1968 – The Birth of Gun Control

This is the first article in a series recounting the birth, growth, and death of California’s gun industry.

Early morning sunlight beamed through windows partially covered by steel Venetian blinds shading the first patrons at Larry’s Coffee Shop, situated not on a typical retail thoroughfare, but among the concrete tilt-up buildings defining an industrial park. Larry, the store’s proprietor and three friends sat bantering about the issues of the day. The get together had become their daily ritual.

The men’s attire, blue collar, working class, belied a sharp intellect they each possessed. One of the group’s members, George Jennings, owned a machine shop and manufactured parts for the aerospace industry. Another owned a Pawn Shop and had recently lost the ability to sell inexpensive handguns manufactured overseas because of recent legislation—The Gun Control Act of 1968.

The assassination of Martin Luther King, and subsequently Robert Kennedy culminated a five year debate about gun-control within Congress. Whether or not the Congressional action would solve any problems would be debated, but politicians being as they are were certainly not going to allow these tragedies go to waste. -[source]