Well, no. Not the entire reason. California resulted in the Mulford Act in '67 which banned open carry of firearms, but the Gun Control Act of '68 wasn’t directly related to it. The GCA was more about commerce in the wake of Kennedy’s assassination, because the Carcano rifle that Oswald used to assassinate Kennedy had been bought as mail order. (And note that the NRA was in favor of both at the time; it wasn’t until the 80s that the NRA took a hard turn to the right. They used to mostly be about marksmanship and hunting rather than political activism.) (Depending on whether or not 6.5mm Carcano ammunition is manufactured in the US, and isn’t readily available in the US, a 6.5mm Carcano rifle might be legally an antique and not subject to the GCA provisions, which is kind of ironic.) One of the effects of the GCA was to ban the importation of small, cheaply made, and readily concealed pistols; those regulations remain in effect today, and pistols that don’t pass a fairly extensive checklist can’t be imported. The GCA was preceded by the National Firearms Act of 1934, which had originally been intended to functionally ban handguns (which is why short barreled rifles and short barreled shotguns are part of the act), but that got stripped out prior to the vote. That’s the act that originally made it very expensive to own a machine gun, silencer, SBS/SBR (and still makes it a pain in the ass).
But, to your point, Reagan was the governor of California at the time, and he was a flaming racist (…who concealed it under ‘law and order’ and ‘welfare queen’ language), and the Black Panthers being armed freaked him the fuck out. he was responsible for signing the Firearm Owners Protection Act in '86, which did some good things as far as the now-activist NRA was concerned–like making it much easier to transport firearms across state lines–but also banned machine guns produced after 1986 from being transferred to private owners under the NFA of '34.
Really diving into the history of gun regulations and politics in the US is incredibly complicated and dense. There are bad actors on both sides–notably Michael A. Bellesiles and John Lott Jr.–so getting accurate information ends up being really hard.
Well, no. Not the entire reason. California resulted in the Mulford Act in '67 which banned open carry of firearms, but the Gun Control Act of '68 wasn’t directly related to it. The GCA was more about commerce in the wake of Kennedy’s assassination, because the Carcano rifle that Oswald used to assassinate Kennedy had been bought as mail order. (And note that the NRA was in favor of both at the time; it wasn’t until the 80s that the NRA took a hard turn to the right. They used to mostly be about marksmanship and hunting rather than political activism.) (Depending on whether or not 6.5mm Carcano ammunition is manufactured in the US, and isn’t readily available in the US, a 6.5mm Carcano rifle might be legally an antique and not subject to the GCA provisions, which is kind of ironic.) One of the effects of the GCA was to ban the importation of small, cheaply made, and readily concealed pistols; those regulations remain in effect today, and pistols that don’t pass a fairly extensive checklist can’t be imported. The GCA was preceded by the National Firearms Act of 1934, which had originally been intended to functionally ban handguns (which is why short barreled rifles and short barreled shotguns are part of the act), but that got stripped out prior to the vote. That’s the act that originally made it very expensive to own a machine gun, silencer, SBS/SBR (and still makes it a pain in the ass).
But, to your point, Reagan was the governor of California at the time, and he was a flaming racist (…who concealed it under ‘law and order’ and ‘welfare queen’ language), and the Black Panthers being armed freaked him the fuck out. he was responsible for signing the Firearm Owners Protection Act in '86, which did some good things as far as the now-activist NRA was concerned–like making it much easier to transport firearms across state lines–but also banned machine guns produced after 1986 from being transferred to private owners under the NFA of '34.
Really diving into the history of gun regulations and politics in the US is incredibly complicated and dense. There are bad actors on both sides–notably Michael A. Bellesiles and John Lott Jr.–so getting accurate information ends up being really hard.