AVClub: Back in 1967, California governor and future far-right icon Ronald Reagan went on TV to speak out against gun owners. Specifically, Governor Reagan had a beef with members of the Black Panther Party, who’d been following the police around the Bay Area with loaded rifles, keeping a legal distance—and brandishing their weapons openly, as the law required—while silently suggesting that they were ready to strike at the first sign of any brutality. This dispute was one of the first to bring the Black Panthers national attention, and became a vivid illustration of some of the paradoxes, ironies, and injustices in the way the American government treats its black citizens.
