The NRA helped draft gun control to disarm the Black Panthers

Evidence

The police inveighed upon conservative California assemblyman David Donald “Don” Mulford to change the state’s gun laws to make the open carry of firearms illegal and, thus, undermine the Panthers’ community self-defense strategy. Mulford readily agreed. He was bolstered in his efforts by the National Rifle Association, the guardians of the Second Amendment. An NRA representative, E. F. “Tod” Sloan, helped draft new gun-control legislation, California Assembly Bill 1591.87 Mulford adamantly denied that the bill was aimed at African Americans and offered assurances that “there are no racial overtones to this measure.” He publicly asserted that AB 1591 was designed to cover the Klan and the Minutemen, covert right-wing groups that, while well-armed, did not openly carry weapons in the state. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 816

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s existing knowledge economy literature on extra-legal contracting and reputation dynamics, and to contemporary gun-politics debates about the NRA’s shifting Second Amendment positions. Also connects to Cheryl Harris’ whiteness-as-property scholarship.
• SEED: Article angle: how gun control has historically been deployed to disarm racial minorities, not just the left-right fight over the Second Amendment — the NRA’s early support for anti-open-carry legislation.