In 1967, the National Rifle Association helped write America’s first modern gun control law. They did not just support the Mulford Act. They contributed drafting notes. They shaped the language.

The target was not criminals. The target was the Black Panther Party. State Senator John Schmitz, a Republican who tried to kill the bill, said it publicly: without NRA support this law almost certainly would have been defeated.

The Panthers were not breaking a single law. That was the problem.

The Loophole and the Patrol

Before the Mulford Act, California had no restriction on carrying a loaded firearm in public. Open carry had been legal since statehood in 1850. Huey Newton had studied the statutes. Newton and Bobby Seale found that citizens could carry loaded weapons openly as long as the gun was not concealed and not pointed at another person.

Starting in late 1966, the Panthers built armed community patrols. They carried loaded shotguns and rifles in one hand and copies of the California Penal Code in the other. They followed police cars through black neighborhoods. When an officer stopped a resident, Panthers stood at a legal distance with weapons visible and recited the detained person’s rights out loud. Every single time, they stayed within the law.

Not one shot was fired. In all of the Panthers’ armed confrontations with police before the Mulford Act, not a single bullet left the chamber.

Denzil Dowell

On April 1, 1967, a 22-year-old black construction worker named Denzil Dowell was shot and killed by a Contra Costa County deputy sheriff named Mel Brunkhorst in North Richmond. The sheriff’s department said Dowell had been caught burglarizing a liquor store, ran, and was hit by a single shotgun blast.

The coroner’s report said six bullet holes. A doctor who examined him told the family he had been shot with his hands raised. Dowell had a bad hip from a car accident. His family said he could not run, let alone jump fences. No oil or debris from the junkyard he supposedly ran through was on his shoes. An all-white jury ruled justifiable homicide in 30 minutes.

The Panthers held armed rallies in North Richmond. Over 300 community members showed up. Neighbors arrived with their own guns. One woman got out of her car and held up her rifle for the crowd to see. That day, 300 people filled out applications to join the party. The first issue of The Black Panther newspaper ran that month with a single headline: Why Was Denzil Dowell Killed?

Assembly Bill 1591

Four days after Dowell’s death, on April 5, Assemblyman Don Mulford introduced Assembly Bill 1591. Mulford was a Republican from Piedmont, the wealthy white suburb tucked inside Oakland city limits. His district bordered the neighborhoods the Panthers patrolled. He did not hide what the bill was for. Newton later recalled Mulford calling in to a radio show and telling Newton directly that he planned to introduce a bill that would get the Black Panthers.

Mulford did not write it alone. He collected intelligence on the Panthers during drafting: police personnel files, internal department memos, newspaper clippings, records of recruitment meetings. He was building a legislative case against one organization while drafting a law that would apply to everyone. And he worked with the NRA. In a letter defending the bill, Mulford wrote it plainly: this legislation was specifically designed with the help of the National Rifle Association. On June 1, 1967, he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee and confirmed NRA support.

Sacramento, May 2, 1967

30 Black Panthers loaded their weapons, put on their leather jackets and berets, and drove to Sacramento. 24 men, six women. Bobby Seale led the delegation. Newton stayed in Oakland. Newton was the thinker. Seale was the voice. Newton instructed the group to keep every gun pointed up or down. Do not shoot unless fired upon.

Lil Bobby Hutton carried a 12-gauge shotgun. Another Panther had a .357 Magnum. 18 men were armed. The women were not. Eldridge Cleaver went along with a camera, not a gun, on assignment from Ramparts.

When they reached the second floor outside the assembly chambers, reporters swarmed. Cameramen rushed the open door onto the assembly floor. Seale and about 12 Panthers followed them inside. The presiding officer shouted for the sergeant-at-arms to clear the photographers. An officer grabbed Lil Bobby Hutton’s shotgun from behind. Hutton chased the officer into the hallway trying to get it back.

Mulford rose on the assembly floor and told his colleagues people with weapons had forced their way into the chamber. That was not true. The Panthers had followed reporters through an open door. But the framing was set. Outside, state police surrounded the Panthers, confiscated the weapons, reviewed the situation, and returned every gun. No laws had been broken.

Seale then read Executive Mandate Number One on the capitol steps with cameras rolling. The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense calls upon the American people in general and the black people in particular to take careful note of the racist California Legislature, which is now considering legislation aimed at keeping black people disarmed and powerless.

On the way to their cars, the Panthers passed schoolchildren from Valley View Intermediate in Pleasant Hill having a picnic with Governor Ronald Reagan. Reagan saw the armed black men walking past. He abandoned the children and ran to his offices.

Police followed the Panthers to a gas station and made arrests on charges pieced together on the spot. Seale was arrested for carrying a concealed pistol. The pistol was openly displayed in a holster on his hip. Cameras caught officers measuring Panther shotguns against their own trying to find a violation. 24 people were arrested, including Cleaver with his camera and an anonymous black woman buying gas.

The Vote

The Sacramento action made the Panthers famous overnight. The San Francisco Chronicle ran at least 12 stories in one week. The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune all covered it. Before Sacramento, the Panthers were a local Oakland group. After Sacramento, they were a national movement. By the end of 1968, 17 chapters had opened.

The Mulford Act passed the Assembly 70 to 5 on June 8. It passed the Senate 29 to 7 on July 26. Final assembly vote 62 to 9. Bipartisan. Democrats controlled the Assembly. Both parties voted to disarm black citizens exercising a constitutional right. The original urgency clause cited the Panther capitol action by name. A later draft generalized the language. They took the Panthers’ name out. They kept the law aimed directly at them.

Reagan signed the Mulford Act on July 28, 1967. He said he saw no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons. 12 years later, preparing to run for president, Reagan wrote a personal letter to supporters Lorraine and Elwood Wagner describing the Panthers as having invaded the chambers with loaded shotguns and held legislators under the muzzles of those guns for a couple of hours. Almost every detail was wrong. The Panthers were on the assembly floor for minutes. Nobody was held at gunpoint. The bill was introduced a month before the capitol action.

Ninth Circuit, 2026

State Senator John Schmitz wrote an editorial in the Tustin News on August 31, 1967, telling NRA members the truth about their organization’s role. By the mid-1970s, the NRA began opposing all gun control. In 1977, an internal coup transformed it into the absolutist Second Amendment lobby it is today. The language they adopted was nearly identical to what the Panthers had argued in 1967.

The Mulford Act is still on the books. California Penal Code Section 25850. On January 2, 2026, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled California’s ban on openly carrying firearms unconstitutional in Baird v. Bonta. Judge Van Dyke’s majority opinion traced the history back to the Mulford Act and described it as legislation tainted with racial animus.

59 years after 30 Panthers walked into the California capitol exercising a right that was legal, a federal court confirmed what Seale read on the capitol steps that day. The NRA has not commented on the ruling. They have not acknowledged that the law being struck down is the same law they helped write.

Sources: Don Mulford letter defending AB 1591; Mulford testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee (June 1, 1967); John Schmitz editorial, Tustin News (August 31, 1967); Reagan letter to Lorraine and Elwood Wagner (1979); Executive Mandate Number One (Bobby Seale, May 2, 1967); Baird v. Bonta, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (January 2, 2026).