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There was a time when the NRA fought for a two-day waiting period on handgun sales and limits on concealed weapons permits. And a time when then–California Governor Ronald Reagan signed legislation forbidding the carrying of loaded firearms in public. Before gun control became a progressive cause, it was a right-wing staple, and it was aimed squarely at the rights of African-Americans nationwide.

In Florida, white "citizens patrols" were permitted to search the homes of free African-Americans for guns "and other offensive or improper weapons, and may lawfully seize and take away such arms, weapons, and ammunition." The message was clear: guns — like the ballot box, marriage, and the right to free assembly — were for white Americans only.

That conflict — between the fears of racist whites and the needs of African-Americans to defend themselves — arose again in the late 1960s. The leaders of the Civil Rights Movement recognized that the need for self-defense still existed — in fact, Martin Luther King Jr. applied for (and was denied) a concealed carry permit. Recounting his memories of "Freedom Summer" and the Civil Rights Movement, Charles E. Cobb Jr., former field secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, said, "I know from personal experience and the experiences of others, that guns kept people alive, kept communities safe, and all you have to do to understand this is simply think of black people as human beings and they're gonna respond to terrorism the way anybody else would."

On May 2, 1967, a group of Black Panthers took to the steps of the California Legislature carrying revolvers, shotguns, and pistols and read a statement saying, "The time has come for black people to arm themselves against this terror before it is too late." In a direct response to the incident, Governor Ronald Reagan signed the Mulford Act, banning the open carry of loaded weapons, barely two months later. Guns were "a ridiculous way to solve problems that have to be solved among people of good will," he said.

As former NRA president Harlon Carter said in 1975, the use of guns by violent criminals or the mentally ill was simply the "price we pay for freedom." In 1980, the NRA endorsed Ronald Reagan — 13 years after Reagan had signed the first open-carry ban in the country.

White people may be more likely to carry a gun, but black people are more likely to be jailed for it.