nra_150anniversary_2021

o rKeeeep doea 150 YEARS OF THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION

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orKeeeep doea 150 YEARS OF THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION

Copyright © 2021 by the National Rifle Association. International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 978-1-7372177-1-8. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any in- formation storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission from the publisher. Printed in the USA ii

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v Controversy; Recovery; e Federal Firearms Act; e Need for the ... Now More an Ever . . . . . . . . .vi Healthy Growth David A. Keene, Past President Sidebars: e Olympic Games; Post-War Matches America᾿s Lifeline for Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix and Growth; e Ri e; Police Competitions Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President Echoes: Introducing the “Ri eman᾿s Ri e” Leading for Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x PART IV: Carolyn D. Meadows, President In War, In Peace - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PART I: Defending Freedom, Training a Nation; Training Taking Hold of Freedom - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . & Expansion; Preparing and Training a Nation of Ri emen; Tools for Training; For e War E ort; A New e Begins; e Founders; Creedmoor: ᾿s Direction; Preparing for the Next War: Korea; Special Iconic Home Range; e Crusader; e Alliance Ri es and a New Home; e Armed Citizen; A Change in Leadership; Supports Police; e Turbulent Sidebars: e Brass; Shooting Comes of Age Echoes: In Its Own Words; Role Models: s; Saving the Matches Early Magazines Pro led Emerging Champions; Guns Sidebars: Send a Gun to Defend a British Home; Bill Jumped O the Page and Onto the Firing Line Shadel: From the Frontlines; Pioneers in Hunter Safety Training; e First Ruger; Prominent Women of the PART II: Echoes: Training a Lifesaver in Vietnam Rise of the American Ri eman - . . . . . . . . . . . PART V: An Association Rises in the East; e Goes Activism and Shooting Sports in the Shadow of Gun National; Presidential Support and a New Shooting Control - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Range; Youth Matches and an Olympic Team; Fighting For the Gun; Against the Hun; e Ri emen A er the War; Troubling Times and a New Direction; e Gun Control Act of ; e Birth of - ; Troubling Times Echoes: e Great Voices: Townsend Whelen, Charles and Second Amendment Research; A Sitting President Askins and Julian Hatcher Acknowledges a “Special Bond” PART III: Sidebar: Whittington Center Service and Readiness - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Echoes: Fateful Meetings: Cincinnati; Post War Growth and Expansion; A Police Need; e Publications Diversi es with American Hunter Winchester Junior Ri e Corp; Reorganization in ; e “World᾿s Oldest and Largest Firearm Authority”; e Service Company; Match Support; e Uniform Firearms Act; e Great Depression and the “Other ”; Growth in Smallbore and Training; e National Firearm Act; Wary and Waiting; Olympic iii

PART VI: To Keep and To Carry - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . en Came - ; State by State; Winning Our Freedom Was Not Happenstance; Firearms Owners Protection Act; ᾿s Timeline of Freedom; e Explosion of Concealed Carry; e ᾿s Move to Virginia; e - Assault Weapons Ban; e Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act Sidebar: Charlton Heston Is “Our President” Echoes: Glock Reinvents the Personal-Defense Handgun PART VII: Vigilance and Freedom - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Preserving the Second Amendment Amidst Political Volatility; e Supreme Court Rules In Our Favor;. America’s Ri e—the - ; e Never-Ending Battle for Freedom Sidebars: Education and Training; School Shield: Real Solutions for Keeping Kids Safe Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv

A ’L F FBy Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President when we rst started this mission—there were only about ROM THE TIME I joined I always felt we three states with decent carry laws on the books—one by one, were the underdog, even though a majority of working together, we changed that! America was on our side. We are perpetually ghting against massive me- rough the landmark Heller and McDonald Supreme dia conglomerates, Hollywood elites, anti-gun politicians at Court Decisions, we a rmed what our Founding Fathers every level of government and the billionaire tycoons who do wrote plainly in the Second Amendment, and what we all their bidding. know to be true: Our Right to Keep and Bear Arms is a guar- anteed, natural, and individual right that no government can However, members have always had something more take away from us! powerful. A streak of independence that courses through our veins today and runs straight back to our founders. A yearn- And there’s no other member organization in the country ing for freedom that’s shared by mainstream America. is that is more directly responsible for the election of two re- fuels us for the ght every single day. cent . . Presidents, thousands of . . Senators, Representa- tives and state legislators—not to mention the hundreds of Despite the in nite volume of money and power aligned pro-freedom judges that came from those victories! against us, the accomplishments of our ve million mem- bers, and the many millions who came before us, are historical. As celebrates the th anniversary of our founding this year, we can say indisputably: We are the oldest, stron- In fact, they almost defy belief. gest and most successful civil rights organization in Ameri- Just consider how has defended, preserved and won can history. back lost freedoms during an era that has seen citizens of almost every other nation disarmed and stripped of their freedom. Every member knows this in his or her heart: As long We passed a law securing the right of law-abiding Amer- as there is a strong , there will always be a strong and free icans to travel through any state in the United States with America. Here’s to the next their rearms. years of freedom! We rewrote the entire Gun Control Act of —if we hadn’t done that, our freedoms would have been crushed. We passed pre-emption bills in virtually every state—so you don’t have to navigate a crazy patchwork of local city and town laws every time you simply want to travel with a rearm in your own state. We passed range protection laws, laws preventing hunter harassment, and we stopped government from denying ac- cess to millions of acres of hunting land. We passed emergency power laws, so government o cials can never again con scate our guns in a state of emergency, like they did a er Hurricane Katrina, and leave us defenseless at a time when we need our rearms the most. We passed laws arming airline pilots and retired police of- cers, and we passed Castle Doctrine laws. Together, we saved the American rearms industry by passing federal legislation that stopped predatory, anti-gun lawsuits that would have driven every gun manufacturer out of business. We passed right-to-carry laws in over states so that Amer- icans never have to face evil with empty hands! I remember ix

