Ronald Reagan: Gun Control Advocate
Adam Winkler reminds us of something always worth remembering: Ronald Reagan advocated for gun control.
Republicans in California eagerly supported increased gun control. Governor Reagan told reporters that afternoon that he saw “no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.” He called guns a “ridiculous way to solve problems that have to be solved among people of good will.” In a later press conference, Reagan said he didn’t “know of any sportsman who leaves his home with a gun to go out into the field to hunt or for target shooting who carries that gun loaded.” The Mulford Act, he said, “would work no hardship on the honest citizen.”
Now of course context is always important. Reagan was responding to black people defending themselves against institutionalized racism by carrying firearms. As Winkler notes, the history of gun control and race in this country is deeply intertwined as racists and conservatives wanted to ensure their power over African-Americans by keeping the weapons in the hands of whites. Challenging that paradigm was central to the Black Panthers’ ideology. How many of today’s gun nuts would be happy to pass laws restricting the rights of black people (or liberals) to own firearms remains unknown, but there’s no question that at the center of today’s gun culture, with an increasing divide between gun owners and non-gun owners that reflects larger partisan divides in American politics and life, that the need and even requirement to use violence to protect “our way of life” (read white, Christian, conservative) is at the heart of the movement. Thus the threats against President Obama, the very real and non-metaphorical eliminationist language, and the deep-seated fear at the heart of the rhetoric.
It’s also very much worth noting that the NRA traditionally supported gun control as well. The organization’s current extremism only dates to the 1970s, a period where not coincidentally, conservative whites were increasingly nervous about the direction of the country, what with the blacks and the gays and feminists and the UFW hunger strikes and such.
I also appreciate Winkler closing his piece with a shot at Scalia’s so-called originalism, which of course means nothing more than the august jurist claiming the Founders believed the current Republican policy positions of the moment.
Anonymous:
December 26th, 2012 at 12:58 pm
Doesn’t matter what the original subject is, it’s always about race, even when it’s really not.
Uncle Kvetch:
December 26th, 2012 at 12:58 pm
Thus the threats against President Obama, the very real and non-metaphorical eliminationist language, and the deep-seated fear at the heart of the rhetoric.
Tangentially related: I learned during our Christmas visit that my father — a non-gun-owner who generally skews wingnut while never quite going all-out — believes that there’s a very real chance of civil war in the US in the next 4 years. Because Obama is hell-bent on turning us into a European-style socialist country and a lot of people are going to see no alternative but to secede.
It’s gettin’ freaky out there. And not in a good way.
MAJeff:
December 26th, 2012 at 12:59 pm
cracker, please.
Erik Loomis:
December 26th, 2012 at 1:00 pm
Never mind that Ronald Reagan was responding to the Black Panthers. Not about race. Nope, not at all.
Uncle Kvetch:
December 26th, 2012 at 1:02 pm
Doesn’t matter what the original subject is, it’s always about
racebreakfast, even when it’s really not.And with damn good reason, too — it’s the most important meal of the day!
Linnaeus:
December 26th, 2012 at 1:03 pm
That would be awful.
DocAmazing:
December 26th, 2012 at 1:04 pm
Are you one of those bozos who would tell us that Ronald Reagan would have supported the Mulford Act if there had been armed white people in the streets? Because you’d then need to Google “Minutemen” (original flavor, 1960s vintage) to disabuse yourself of that misconception.
Semanticleo:
December 26th, 2012 at 1:10 pm
All RWR was sign the Bill by Don Mulford,another Republican. As usual, it’s difficult to tell one player from another without a program. This was an interesting adjunct to his career.
In 1961, he angered many at UC Berkeley by demanding that university President Clark Kerr cancel a speech by Frank Wilkinson, a longtime foe of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Kerr refused.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Don-Mulford-Longtime-Assemblyman-2792988.php#ixzz2GBNxQJfG
It’s still difficult to tell who the good guys are.
Murc:
December 26th, 2012 at 1:11 pm
People have been saying this for… well, ever, really. They were right once, a hundred fifty years.
Generally speaking, though, the country is ALWAYS tearing itself apart and the 27 percenters are always on the verge of doing “something.” I’ve stopped taking such claims seriously until someone can explain to me why these claims are different from all the other past claims.
Uncle Kvetch:
December 26th, 2012 at 1:15 pm
That would be awful.
One of many things I thought but didn’t say at the time.
Jewish Steel:
December 26th, 2012 at 1:20 pm
A nightmare.
