Just as many southern Democrats opposed gun control, many Republicans from the west and northeast supported it. In California, Republican Governor Ronald Reagan pushed lawmakers in his state to adopt new laws making it more difficult for radicals like the Black Panthers to walk around carrying guns openly. “There’s no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons,” Reagan said at the time. Less vocal than Reagan was his fellow Californian Richard Nixon, who would be elected president later in 1968. “Guns are an abomination,” he told his speechwriter, William Safire.
Yet the NRA and gun owners were once again able to scale back the most ambitious proposals for gun control. As finally enacted, the Gun Control Act of 1968 banned the possession of firearms by felons and drug users, prohibited the import of cheap handguns known as “Saturday Night Specials,” and required licensed gun dealers to report gun sales. National gun registration was dropped. A testament to the complex partisan lineup, every member of the mostly Democratic delegation from Texas voted against the law, except one. Republican congressman George H. W. Bush voted for the law, bemoaning that “much more” should be done.
Over the next twenty years, the country underwent a historic political realignment. Conservative southern Democrats switched to the Republican Party and liberal Republicans increasingly identified as Democrats. The partisan breakdown of support for gun control was also transformed.
Cognizant of the growing strength of the emerging gun lobby, Democrats, who had long called for stricter gun control in the party platform, softened the language in 1976 to acknowledge “the right of sportsmen to possess guns for purely hunting and target-shooting purposes.” This didn’t satisfy anyone, however, especially the many gun owners who believed guns were about personal protection in an era of rising crime and decaying cities. Gun enthusiasts knew that if the right to bear arms was simply about recreational activities, it might not last long. Ever since, the Democratic Party has fumbled around trying to find language that both calls for gun control and recognizes the Second Amendment.
The NRA, now committed to a more extreme view of the Second Amendment hostile to nearly any gun control, became a key partner in the New Right coalition that lifted Reagan to the presidency. Reagan, who understood the politics of gun control in this new environment better than anyone, gave up his support for gun laws. His turnaround was so complete that even after being shot in 1981 he refused to support new restrictions on guns. Once freed from the constraints of office, he changed his tune once again, coming out in support of the Brady background check law that was named after his press secretary and enacted in 1993.