A few observations:
When RR first woke up after his post-shooting surgery, some news-noid stuck a microphone in his face and asked how he felt about the 2nd amendment now. He replied he hadn't changed his mind and still supported the right to keep and bear. The interview was promptly ended and the report barely made one news cycle. Hmmmm. Imagine if he'd said "people shouldn't be able to have guns". It would have been banner headlines all over the US. Reagan later went with the Brady Ban for two reasons: Nancy hated guns and was increasingly influential in Ronnie's decision making, and at that time, RR was certainly in the grips of early Alzheimer's. (One could infer that one of the routes to Bradyism is impending dementia.)
Oh, by the way, the quote about "people shouldn't be able...." was exactly what Obama said when he met John Lott in Chicago when O was a state senator. NO ONE should be under any illusions about POTUS' real attitude about the 2nd amendment.
The Brady Group is and was a small, radical fringe group. It was founded by Mark Borinski,MD back in the 60's I think. He'd been mugged in NYC and decided to blame guns. (brilliant logic, Doc.) His group, Handgun Control, Inc. was nothing but a little group of radical idiots headquartered in some one-flight-up office in lower Manhatten. It got almost no traction, and was later taken over by Pete Shields, whose plan was first to demand all pistols be registered, then all manufacturing was to be stopped, and finally, all guns registered were to be confiscated. He didn't wear a swastika armband, but he should have. The group languished because it was wierd and had no "star power". That changed when the Brady's were courted and brought on board in 1982. The wierdness was more palatable with her name up front, along with her tragic story. The media finally had what it needed to beat the anti-gun drum effectively. The last figures I could find indicated that in 2009 they had 50,500 dues-paying members. Truly a drop in the bucket when GOA, CCRKBA, SAF each number in the hundreds of thousands, and the NRA more than 4 million. Lots of overlap of course, but still significant numbers. How much free press do these groups get? Zilch. Who does the media turn to when they want predictably anti-gun statements? The little radical fringies. I guess Helmke will take over when Sarah gets too feeble, or runs out of lies, which ever happens first.