Reagan embraced gun control in response to political extremism. This Supreme Court didn't.

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-07-03/commentary-ronald-reagan-gun-control-political-extremism-supreme-court

No paywall
https://archive.ph/NnFKZ

Fifty-five years before the Supreme Court’s conservative majority made it easier for people to carry guns in public, a Republican governor in California signed a law making it harder to do exactly that.

“There’s no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons,” then-Gov. Ronald Reagan said in 1967.

It was a sunny day in May when he made that comment on the steps of the state Capitol, just hours after an extraordinary political demonstration rocked Sacramento.

More than two dozen members of the Black Panther Party — a radical Black Power group that patrolled Bay Area streets in armed self-defense against police — had marched into the Capitol carrying loaded rifles, pistols and shotguns. Several barged into the Assembly chamber to protest a bill prohibiting people from carrying loaded weapons in California cities.

“We have a constitutional right to bear arms,” the protesters shouted as they were carted off by police.

Reagan soon signed the bill into law, setting California on the path to having the nation’s strictest gun controls. That law became the cornerstone of California’s approach to restricting who can get a permit to carry a concealed weapon — the very system the Supreme Court torpedoed with its June 23 ruling striking down a similar law in New York.

*snip*

[Ocelot II]

1. Yes, but could it be that this sudden desire for gun control

was because the radicals with the guns were Black? White radicals with guns don't seem to inspire such intense passion for gun control...

[Nevilledog]

2. Absolutely

[JanMichael]

3. Yes it was because the were Black. Had they been white I doubt RR would have gone so libby

[dweller]

4. Well, at least not yet

✌🏻

[Ocelot II]

5. So I wonder what might happen if thousands of women showed up

at pro-choice rallies packing heat - legally, of course, like this woman. A lot of heads might explode.

[dweller]

6. What if a million

showed up at gun shops buying, and expressing it was for their self defense after RvW decision

🤔


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