What flavors of hash will Starbucks offer?
bradP:
December 26th, 2012 at 1:21 pm
If you do get your gun bans and regulations, you can count on the suburban/rural gun owners to refuse to comply but scream like hell for enforcement.
They don’t really know what enforcement is.
The Dark Avenger:
December 26th, 2012 at 1:30 pm
Link
Warren Terra:
December 26th, 2012 at 1:33 pm
Ah, yes Starbucks, that Socialist icon of the European Left.
FLRealist:
December 26th, 2012 at 1:41 pm
Well, it’s because this time, they really mean it, don’cha’no? ‘Cause, ya know, that there Kenyan Muslim stole the election, and he’s an anti-colonialist who’s going to force heath care down our throats, whether we have chronic illnesses or not. Also too. Guns.
DrDick:
December 26th, 2012 at 1:50 pm
Cracker, all y’all gun nuts are hiding under your beds shitting yourselves for fear that the N-Clangs are going to get you and that has been blatantly clear throughout your troll attacks here on this issue.
DrDick:
December 26th, 2012 at 1:52 pm
Hell, he did not go after the far right militia folks when he was president, even though they had been knocking over National Guard armories to steal military weapons.
FLRealist:
December 26th, 2012 at 1:52 pm
I was recently sitting in the doctor’s waiting room when the news announced that Dick’s Sporting Goods was pulling guns off their shelves due to the Newtown shooting. A sweet-looking older lady started ranting about how the government was taking her guns away, and how was she supposed to have protection agaainst the new world order.
She completely missed the part that a private company was choosing not to sell guns, and that the government wasn’t involved at all.
Major Kong:
December 26th, 2012 at 2:07 pm
I know it’s been said before but Reagan would never make it through a Republican primary today.
MAJeff:
December 26th, 2012 at 2:11 pm
Later Alzheimer’s Reagan may have still been too coherent for this party.
commie atheist:
December 26th, 2012 at 2:28 pm
Ah, but the NRA warned us constantly during the lead-up to the election that Obama’s dastardly plan was to take all our guns away by…not doing one thing towards taking our guns away. But it sure was fun to imagine!
Jewish Steel:
December 26th, 2012 at 2:28 pm
Yes, I’ve been following that. Silly bastards.
Send some of those protesters over here, UK!
Jewish Steel:
December 26th, 2012 at 2:29 pm
I want to say I’ve seen this. But sooo long ago.
James E Powell:
December 26th, 2012 at 2:42 pm
How much was the support for the “assault weapons” ban in the 90s influenced by the fear of crack-fueled gangs in possession of such weapons? I don’t recall what led to the ban or why the NRA lost that battle.
Bill Cross:
December 26th, 2012 at 2:44 pm
Isn’t the point of a well-regulated militia to provide a place where white people can get a gun quickly and easily?
Bill Cross:
December 26th, 2012 at 2:48 pm
so you don’t practice as much when you’re alone, now
Brian:
December 26th, 2012 at 2:48 pm
I prefer sleet.
Data Tutashkhia:
December 26th, 2012 at 2:48 pm
High inequality, growing uncertainly. The middle-class is anxious.
Take any place, like Newtown, CT, with the median household income over $100K – and I bet you’ll find a large ghetto-like area within a 50-mile radius. New Haven, in this case.
Scary shit. It’s intuitively obvious that one of these days ghetto people will take that half-hour ride, come, cut your throat, rape your wife, and take your stuff. In fact, it’s surprising they haven’t done it yet.
So, you need guns, and plenty of them, to protect yourself, your family, and your property. Your way of life. Handguns, automatic rifles, hand grenades, everything.
As long as this is the case, the NRA will flourish, and a once in a while massacre is not going to change anything.
Vance Maverick:
December 26th, 2012 at 2:53 pm
It makes intuitive sense, but I think the pattern of fear you describe goes right back to the era of the Black Panthers and white flight. The Great Divergence starts a bit later.
Data Tutashkhia:
December 26th, 2012 at 3:05 pm
The Black Panthers was an organized resistance movement, and that, obviously, works against the “gun rights”. The Mulford act makes perfect sense in that context.
But there isn’t any of that now. Ghetto people only use guns to kill each other; who cares.
Joe:
December 26th, 2012 at 3:13 pm
Ronald Reagan also supported the ’94 assault weapon law & that wasn’t anywhere as tainted by racism. Also, the Brady law.
