Coordinated efforts to create a national background check system did not materialize until after the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in March 1981. White House press secretary James Brady was seriously wounded in the attack, and afterward his wife, Sarah Brady, spearheaded the push to pass the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act in 1993. When signed into law in November of that year, the Brady Act included a GCA amendment that created the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).