In a Friday interview with the Washington Post, Jim and Sarah Brady state: "In the first place, lets make it clear we don't want restrictions on law abiding citizens beyond making sure that all gun purchasers undergo a complete and comprehensive background check." (Although they do still support local bans on all firearms if "a locality has voted it in themselves", and state or national bans on firearms which they claim are weapons of war.)

The Brady interview marks, apparently, a repudiation of many proposals which the Brady Campaign (formerly known as Handgun Control, Inc., and before that known as the National Committee to Control Handguns) has previously advocated. Such now-repudiated proposals include:

The "Brady II" proposal from 1994 declaring that ownership of a certain number of guns or gun parts or ammunition constitutes an "arsenal" which should require special licensing and subject the owner to warrantless home inspections.

Mrs. Brady's 1993 advocacy of a "needs-based" licensing system, in which police could deny a prospective gun purchase under the theory that the buyer does not "need" the gun.

So-called "safe storage" laws enacted in several states and cities, thanks to effective lobbying from the Brady Campaign, requiring that guns be locked up, and, in many cases, inaccessible for emergency self-defense. Legislatures which enacted these laws should be informed that the Brady Campaign, although formerly supportive of such laws, no longer supports them.

"One-gun a month laws." Repealed in South Carolina, but still in effect in Maryland, California, and Virginia, as a direct result of Brady Campaign lobbying. With the Brady Campaign now repudiating gun rationing, these laws should be repealed.

Perhaps the Brady Campaign will withdraw from membership in IANSA (International Action Network on Small Arms) which promotes many extreme gun laws which go far beyond the Brady objective of comprehensive background checks; such laws include banning all handguns, banning all long guns which can shoot over 100 meters (that is, almost all rifles), banning all self-loading guns (the Brady Campaign has long insisted that only some self-loading guns should be considered "assault weapons"), and prohibiting gun ownership for self-defense.

If the Brady Campaign takes action to give meaning to its leaders' declarations in the Washington Post, the Campaign will deserve respect from all sides of the gun debate for supporting reform of overly restrictive laws which the Campaign now, apparently, acknowledges were mistakes.