A post by Lyle over at View from North Central Idaho got me thinking about a topic I started researching:
“The patent on the M1 carbine was owned by Western Cartridge Co. and David “Carbine” Williams, and still in effect when Penney and Arnold wanted to begin manufacturing M1 carbines in 1958. Penney and Arnold contacted Winchester-Western and offered them a percentage per carbine manufactured, in return for permission to manufacture the M1 carbine. John Olin, owner of Winchester-Western, refused. Olin, Winchester-Western, and more than a few other American manufacturers were opposed to all of the surplus weapons being returned to the United States, where they were being sold at prices the manufacturers couldn’t compete with. This opposition eventually led the manufacturers and the National Rifle Association to support the Gun Control Act of 1968, which, amongst many other things, prohibited the importation of U.S. military surplus.“
I’ve tried, at various times, to do some research on the historical arguments surrounding the Gun Control Act and the National Firearms Act, but there’s difficulty without spending some very serious time or buying articles. Dave Hardy is also probably more of an expert on this than I am, given he’s done quite a bit of this kind of research. Generally speaking, I’d want to rely on period accounts rather than modern accounts. Examination of the Congressional Record would also be important. My concern is that there’s a lot of bullshit in this issue, and plenty of people willing to twist the truth to help fit their preferred narrative.
Some of what I’ve found has been surprising. For instance, while it would seem too good to be true that the Gun Control Act was modeled after Nazi gun control laws, as best I can tell this is at least partially true, in that Senator Dodd, who was the act’s architect, did have the 1938 German law translated to English, and some aspects of the German law made it into GCA ’68.
Another legend was that the manufacturers were complicit in the Gun Control Act’s passage. I can find no direct evidence of the manufacturers supporting the Gun Control Act in contemporary press accounts of the time, though there are news accounts speculating on it. You also find accounts of other manufacturers howling about the new restrictions. While it’s true that three major gun manufacturers were located in Connecticut, the anti-gun New England states have never paid much heed to their interests, so it’s not very hard for me to believe they didn’t give much of a crap back then either.
Was NRA complicit in GCA? Most of what I’ve found from news accounts at the time would appear to refute that. There was even a nefarious gun lobby that controlled Congress in 1968. One story speaks of Dodd denying that he directed the FBI to investigate NRA for lobbying activity. If NRA was complicit, I doubt this would be a story. I doubt you’d see news accounts like this either.
I’ve found some modern accounts that suggest the NRA had a hand in drafting the legislation. I would certainly hope so. If you know you’re going to get something shoved down your throat, and you don’t have the votes to stop it, only a foolish organization would reject an opportunity to clean up language and prevent legislators from inadvertently doing something really stupid. I’ve also found modern accounts that suggest NRA supported it at first, but under pressure from membership, reversed course and began to oppose GCA ’68. Pretty much everyone seems to agree that NRA’s opposition to GCA was disorganized and half-hearted. After the GCA it was also certainly true that a faction of NRA leadership wished to get out of politics and move to Colorado Springs, to permanently remove itself from the debate in DC. I would not expect that kind of internal squabbling to show up in the newspapers, but we certainly have those arguments today, so I don’t see why we wouldn’t have been having them in 1968 too. By 1977, the faction of NRA that represented political engagement had won the battle, though internal quibbles continued until fairly recently.
I would like to see an account of NFA and GCA, using primary sources, much like Dave Hardy did with the Firearms Owners Protection Act. Most of what’s worked its way into the modern accounts of both NFA and GCA have been twisted to suit the ends of modern narratives.
Another example is the National Firearms Act. It is not quite true that NRA supported the NFA. It is true, however, that they had a hand in drafting the machine gun provisions. Originally NFA was modeled after the Uniforms Firearms Act, which was model legislation introduced in the 1930s and taken up by a number of state, including Pennsylvania. That’s where we got the name for our modern gun control statutes that have evolved greatly, both for better and worse, since. But it was also more thoroughly adopted by Washington D.C. which shows in their their whacky definition of a machine gun:
(10) “Machine gun†means any firearm which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily converted or restored to shoot: (A) Automatically, more than 1 shot by a single function of the trigger; (B) Semiautomatically, more than 12 shots without manual reloading.
This was cribbed straight out of the UFA model legislation, and was also the language initially adopted for the National Firearms Act. The original NFA also covered handguns under the same $5 transfer tax as any other weapon. It was due to NRA and the United States Revolver Association (the President of the former was Vice President of the latter) that the handgun provisions were removed, and the law altered to only cover automatic weapons.
Did NRA, in 1934, throw machine guns under the bus? Yes. But largely to save handguns and semi-automatic rifles. The same thing played out later in the century. I would argue that culturally, we’re probably in better shape in this issue than we have been since the beginning of the 20th century. Most of that period, from 1934 to 1968, were nothing but slowing the rate of loss. We gained back a lot of ground in 1986, but also did lose some with the Hughes Amendment. We had two serious setbacks in the 90s, and a few minor ones, but since then it’s been nothing but improvement. We have to keep driving the cultural change, because that’s what drives political change in the long run. It’s not a quick process, but it wasn’t for our opponents either. It takes relentlessness, and you can’t count on the leaders in this issue to do everything for you. Ultimately the power of NRA, or really any other gun rights organization, comes from the people who get behind it.
