under a Republican government

Actually, Democrats controlled the Assembly, and the Mulford Act didn't move until it had a majority of Democrat cosponsors.

It passed the Assembly in a bipartisan manner, but the governor was a republican (Reagan). It was also introduced by a republican (Mulford).

I didn't mean to excuse the Democrats who supported it, they were racist opportunists, I merely wanted to point out the CA Republican party dropped its principled support for 2nd Amendment Rights as soon as the people they would be protecting didn't look White like them.

  It passed the Assembly in a bipartisan manner

It passed both houses with over 2/3rds majorities, and neither was Republican controlled... so your attempt to make it a partisan thing is confusing.

> so your attempt to make it a partisan thing is confusing.

I said it bipartisan. Both Democrats and Republicans supported it. But it's more intesting to me and many others that Republicans supported gun control, because Democratic support is a given. I wasn't aiming to say either party acted better in this specific case.

It’s fairly straight forward, Republicans have traditionally been anti gun control. But when push came to shove they abandoned that position when it meant allowing black men to be armed.

That said the GOP was much less strident in their gun worship back then generally.

Name one gun control measure opposed by CA Republican assembly members or senators that term. One.

CA Republicans of that era were not anti gun control.