[hga]

A bit of unmentioned history: the NRA wasn't in the business, so to speak, of endorsing candidates until after the 1977 Cincinnati Revolt (at the annual meeting), so Reagan or Carter were the first Presidents they could possibly endorse. Carter was anti-gun but smart enough not to be visibly, Reagan signed the Gun Owners Protection Act of 1986 reigning in the BATF, without which we very possibly wouldn't have a gun culture today (or perhaps we'd have tested out this thesis of armed resistance and revolt).

ADDED: Every major party Presidential candidate after 1977 has been a gun grabber with the possible exception of Romney (details on request), the NRA's only been able to endorse the least worst, or in 1992 and 1996 endorse neither.

The bit about the "1920s and '30s" is more fair, but if you read the full text and know about all that the NRA didn't support, including the cited inclusion of handguns in the NFA of '34, "forefront" falls short of the mark. And of course per the Cincinnati Revolt that NRA isn't the modern NRA, which nowadays has done a 180 on concealed carry, the gravamen of this article's claim. Major NRA figure Marion Hammer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Hammer) was the leader in establishing Florida's 1987 shall issue law, which opened the floodgates so that today 42 states, soon to be 43 with Illinois, have shall issue regimes.

Circling back to MLK, today he wouldn't have much difficulty getting a concealed carry permit (or set of them) good in most of the nation, including all of the South.