Sorry, conservatives. I know you all love Ronald Reagan. But it appears his record on guns has been called into question by none other than Glenn Beck’s The Blaze. In January of 2013, The Blaze compiled various bits of evidence regarding Reagan’s stance on guns; and as the article notes, there were “surprising details.” In short, the article addresses (1) Reagan’s letter supporting “a ban on the domestic manufacture of military-style assault weapons” and (2) Reagan’s passage of the Mulford Act of 1967, which many argue was California’s way of disarming black people (specifically, the Black Panthers).
Click here for the full article in The Blaze. Here’s another take from The Atlantic, which called the Black Panthers “the true pioneers of the modern pro-gun movement.” I don’t mean to suggest that Reagan was wholly anti-gun or that the Panthers were ideal Second Amendment advocates, but as one student commentator has aptly observed, “it’s complicated.”
Remember also that he signed the machine gun ban in 1986. Overnight an $800 weapon became a $10,000+ weapon.