Obama: Fighting lone-wolf terror attacks is like trying to stop mass shootings

a reply to: buster2010

No, they didn't. The only major piece of gun control legislation during Reagan's years in office was the 1986 Firearms Owner's Protection Act. This law began life for the purposes the title suggests, in response to a Senate report in 1982 that suggested certain abuses of power by the ATF. Late in the process of its passage, the Democrats tacked on the Hughes Amendment, which ended machine gun production for the civilian market, as an attempt at a poison pill to defeat the entire thing. Obviously, it didn't work, largely because the NRA continued to support the bill, arguing that it was still a net positive for gun owners and so it passed and was signed into law by Reagan.