> Carter deregulated more than Raygun. Raygun introduced more gun regulations than Carter

Both these ignore a lot of context. Carter had to do something about stagflation. Deregulation that promotes competition and appointing Volkner to the Fed aren't directly eroding worker's rights like Reagan's solution of union busting. Reagan signed the machine gun ban as part of an amendment to pass the Firearms Owners' Protection Act that was endorsed by the NRA.

> It's almost like it's a big club that you're not a member of.

Agreed, but not in the way that you're thinking of. The "big club" is capable of understanding nuance and making dispassionate decisions (or at least their can hire people who can do that on their behalf). Regular voters react to emotional sound bites and outsource their critical thinking to those in the "big club" who superficially align with their worldview.

>"Raygun introduced more gun regulations than Carter"

People forget this, Reagan literally started the charter and expectations for the modern gun control movement just because of Black Panther advancements and protests in the street with firearms.

He got scared of their right to carry arms back then as a CA governor and started the gun control there.

Prior to the NRA’s big push in the late seventies, gun control as a concept was uncontroversial as the first gun control laws dated back to the earliest days of the country. Reagan expanding coverage due to the Black Panthers was in line with earlier precedent (after Kennedy was assassinated, during WWII, during the Mob / prohibition era, etc.).

A bit more nuanced than that; the NRA didn’t become the hardline defender of minimal gun regs until its 1977 leadership shift. Reagan’s 1967 Mulford Act as Governor targeted the Black Panthers, and then he signed 1986 FOPA as president, which relaxed some rules but banned new machine guns. It was a broad compromise package from the start.

My focus was really the hardline individual right stance: I know people who left the NRA over that because they were sportsmen or retired military who thought it was quite reasonable to have civilian restrictions, especially mental / proficiency restrictions.

That may be, but that doesn't make them the same.