Joe:
December 26th, 2012 at 3:16 pm
So, the current Republican platform is …
prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.
and laws against concealed weapons apparently (another thing Scalia cited) and vague “dangerous and unusual” weapons? Does the NRA know this?
Origami Isopod:
December 26th, 2012 at 3:18 pm
Ign’ant tea cracker says what?
Uncle Kvetch:
December 26th, 2012 at 3:23 pm
You people are all so incredibly jejune.
Joe:
December 26th, 2012 at 3:24 pm
The “shot” was less partisan, but even there, Scalia’s “originalism” is not merely what was in place in 1791 but when there is no clear rule, that history can be a judge.
The correct way to criticize that is that he selectively cites history but Heller does provide some citations for the regulations in question. Concealed weapons bans were presumptively allowed in a ruling over a hundred years ago. I doubt the others were merely “products of the 20th century” either.
Guns were banned from certain public areas in the 19th Century. Dealers were regulated. I would be surprised if there were no “license” laws for dealers too. Winkler’s book was quite good and surely these regulations develop over time. I realize Scalia invites this sort of thing given some of his rhetoric.
Murc:
December 26th, 2012 at 3:30 pm
I always think this statement needs some unpacking, not to be more fair to Republicans, but to highlight the fact that after getting the shit kicked out of them by the New Deal coalition, they spent forty or so years lying their asses off to stealth into office.
It is true that the platform Reagan ran on in both California and nationally, as well as many of his policies enacted while Governor and President, would get him drummed out of the Republican Party as a liberal sell-out today. It is also true that in many ways Nixon governed to the left of both Clinton and Obama.
But they only did that because they felt the national consensus at the time forced them to. Moderate Republicans existed; John Chafee is the example I always go to. But neither Reagan, nor Nixon, nor their fellow travelers, were of that stripe. They were opportunistic liars who ran EXACTLY as far to the left as they felt they needed to while still speaking in code to let the crazies know they were on-side.
If Reagan were running today, he would basically be running on a Paul Ryan platform, but probably even crazier.
Uncle Ebeneezer:
December 26th, 2012 at 3:31 pm
Why do you librul historians always have to try and inject race into everything? Like the Civil War!
Murc:
December 26th, 2012 at 3:33 pm
This is also the reason we can’t have nice mass transit in this country. Atlanta keeps trying, but the entire Greater Atlanta area screams out in horror for decent mass transit.
But it can never get the funding, and the people opposing it are quite open about why; they don’t want poor people to be able to transit between the city and the suburbs easily.
Semanticleo:
December 26th, 2012 at 3:38 pm
Guns were banned from certain public areas in the 19th Century.
I guess you would be referring to Tombstone, where the Law of the Earps held sway over the Clantons, which was like the Crips disarming the criminal Bloods.
Murc:
December 26th, 2012 at 3:42 pm
It’s worth nothing, I think, that arms control laws have a long history in the western world.
People think of the Middle Ages as this time period when anybody could own a sword or a bow and be a manly badass. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Walking into a town openly carrying a blade was a great way to get arrested if you weren’t of the appropriate social class, and so much as owning a bow was flat-out illegal across wide swathes of Europe. You might use it to poach his lordships game.
The post-enlightment era has actually seen the democratization of firepower on a far wider scale than it historically existed.
Joe:
December 26th, 2012 at 3:52 pm
I’m not talking about any one place. “Gun free zones” is not a 20th Century creation.
Manju:
December 26th, 2012 at 4:11 pm
This is a good argument. It has the virtue of being factually accurate.
I would like to encourage this.
burritoboy:
December 26th, 2012 at 4:19 pm
Machiavelli himself was the pioneer of the citizen-army, and encouraged the citizenry of Florence to own weaponry, as opposed to relying on mercenaries. His citizen army still got it’s ass handed to it, but the idea got a lot of interest at the time.
Linnaeus:
December 26th, 2012 at 4:21 pm
Same in metro Detroit, though I think that’s changing. Trouble is, the resources are less available just as attitudes are getting more favorable.
Spud:
December 26th, 2012 at 4:23 pm
Except when negro secret muslim presidents are out to take away your guns.
Jon H:
December 26th, 2012 at 4:25 pm
“Take any place, like Newtown, CT, with the median household income over $100K – and I bet you’ll find a large ghetto-like area within a 50-mile radius. New Haven, in this case.”
Bridgeport’s bigger and closer. Waterbury is smallish but also closer.