A stems from the determination of /Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre and Publications Executive A S NRA PUBLICATIONS sta got to work Director Doug Hamlin to share a proud milestone with creating this volume celebrating ’s th members, shooting-industry friends and the American pub- anniversary, a couple of things soon became lic. While Wayne and Doug must devote their days to do- apparent. First, what we learned about our or- ing all that is necessary to defend American freedom, both ganization’s inner workings made it a labor of love and rev- men treasure our honored past. eir big-picture leadership elation. It’s an inspirational tale combining patriotism, prin- served as our road map. ciple and the indomitable will of American exceptionalism. e book’s structure is adapted from a treatment conceived by Frank Miniter, editor in chief of America’s 1 Freedom, is wealth of potential material led us in turn to the very who was subsequently joined in its execution by fellow di cult job of narrowing momentous decades into what senior editors Evan Brune (American Ri eman), Ann Smith should and could t into the book before you. We hope you (nrawomen.org), Mark Keefe (American Ri eman), J. Scott get as much ful llment reading as we did producing it. Olmsted (American Hunter) and Ed Friedman (Shooting Illustrated). e book’s beginnings—and conclusion—were While there are echoes, this compilation di ers from ear- overseen by Editorial Director John Zent, now retired. lier history books. ose epic accounts—Americans Other Publications editors involved in the project and eir Guns ( ) and : An American Legend ( ) include: Brian Sheetz, Kelly Young, Hayden sought to encapsulate the full scope of a airs. Both are Foster, Christopher Olsen, Wendy LaFever, now out-of-print, but can be found via online booksellers John Parker, Jon Draper, Rose Bier, David and through interlibrary loans. ey remain wor- Herman, Daniel McElrath, Jay Grazio, thy reading for keen members and students of and Bob Boyd. Museums᾿ Phil Schreier consulted on some chapters. ’s precipitous rise, periodic transforma- e design template was created by tions and resolute staying power. Creative Director Mark Weaver, who was then aided by colleagues John Claman, While this edition likewise spans ’s Karen Haefs, Lucas Goss and David Labrozzi entire run, we chose to dig a bit deeper in page construction. Photography Director Peter into a relative handful of the events, peo- Fountain collaborated with Weaver to produce the evoc- ple, milestones and trends that not only ative cover image. made the what it was, but which are Production and marketing responsibilities were handled by permanently assimilated into the organiza- Managing Director of Integrated Marketing Marshall Flemion, tional . Another unique feature here is Managing Director Mike Sanford and Production Director the reprise of actual archival content, found in the Michelle Kuntz from Publications Publishing Operations. “Echoes” sections accompanying every chapter. e sponsor pages and messages seen herein were sold by the Publications sales team, including Tony Morrison, One especially vexing content question was the book’s Courtney Olson, Stan Yates, Rachelle Trout, James O'Neill, cover. Anniversary retrospectives o en rely on multi-image Tim Hamill and Debbie O'Connell. collages to re ect the churn of time. is book’s creators pre- Valuable assistance in the use of Association archives ferred a cleaner, more cohesive look. But what particular vi- was freely given by Secretary John Frazer and Stephen sual could possibly stand for such an eventful century and a McCormick. Frazer and Josh Savani from - also pro- half ? e answer was actually an intuitive turn to what we do vided valuable time and attention to these pages. best— rearms content—and the choice there was obvious. More than anything, the history chronicled herein is the e ort of loyal members who have always understood e handgun has been singularly relevant for most of and valued the codependence between American freedom ’s existence, far longer than any other example, and while and the practical ability to preserve it through an individual right to keep and bear arms. it has no shortage of high-tech competitors, s remain in service in , as very real and highly e ective tools for pre- serving life and liberty. And what could be more tting than one donated by an member? e pistol pictured was manufactured in and purchased by Life member James O. Adams through an Ordnance Department limited o ering. It now resides at ’s National Firearms Museum in Virginia. is book documenting the era in American history v