Brady Campaign Seeks To 'Rebrand'

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

I’m not sure what the deal is, but while Giffords became Giffords a short time ago, it seems the Brady Bunch is looking to rebrand as well. This time, they want to simply be called Brady.

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If they think this will get gun rights activists to stop calling them the Brady Bunch, they’re delusional.

Still, this is a thing. The Brady Campaign’s rebranding.

The Brady Campaign & Center to Prevent Gun Violence, the nation’s oldest gun violence prevention advocacy group, is rebranding, changing its name to Brady and expanding its efforts.

The group announced the rebrand at an event on Tuesday night with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) while celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Brady Bill, which required background checks on gun sales by federally licensed firearms dealers.

Brady will keep its focus on state and federal policy, as it currently does, but will also work on four new key initiatives. The first is stemming the flow of so-called “crime guns,” guns that are used in crimes. The aim is to stop the flow of firearms from out-of-city or state dealers into communities impacted by gun violence.

The new End Family Fire initiative will work to reduce the number of improperly stored or misused guns found in homes that can lead to unintentional shootings, intentional shootings or suicide.

The Brady Legal Alliance will include partnerships with lawyers across the U.S. who work on reducing gun violence through litigation in the courts.

In other words, it’s going to keep pushing the same tired stuff and keep trying to win legal battles that federal law already prohibits it from winning.

Absolutely pathetic.

So why the rebrand? Brady doesn’t say, but I will say that groups that are effective at their goals tend not to rebrand. After all, when was the last time the NRA rebranded? Hell, the NAACP name contains a phrase now considered a racial slur, and it hasn’t rebranded.

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The last time the group changed its name was when they shifted from the National Council to Control Handguns to Brady Campaign & Center to Prevent Gun Violence in 2001. At that time, it was clear that it needed to rebrand because it was talking about a lot of stuff other than handguns for one thing. For another, the American public no longer supported handgun bans.

So why the rebrand?

Maybe because despite the perception that the public supports its plans, it still can’t get any traction? Maybe the argument that if Brady really wanted to combat gun violence, it wouldn’t be so focused on guns is starting to sink in?

It doesn’t matter.

What matters is that despite the attempts at a new name, the group isn’t anything different than the same crowd that wanted to take away handguns back in the ’70s. It still wants them, it knows it’s not going to get them, so Brady’s pretending it doesn’t care about them anymore.

Just with a shiny new name, Brady can act like it’s something new rather than the same one gun control crowd.

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