No. 4: It’s the Gun Industry, Stupid

George Wood Wingate circa 1910

During the Civil War, an attorney named   George Wood Wingate  served as sargeant in a Union regiment from New York.  Wingate took an active role in the defense of Harrisburg and Carlilse Pennsylvania during the Confederate invasion. On the battle field, he witnessed the cost of poor rifle training given Union soldiers, many of whom enlisted from large urban centers.  Confederate rifle handling and marksmanship was daunting. It moved him enough that after the war Wingate traveled Europe and observed how seasoned armies trained in small arms proficiency. Back in the states Wingate planned construction for a state of the art rifle range on Credemore, Long Island and authored a guide that spurred creation of the   National Rifle Association of America in 1871.

In 1872 Wingate published the Manual for Rifle Practice, a first of it’s kind in the United States. He served as NRA secretary and later president for 25 years.

Credemore became the nation’s first laboratory for ballistic science and a proving ground for U.S. gun makers minus any dominant political ideology. The National Rifle Association organized around Wingate’s idea that civilian firearm proficiency promoted the general welfare by maintaining the nation's military posture, ready to confront threats both foriegn and domestic. For nearly a century it took a scientific approach that served the interests of the military, law enforcement and outdoor enthusiasts.

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Early in the 1970s forces converged as restless Northern industrialists fixed their sights beyond declining consumer segments and populist disdain swept across the NRA rank and file. The NRA leadership, or “Old Guard” reaction to the 1968 Gun Control Act (GCA), part of President Johnson’s New Deal, wasn’t militant enough for old school Dixocrats packing the annual conventions. The War of Northern Aggression left behind hereditary wounds that wouldn't heal. Cultural resentment and distrust hung thickly.

Harlon Carter and Clifford "Neal" Knox

In 1975 a faction within the NRA led by a homicidal Texan named Harlon Carter, created the NRA’s first lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA). In just two short years that same political subset gathered enough support to take control of the executive and board leadership during annual elections at the 1977 NRA convention in Cincinnati. When they weren't busy bloodying each other politically, Carter and an equally percussive Texan, Clifford Neal Knox, forged strong coalitions among conservative US lawmakers, largely Republican, and quietly transitioned the core NRA organizing principle from ballistic expertise to manufacturer advocacy.

Cloaked beneath the venerable NRA brand, this neo confederacy began casting itself as the vouchsafe for all things Second Amendment. Flush with industry dark money they targeted federal regulations and engaged in head on confrontations with their arch nemesis, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

The NRA-ILA systematically transformed the Congressional landscape with campaign funding and political contributions until 1986 when enough walls breached and the McClure-Volkmer bill passed the Senate, reversing key provisions of the GCA that codified interstate commerce.

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Herr Wayne R. LaPierre, Jr.

At the 1991 annual convention the NRA board of trustees nominated a Virginian named Wayne R.LaPierre Jr. as it’s new executive vice president. In contrast with the more folksy Carter and Knox legacy, this ambitious, polished staff operative had a pedigree already endorsed by Washington king makers.  LaPierre represented a new strain of leadership that united NRA brand with grass root extremism.

LaPierre set immediate timetable for overhauling Clinton administration gun policies, ramped NRA propaganda and gave the great cause of gun ownership the veneer of a religious crusade. Sporting initiatives were subordinated into PR activity lending the cover of wholesomeness to strategic campaigns targeting vulnerable gun control advocates in the House and Senate.

LaPierre’s flare for oratory ignited Klan like revival hysteria among the members of the NRA. Zealot organizers provided a façade of legitimacy as conservative industrialists drove a stake through the heart of George Wingate’s original intent.  THe NRA was now, more than all else, a sophisticated industrial propaganda vehicle that paid the top executives really well. 

LaPierre’s take-no-prisoner approach became the hallmark of his tenure and if viewed as strictly a cultural phenomenon his influence had no parallel outside the cause that catapulted the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei to prominence in 1930s Germany.