Yup, California was an open carry state until the GOP assemblyman Mulford and GOP Governor Ronald Reagan signed the Mulford Act into law banning the legal carry

Yup, California was an open carry state until the GOP assemblyman Mulford and GOP Governor Ronald Reagan signed the Mulford Act into law banning the legal carry of loaded firearms. History is indeed stranger than fiction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act the bill was crafted with the goal of disarming members of the Black Panther Party who were conducting armed patrols of Oakland neighborhoods, in what would later be termed copwatching.[1][2] They garnered national attention after Black Panthers members, bearing arms, marched upon the California State Capitol to protest the bill.