I've read arguments that "The only time the NRA liked gun control was in the 60s when they were worried about the Black Power and Civil Rights movement and black men arming themselves!"
Yes, that was a unfortunate time with the NRA. (And Ronald Reagan in California, too.) And I hear arguments that 'it was better to support the GCA of 68 because it would have been a worse infraction of our rights otherwise.' Yeah, yeah. Better GCA than a repeal of the 2nd Amendment, certainly. Like that was ever really going to happen.
But what that argument about 1960s era NRA refuses to acknowledge... It was a different organization back then. Fudds getting ready to move out to Colorado and forget the hustle bustle of politics. There is the NRA
Revolt of Cincinnati in 1977. There is what came before 1977 and what came after. So consider that, liberal columnists, before excoriating the NRA for its lapses in the 60s. That was when it was a shooting and sportsman club with an interesting politics. Now it co-equal: Shooting AND a Civil Right Advocate.
There would be less rancor if the gun issue didn't also fall one of side of the political fault line. Liberal writers think the NRA is racist because there is more GOP types on the gun freedom side and the GOP is the wrong 'team.' If the NRA was a third amendment advocating group it wouldn't be called racist because support of the 3rd is still pretty bipartisan.
African Americans forgave the
Democrat Party despite their history of pro-slavery and Jim Crow laws, they can certainly forgive the one lapse the NRA made in the 1960s. A lapse that may have not even been a lapse but a miscalculation. (Or may it wasn't a lapse but they had to amputate a 'limb' to save the whole.) And there are other reasons to be for gun rights other than for where it comes down to in the political party football game. So I am optimistic.
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Also back then it may have looked like appeasement would have brought an end to the territorial demands. As one of my many leftists professors said as to Russia and the cold war, "Give the Californians credit for being scared." The thing that triggered the law (sorry) was the Black Panthers carrying guns as part of their demonstrations. "The time for revolt is NOW! (as they brandish the shotgun) This was a hairsbreadth away from eminent call to violence, which was not covered under the first amendment according to a case whose name eludes me. To have arrested them for incitement to riot would have caused a riot, so better to violate another civil right if it can keep the peace.
It was definitely not the Deacons of Decency carrying shotguns and telling the chief of police that if he does another KKK night ride they will not hesitate to defend themselves.
It was a very different time.
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