The future of the disability issue is a bright one, I believe. Heck, if I'm not a rolling advertisement for accomplishing the impossible, who is? I helped get a gun law passed in America – which amounts to the policy equivalent of getting a square peg in a round hole.

I'm pleased to be sharing some observations with an audience of people that I have a special kinship with. It’s an unusual circle of friends, to be sure: We all respect and understand each other. We all try to support each other. And we all wish we’d never been a part of the circle in the first place.

We all came to this circle in different ways. March 30, 1981 was the day that changed my life. Just a few months earlier, I had accepted my dream job as Press Secretary for President Ronald Reagan. I was proud to be playing a part in the administration, and I had high hopes for what we would accomplish for the nation.

That afternoon, I accompanied President Reagan to the Washington Hilton hotel for an afternoon meeting, and it was there that we had our fateful encounter with John Hinckley, Jr. He shot and wounded the President, two police officers and me.

The attack took me from the heights of my professional career to the depths of personal despair. My recovery was long and difficult, but my determination and loving family kept me going. In the years since, the unfailing encouragement of my wife Sarah took me from political player to political activist.

We have lobbied together for sensible gun laws for more than 20 years now. One of our proudest moments was November 30, 1993, when President Clinton signed the Brady Bill into law, which requires a background check on individuals who want to purchase guns from gun dealers. It’s not all that should be done, but it was a start.

The cause that I embraced involves a constant struggle against a determined and well-financed opposition. Steps forward are frequently followed by steps backward. The cause of access for people with disabilities is very similar, as we all know. And those of us who are card-carrying members of the disabled community share an almost mystic experience: The first look from a new acquaintance. We are all of us bound by the ways the rest of the people of the world look at us, and those base interactions have a lot to do with the history of the disability rights movement. How a man on the street, or a Senator, or a President of the free world looks at us – what we can read in their eyes in that split second – can run the gamut from fear to sadness to altruism to nervousness.

Every once in a while, we all see what we’re looking for, which is that there’s absolutely nothing in a person’s eyes that is any different than when they look at anyone else.

That’s what the rest of the species doesn’t seem to get, if you ask me. We don’t want to make people nervous. We don’t want pity or sympathy. We just want what every human being wants from anyone, which is courtesy.

If a ramp should be built where there is none, then pointing it out shouldn’t lead to a war of words. The builder should simply look at the stairs and say, “goodness, you’re right.” When we get to that place in the development of the human species where pointing out obvious things doesn’t annoy anybody, I’ll be very pleased.

It is just another example out of thousands in the endless struggle we’re all partners in: To show the rest of humanity that there’s very little that people with disabilities are incapable of accomplishing. People with disabilities don’t ask for handouts. All we ask for is to be given the basic tools we need to succeed and to compete like everyone else.

We don’t ask that doors be opened for us – that we be given special rights and privileges. We only ask that the doors be designed so we have a fighting chance to open them ourselves.

I know that I can’t expect to climb Mount Everest, but government should help ensure I have the right to climb to the second floor in a public place.

I know I face huge healthcare costs. I think it’s reasonable that I ought to be able to access an ATM to get the cash to pay those bills.

In our work on the gun issue, my wife and I learned that the issue wasn’t really partisan – Republican versus Democrat. The same is true in legislative efforts to help disabled Americans. That’s partly because there’s bipartisanship in disability, too – those born with a disability, and those who came to be disabled later in life, don’t necessarily vote for a particular political party. We’re smart and discriminating voters, too. You might say we watch carefully to see if an elected official walks the walk rather than just talking the talk. We know what a powerful freedom walking really is.

What is the future of this movement? I feel optimistic. I think the better angels of human nature will advance us all to that promised land, where there’s no discernable look in the face of that new acquaintance.

But to be honest, I’m writing this on a day when I’m in a good mood.

And we all also share the understanding that all of us who are disabled have some really bad days.

As long as mental health is denied parity with physical health in insurance coverage, we have an unfinished agenda!

Let’s hope that over the decades ahead, we have fewer and fewer of them.