Spud:
December 26th, 2012 at 4:25 pm
Well they don’t want it enforced against themselves its for those other people. The shifty looking ones
Jon H:
December 26th, 2012 at 4:30 pm
Then again Cheshire’s right up I-84 from Newtown, and the infamous home invasion/rape/murder/arson there was committed by two white guys, one of whom was raised in Cheshire (median income $99,000 home of ESPN’s Chris Berman, etc).
Jon H:
December 26th, 2012 at 4:31 pm
Reagan’s support for anything in 1994 ought to have a big old asterisk on it.
Murc:
December 26th, 2012 at 4:45 pm
Well, he was the pioneer of the post-Roman citizen army.
J. Otto Pohl:
December 26th, 2012 at 4:48 pm
It is actually pretty nice living in an anti-colonialist country with free health care and almost no guns floating around.
Walt:
December 26th, 2012 at 4:49 pm
I feel like we’re not far off from the day when someone could write a post about Rosa Parks, and somebody else would complain about how you’re unfairly interjecting race into the subject.
J. Otto Pohl:
December 26th, 2012 at 4:54 pm
Except bad people like to prey on poor people because they generally lack the resources to defend themselves. In this case the resource they generally lack is good police protection. So it really is not worth the effort of the bad guys to go all the way to the rich areas where there is a considerably greater chance of getting snagged by the police. It is easy to continue to rob the hard working, but not very rich people in the ghetto on a regular basis.
Manju:
December 26th, 2012 at 5:08 pm
“Out of the hands of blacks” may be more historically accurate during the civil rights era than “in the hands of whites”. I mean, that was the whole point of the Reagan anecdote. Allow me to present more data.
I took any Senator who voted against any Civil Rights Act from 1957-1968…including cloture on the 1964cra and 1965vra, thus bringing in more than the usual suspects. Then I pulled their votes on the 1968 Dodd Gun Control Act, which the Senate approved on 9-18-68.
AL Aye [D] Joseph Hill
AL Aye [D] John Sparkman
AR Nay [D] John McClellan
AR Dnv [D] James Fulbright
FL Aye [D] George Smathers
FL Aye [D] Spessard Holland
GA Aye [D] Herman Talmadge
GA Nay [D] Richard Russell
LA Nay [D] Allen Ellender
LA Dnv [D] Russell Long
MS Nay [D] John Stennis
MS Nay [D] James Eastland
NC Aye [D] Samuel Ervin
NC Aye [D] Benjamin Jordan
SC Nay [D] Ernest Hollings
SC Nay [R] Strom Thurmond
TN Aye [D] Albert Gore
TX Aye [R] John Tower
VA Aye [D] William Spong
VA Aye [D] Harry Byrd
AZ Nay [R] Paul Fannin
AZ Nay [D] Carl Hayden
DE Aye [R] John Williams
IA Aye [R] Bourke Hickenlooper
IA Aye [R] Jack Miller
ND Nay [R] Milton Young
NV Aye [D] Howard Cannon
NV Nay [D] Alan Bible
OR Dnv [D] Wayne Morse
UT Dnv [R] Wallace Bennett
WV Aye [D] Robert Byrd
16 = Supported Gun Control
11 = Opposed
4 = Did not vote
The ’68 Act is generally seen as a response to the 60′s era assassinations. How much a role fear of armed blacks played, I haven’t the slightest. But LBJ had strong provisions in his War on Poverty legislation that circumvented state and local authorities. I assume the same was true about Gun Control, but I don’t know for sure.
Assuming that’s true, I don’t see how the majority of civil rights opponents here planned to keep guns “in the hands of whites.”
Major Kong:
December 26th, 2012 at 5:14 pm
On a side note it took the better part of a lifetime to train a longbowman. They needed the upper-body strength to handle a bow with up to 180 pounds of draw*
*Historians differ as to the draw strength of an English longbow.
The Dark Avenger:
December 26th, 2012 at 5:17 pm
The Bling Ring was composed of upper-middle class teens who used the resources of the Internet in preying upon their celebrity victims:
They reportedly found Ms. Hilton’s cocaine stash, and pronounced it superior……………
J. Otto Pohl:
December 26th, 2012 at 5:23 pm
But, these were not bad people having to make a long trip from the ghetto. Much easier to be an upper class white teen walking around Ms. Hilton’s hood than a Black or Latino guy. In that case you do not have to even commit a crime to draw police attention. There is much less chance anybody is going to hassle you for robbing other Black or Latino people.
