11 Republican Platform 2016, REPUBLICAN NAT’L COMM. Conservatives, for their part, tend to be hostile towards gun control. In 2019, when Beto O’Rourke declared that, “Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47,” during a presidential primary debate, the audience cheered so loudly that he had to shout to finish his sentence. During campaign season, Democratic politicians use gun control as a powerful political tool to energize their supporters. Today, many liberals view gun control as an unmitigated good. 9 See ADAM WINKLER, GUNFIGHT: THE BATTLE OVER THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS IN AMERICA 244–45 (2011). The Mulford Act, which remains effective in California, was signed into law by then-governor Ronald Reagan after the Panthers staged a daring armed protest of Mulford’s proposed bill at the California State Capitol. He quickly followed through, introducing a bill to prohibit Californians from carrying loaded firearms “in any public place.” 8 Mulford Act, ch. It was a bill, he said, that would ‘get’ the Black Panthers.”).

He recalled Mulford calling in: “He told us that he planned to introduce a bill into the state legislature to make it illegal for us to patrol with our weapons. NEWTON, REVOLUTIONARY SUICIDE 146 (1973) (Newton recounted a radio show that had invited him as a guest. That April, Mulford threatened to “get” the Panthers by making their patrols illegal. The Panthers had attracted the attention of Don Mulford, a Republican state representative from Oakland.

As Bobby Seale recalled in his memoir, Seize the Time, Newton “studied those law books, backwards, forwards, sideways, and cattycorners everything on gun laws” to ensure that the Panthers were obeying California law. which, in the spirit of self-defense, they carried proudly during their combative patrols of Oakland’s police force. at 85 (listing weapons owned by the Panthers). The Panthers soon had enough money to purchase shotguns, pistols, and semi-automatic rifles, 4 See id. Newton’s sales pitch? “Power comes out of the barrel of a gun. The Panthers traveled from Oakland to the University of California, Berkeley, where they sold the books to aspiring student communists in the campus center.

1 BOBBY SEALE, SEIZE THE TIME: THE STORY OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY AND HUEY P. In 1967, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense sold Mao’s Little Red Book to raise money to buy guns.

Scattershot by Richard Goodwin