WASHINGTON (AP) - Few presidents in modern times have been as interested in gun control as Richard Nixon, of all people. He proposed ridding the market of Saturday night specials, contemplated banning handguns altogether and refused to pander to gun owners by feigning interest in their weapons.
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"I don't know why any individual should have a right to have a revolver in his house," Nixon said in a taped conversation with aides. "The kids usually kill themselves with it and so forth." He asked why "can't we go after handguns, period?"
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Nixon made his remarks in the Oval Office on May 16, 1972, the day after a would-be assassin shot and paralyzed segregationist presidential candidate George Wallace.

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20130309/DA4TNDH80.html

This was only 4 years after Bobby Kennedy had been killed by a handgun, and only a couple years before two attempts on Jerry Ford with handguns....by the way, the .45 automatic that Squeaky Fromme used is on display at the Ford Museum in Grand Rapids. This was also only a month before the discovery of the Watergate breakin, which sent Nixon to a disapproval poll rate of 66% by August 74.

http://webapps.ropercenter.uconn.edu/CFIDE/roper/presidentia...

Steve