The Dark Avenger:
December 26th, 2012 at 5:46 pm
these were not bad people
and even upper-class criminals need a fence:
It’s okay to be Latino/Asian/African-American, etc, in upper-class places in LA, as long as one doesn’t dress as one does in Reseda. In this case, class trumps race, a shocking finding for one of your sensibilities, Prof. Pohl.
J. Otto Pohl:
December 26th, 2012 at 5:59 pm
Very interesting, it sounds like something out of a Jonathan or Faye Kellerman novel.
spencer:
December 26th, 2012 at 6:24 pm
But subjectivity is objective!
spencer:
December 26th, 2012 at 6:25 pm
Oh come on, you’re not even trying now.
Murc:
December 26th, 2012 at 6:37 pm
And a single bow wouldn’t last him his entire life. We have functional firearms that are over 200 years old and still using all original parts; a wooden bow, even meticulously maintained and well-constructed, stops being functional after a few decades.
Murc:
December 26th, 2012 at 6:40 pm
I hate to admit it, but I think Manju is right about this.
Remember, the New Deal itself had to be watered down because racist shitbags basically told FDR and the rest of the Democratic Party in general “If you give us the choice between blacks getting a taste of the pie, and there being no pie at all, we will take the no pie option.”
If it were possible to structure gun control laws in an explicitly racist way, they’d have done it. Since that wasn’t possible, they did not, preferring restricting gun rights in general to letting the darkies keep asserting themselves.
Shawn:
December 26th, 2012 at 6:44 pm
Soldier: “He was our village idiot”
Boris: “What did you do, place?”
Shawn:
December 26th, 2012 at 6:45 pm
i ‘m the most june person in all of Russia
DocAmazing:
December 26th, 2012 at 6:56 pm
Yeah, Alex Delaware moaning about how he has to spend his life among people much less talented and tasteful people.
DocAmazing:
December 26th, 2012 at 6:56 pm
peoplethan he.The Dark Avenger:
December 26th, 2012 at 7:25 pm
“It’s a long day,
living in Reseda
There’s a freeway
running through the yard.”
Link
Bonus Link
The interiors for the escalator footage were shot inside the Westside Pavilion at Pico and Overland
Davis X. Machina:
December 26th, 2012 at 8:07 pm
Right here. Would you like a little smoked salmon on it?
DrDick:
December 26th, 2012 at 10:04 pm
Funny how gun sales have spiked both time Obama was elected. Of course race has absolutely nothing to do with that.
DrDick:
December 26th, 2012 at 10:07 pm
Most of the Western cowtowns had bans on guns in town.
Haystack Calhoun:
December 26th, 2012 at 10:39 pm
Hey, Data:
Why not take a trip down to the “ghetto” and talk to some of these people you so glibly demonize? Maybe then you’d learn to “care”.
The Dark Avenger:
December 26th, 2012 at 11:23 pm
Ya Think?
I thought you’d find this interesting, DrDick, speaking of Western cowtowns:
This is high desert folks, Big Bear is up in the SB Mountains.
max:
December 27th, 2012 at 8:36 am
How many of today’s gun nuts would be happy to pass laws restricting the rights of black people (or liberals) to own firearms remains unknown
But we DO have that: it’s called restricting felons from buying guns. (Follow it through: there are felons. There are felons who have committed murder, armed robbery and the like – most of them are in jail. Most of the rest of the felons did crimes involving stealing or drugs, neither being violent crimes. Now consider the fact that Heller says owning and bearing arms is a fundamental right (unlike voting!), but nonetheless, the NRA is totally fine with banning felons from having guns (and said group presumably includes G. Gorden Liddy). I am pretty sure that convicted felons who are not on probation or parole don’t have their freedom of association/freedom of speech/freedom of religion rights (fundamental rights, mind) restricted.
Additional fun points: the South is a prison state rivaling North Korea and a majority of prisoners are black, and also consider that all the big massacres of the last few years have been conducted by (mostly white!) people who were not convicted felons.
I can say for certain how many gun nuts would support keeping weapons away from blacks/dems/libs/hispanics/etc.: almost all of them.
max
['Sorry for the lateness.']
Fear of a Black Gun Owner « The Fifth Column:
January 31st, 2013 at 5:35 am
[...] Ronald Reagan: Gun Control Advocate (lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com) [...]
lsufanaddict:
April 9th, 2013 at 11:38 pm
nigger,please.
Lucretia:
April 26th, 2013 at 4:03 am
Hello friends, its enormous post on the topic of educationand fully defined, keep it up all the time.