun laws. Lawful gun ownership in the U.S. is a famously complex issue, and Brady United has for decades met the moment on every front imaginable.

Tackling Policy, Oversight, and Culture Change

“Brady has a three-pronged approach to solving the public health crisis that is gun violence,” Morgan says. “Our first approach is through policy. We’ve been able to lean into passing some really strong gun safety laws.

“The next pillar is industry oversight via the courts. In the last year, the City of Baltimore versus Hanover Armory resulted in the largest verdict ever rendered against the gun industry in history. 

“Our third pillar is culture change, which happens through things like our End Family Fire campaign, about the dangers of an unsecured firearm in the home. We’ve even consulted on TV shows and movies in the hope that viewers who see a cop coming home and putting the gun in a biometric safe will adopt those habits.” Is it working?

U.S. homicide rates dropped 17% from January to June 2024, with organized advocacy reversing an all-time record in violence under the first Trump presidency. Untraceable Ghost Guns are now banned or regulated in 10 states. Over 4,000 gun sales to folks convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence crimes were blocked in 2024 alone. Thirty-nine life-saving state bills passed this year, most recently SB948 and AB1743, which will ensure (respectively) that firearm purchasers receive education on state gun laws and firearm safety, and that recovered guns can be reliably traced to their first site of retail purchase. Brady’s work is saving lives. 

“We want gun owners to understand the value proposition of what it means to have a firearm,” Morgan says.