WASHINGTON — Wednesday is the 30th anniversary of the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. Gun-control advocates, including Reagan’s wounded press secretary, Jim Brady, will use the day to launch a renewed push for curbs on guns.

Once again, chances are they won’t get very far.

Additional Photos

President Reagan waves, then looks up before being shoved into the presidential limousine by Secret Service agents after being shot outside a Washington hotel March 30, 1981. 1981 Associated Press file

The public remains sharply divided, largely along geographic lines, over gun rights vs. gun control. Gun-rights groups, led by the National Rifle Association, dramatically outspend gun-control organizations on campaign donations and lobbying.

President Obama, though he urged gun-control action in an essay March 13 in the Arizona Daily Star newspaper, hasn’t made a strong push. Congress is likely to remain preoccupied with budget battles, with lawmakers unlikely to tackle the divisive issue of guns.

“People are sensitive to the issue of gun violence because of the Giffords shooting … but the gun issue is down on Congress’ list of priorities, given high unemployment and two and a half wars,” said Darrell West, director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution, a center-left Washington policy-research center.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., is recovering at a Houston rehabilitation center after being shot in the head Jan. 8 in Tucson.

“She’s the most prominent victim since Reagan,” noted Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

The Tucson incident, combined with the Reagan anniversary, gives gun-control advocates a fresh platform.

Brady and his wife, Sarah, a gun-control advocate, plan to visit the White House today and Capitol Hill on Wednesday to lobby for tighter curbs on firearms.

“I think prospects are better than you’re probably hearing,” Sarah Brady said Monday in an interview. However, she conceded, “there’s an awful lot on everybody’s schedule, and their thoughts right now are often elsewhere.”

That’s nothing new. Other than the 1993 so-called “Brady Bill,” which requires background checks for handgun or long-gun purchasers from federally licensed gun dealers, “not much has been done in the last 30 years,” Helmke said.

Cultural factors influence public attitudes.

A Pew Research Center poll taken Aug. 25-Sept. 6 found that in the East, 60 percent favored gun control while 36 percent supported gun rights. In the Midwest, 52 percent backed gun rights, and 44 percent preferred gun control. The South was split, though the tally was 61 percent to 36 percent for gun rights in Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee. The poll surveyed 3,509 people; its margin of error is 2 percentage points.

Urban Democrats are the most vocal gun-control advocates, but the national party has shied away from any major push.

“Democrats are fearful of the gun issue,” West said.

Sarah Brady said that when she and her husband visit Washington, “we want to shore up the Democrats first. When you go and visit with members of Congress, a lot of them know it’s the right thing to do, but they don’t want to face voting for it.”

NRA officials didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Gun-control backers say 2011 could be different, but their opponents expect little change.

The scorecard this year:

• The White House.

“The fact is, almost all gun owners in America are highly responsible,” Obama wrote this month. But, he said, “Advocates for gun owners should accept the awful reality that gun violence affects Americans everywhere.” Among his ideas was to make the background-check system “faster and nimbler.”

Kristen Rand, the legislative director of the Violence Policy Center, found this weak.

“They felt pressure to appear to be moving forward,” she said. “There’s a lot they could be doing without legislation,” such as tougher enforcement of some current laws.

• Republicans.

Three weeks after the Giffords shooting, 16 House Judiciary Committee Democrats wrote Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, asking for hearings on gun safety. Smith said no.

Hearings “could have the unintended effect of prejudicing the ongoing criminal proceedings against (suspect Jared) Loughner in which his mental status is likely to be a key issue,” Smith said. Loughner has been charged with 49 federal felony counts in connection with the incident. Six people died and 13, including Giffords, were wounded.

Republican congressional leaders aren’t expected to budge anytime soon. According to the Pew poll, 78 percent of supporters of the tea party, the grass-roots conservative movement that helped give the GOP control of the House last November, agree that protecting gun rights is more important than gun control; 18 percent said gun control mattered more.

• Democrats.

Lawmakers are pushing two bills backed by the Brady camp.

In the House, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., has 100 sponsors for a measure that would ban high-capacity ammunition magazines. But they’re all Democrats. Republicans control the House agenda, and they’ve shown little interest in the measure.

Another bill would make it easier to identify potential gun purchasers with histories of mental illness, drug abuse or domestic violence.

Will any of this go anywhere? “Do I think this will happen in the next month or two? No,” Sarah Brady said. “But it took us seven years to get the Brady Bill passed.”

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