To elaborate, frightened and reactionary whites fantasized they would need
> to defend themselves in a coming race war with angry young black militants
> who were renouncing non-violence. Or that they would need arms to defend
> their homes and stores and neighbourhoods against black rioters. Or that
> they would need weapons to protect themselves on the streets, subways,
> jogging paths, and in underground garages against non-white muggers and
> rapists.
>
If you want to make up your own fantasy history, sure. But the motives you describe have a lot more to do with the imposition of gun control than with whites (or anyone else) organizing/arming in opposition to it.
> There's plenty of anecdotal evidence to support this; it doesn't require
> volumes of research as some have demanded in this discussion.
>
I trust that your reliance on "anecdotal evidence" will speak for itself, and requires no further elaboration by me. (The claims I could make backed by "anecdotal evidence"! My mind reels at the possibilities ...)
> Your statement that the NRA "reacted most strongly to a racist backlash
> against black gun ownership" is somewhat ambiguous, but I understand you to
> mean they were part of the racist backlash, rather than opposed to it.
>
No, rather the opposite (although anti-racism doesn't seem to have been a major factor in its opposition to the new gun control policies imposed during the Black Power era). Apologies for my lack of clarity.
-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."