FSB Author Article
The Apostles of Clean Fighting: Who Put the Rifle into the National Rifle Association?
By Alexander Rose,
Author of American Rifle
Why is the National Rifle Association called the National Rifle Association?
It seems an odd choice considering the organization's commitment to the
Second Amendment, which refers broadly to "arms," not rifles, that
require keeping and bearing. Wouldn't it make more sense for the NRA to
call itself the National Firearms Association or the National Gun
Association? Rifle comes across as a little . . . exclusionary. I mean,
what about all those millions of pistol and shotgun owners?
At least that's what I naively thought before I began writing American Rifle: A Biography. As it happens, there are very sound reasons, rooted in its foundation in 1871, for the NRA's emphasis on rifles.
Consider the year. 1871. Just six years before, the most lethal war in
American history, the Civil, had finally ended, leaving roughly 620,000
combatants dead and numberless legions maimed, traumatized, and
shocked. Half the country was a morgue, the other, a madhouse.
This (still-)astounding death tallies, as well as the grieving of
millions of mothers and widows, caused Americans to swear never again,
no more Antietams, no Gettysburgs. While few believed that men would
war no more, many dreamed that when battle was joined the slaughter
could at least be controlled.
Soldiers would die, of course, just nowhere near as many, and the
violence would be confined strictly to the battlefield, not visited on
civilians. As World Wars One and Two would starkly demonstrate, this
was a fantasy, but there could be no gainsaying the appeal of such
sentiments at the time.
There was not, by the way, even the slightest hint of soft-headed
pacifism about the desire to ratchet down bodycounts. In fact, among
proponents could be counted hardbitten veterans and hardheaded military
experts alike. Unlike those who tended to romanticise war, these
individuals had seen battle up unpleasantly close. Not least among them
was William Conant Church, editor of the Army and Navy Journal, who was sure he knew what had gone wrong during the war.
He ascribed the bloodletting to the popularity of firepower among
generals. To them, volume of fire -- or the ability to send vast
numbers of shells, bullets and other pieces of metal hurtling toward
the enemy -- was the creed that won battles. Church felt, however, that
such thinking was extravagantly wasteful in lives and ammunition, and
also indicated a distinct lack of discipline.
To him, what counted was accuracy:
Soldiers needed to learn how to hit their targets with the minimum
number of bullets. This wasn't just about being able to hit a bullseye
at 300 yards with a rifle. Such marksmanship went hand-in-hand with
other typically American virtues. Good shots required coolness under
fire; steely self-discipline; familiarity with such high-tech
implements as telescopic sights, windage indicators, and ballistic
instruments; a determination to improve themselves by constant
training; and independence of thought and action. In Europe, where the
ideology of mass-firepower had long held sway, soldiers were still
treated as dull, disposable automatons and subjected to fearsome
discipline to flog out any remnants of individual initiative. Civil War
generals had fallen beneath the European spell; Church wanted to
"re-Americanize" warfare.
It's telling to remember exactly how incompetent were many recruits at
target shooting before and during the Civil War -- a relic of the
Musket Age, when guns were inherently inaccurate. Thus, in the 1850s,
one soldier recalled, marksmanship was given such short shrift by the
army that he was taken out to the rifle range only twice in five
months, while the colonel commanding Fort Laramie bragged that he hoped
about half his troops might one day "become expert enough to shoot at a
crowd" using their rifles. During the War, Captain George W. Wingate
discovered that most of his New York company couldn't hit even a barrel
lid at 100 yards.
By improving the men's shooting skills, thought Church and his allies,
fighting would be made safe, humane, and short. No more would wars drag
excruciatingly on for years. No more would battles climax in horrific,
wanton frontal assaults against entrenched troops. No more would there
be endless sieges punctuated by titanic artillery bombardments.
Instead, elite teams of sharpshooters (itself a Civil War term) based
far behind the front lines would aim at officers' heads with their
rifles, kill them with a single shot at 1,000 yards or more, and thus
bring the battle to a halt.
In a eerie echo of today's technology evangelists sitting thousands of
miles away and guiding precision missiles to their targets using just a
joystick, Church was certain that victory would henceforth go to the
sure of eye and the steady of hand, not to those who relied on brute
force and blunt firepower.
In 1871 Church and Wingate would together found the NRA to propagate
and popularize their principles among civilians and soldiers. They were
so successful in persuading the army to overcome its previous suspicion
of target practice that by the early 1880s the Chief of Ordnance could
exultantly inform the Secretary of War that he had at his disposal "an
army of marksmen."
The United States Army had become, shot for shot and man for man, the
deadliest force on earth -- an enviable ranking it retains.
Marksmanship was the military's watchword and the Holy Grail of
civilian shooters. The rifle, not just any old gun, was their weapon of
choice.
And that's why the NRA is called the National Rifle Association.
©2008 Alexander Rose
Author Bio
Alexander Rose earned his doctorate from Cambridge University,
where his prizewinning research focused on political and scientific
history. He is the author of Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring, and his writing has appeared in the Observer, the Washington Post, and many other publications. He lives in New York City. His latest book, American Rifle: A Biography, is available October 2008 from Delacorte Press.