Reply #86: They certainly contributed to the adoption of

[benEzra]

the Gun Control Act of 1968...which the U.S. gun industry also supported (due to its trade protectionist aspects), and gun owners and the NRA were mostly indifferent to. There are aspects of GCA '68 that directly respond to the Kennedy assassination, for example (e.g., outlawing mail-order firearms commerce, and outlawing possession of a firearm by someone dishonorably discharged from the military).

The "take guns away from the law-abiding" movement seems to have gotten rolling some years later, though, in the 1970, with the rise of the National Coalition to Ban Handguns, Handgun Control Inc. (now the Brady Campaign), the adoption of D.C.'s handgun ban in '76, and such. So I don't think the '60's political assassinations had much to do with it, personally.

Gun prohibition really took off nationally in the late '80s/early '90s with the brief ascendancy of the communitarians in national politics, since gun prohibition was one of the Holy Grails of the communitarian platform.

At least that's my take on it. Anything pre-late-'80s was before my time, though...