In 1980, Ronald Reagan made it to the White House with the support of the religious right and the gun lobby. Despite all the jokey Old Hollywood campaign photo ops that featured Hope and Reagan together, their relationship was friendly but impersonal. As Hope biographer Richard Zoglin wrote, “Though they had known each other for years, Hope and Reagan were not especially close, and Hope didn’t enjoy the kind of inner-circle access that he had during the Nixon administration.”
This became abundantly clear in May 1981. After President Reagan and Pope John Paul II were shot by would-be assassins that spring, Hope came out for gun control in a radio interview with ABC News. He saw gun control as a deterrent to crime, pointing out that John Hinckley Jr. had been stopped by Tennessee police during a visit by President Carter. “I think the violence today is a concern of every citizen and I am now for gun control,” he told ABC. “When I see President Reagan again, I’m going to talk with him about that because I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t have gun control.” Hope told Tom Shales ofThe Washington Post, “I’m for gun registration. I don’t think any jerk that’s coked up or anything should be allowed to walk in a store and buy a gun and turn around and shoot 19 people, you know?” He emphasized he still supported gun ownership—so long as it was regulated. “And what the hell, hunters can have their guns, they’re registered. I’ve got a gun in each house for a warning thing; that can be registered.” “A handgun in each house?” asked Shales. “Yeah. What’s wrong with that?” replied Hope. “They gotta tell me what’s wrong with having them registered. That’s all I wanna hear.”
In short order, Hope got frozen out by the Reagans. As soon as Hope’s ABC radio interview aired, he found that Vice President George H.W. Bush, visiting West Point the same day Hope taped a special there, had no time to talk to him. At a luncheon in Washington that same week, Hope planned to sit with Nancy Reagan, but she canceled at the last minute. As for getting in to see Reagan himself, not a chance. Their friendship was conditional, and one of those conditions was not riling the NRA or any other significant faction of the emerging Reagan coalition. For Hope, who had grown used to strolling into the Oval Office to chat with presidents, finding himself persona non gratis at the White House, even for a short spell, had to drive home the costs of speaking his mind.