This dissertation is not about the Second Amendment. It is about how the NRA gained strength sufficient to obviate James Madison's famous argument that, "(I)f a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote."57 My argument is about how the NRA has been able to achieve results like those that were reported following the 2010 Congressional elections when, "(T)he National Rifle Association endorsed candidates in about two-thirds of
congressional races in the midterm elections. Often, the choice not to endorse was pragmatic -- either both candidates had top NRA ratings or both had poor ratings. Of those endorsed, 80
54
Spitzer, 100.
55 Kelly Patterson and Matthew Singer, "Targeting Success," in Interest Group Politics, ed. Allan J. Cigler and Burdett
A. Loomis (Washington, D.C: CQ Press, 1983), 42; David R. Harding Jr., “Public Opinion and Gun Control," in The Changing Politics of Gun Control, ed. John M. Bruce and Clyde M. Wilcox, (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998). The latter essay includes seven pages of tables extracted from Gallup, CBS and New York Times polls showing that well in excess of 50% of the American public, no matter how measured, support gun control - numbers run well into the 80% range in many categories.
56 Schuman, Howard, and Stanley Presser, “The Attitude-Action Connection and the Issue of Gun Control,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 455 (May 1981): 41. Schuman cites "An Analysis of Public Attitudes toward Handgun Control," prepared by Cambridge Reports, Inc., better known as Patrick Caddell's political polling firm. The Caddell report is also based on a large national survey conducted in 1978, and was commissioned by the Philadelphia-based Center for the Study and Prevention of Handgun Violence.
57
James Madison, “Federalist No. 10,” in the The Federalist (New York: Barnes and Noble Classics, 2006), 51. James Madison's “Federalist No. 10” was written to explain how in a large country a republican form of government would control the "violence of faction" through representatives who would bring a balance to the central government while being unable to influence the entire nation.
percent won, according to The Washington Post's analysis."58 While today’s political candidates may respond to suggestions that Second Amendment rights are being infringed, that response is sufficiently powerful only because of events that occurred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and not, as many political scientists have suggested, in response to 1960s calls for greater gun control.59
In his book, The Politics of Gun Control, political scientist Robert Spitzer offered that "the key to the NRA's effectiveness that distinguishes it from other interest groups lies in its highly motivated mass membership and the organization's ability to bring pressure from that
membership to bear at key moments and places."60 Spitzer continued by suggesting that there are four factors needed to incentivize members in any organization: material rewards, the receipt of special recognition, membership in a select group, and a common cause. For each factor, Spitzer was able to identify how the NRA fulfilled each need to incentivize its members, thus gaining strength needed to be an effective interest group. Missing from Spitzer's argument is recognition of the need to build the grassroots membership and support system through which those four incentives might be announced, advertised, and disseminated. Like other political scientists and historians, Spitzer assumes the existence of an established membership, but he fails to address how that membership was built.
Spitzer does give some attention to the legislative efforts for gun control in the 1930s, noting that in the "1930's, national gun registration was openly advanced as an achievable
58
"The NRA's Electoral Influence," Washington Post, December 15, 2010.
59
Here I refer to those calls for gun control that followed the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., and led to the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968, the first federal gun control act since the 1930s.
60
national policy," though passage by the Congress was as difficult then as it is today.61 Spitzer's subsequent discussion of President Franklin Roosevelt's efforts for gun control legislation acknowledged that a role was played by "well organized and motivated forces...spearheaded by the NRA."62 After providing a list of reasons for the failure of the passage of the
administration's gun control agenda, Spitzer suggested that among them must be the "deep- seated, personal feelings of opponents that these bills would impinge on the values identified here as the gun culture."63 Understanding how members who held those values were
transformed from individuals to a "well organized and motivated force" is tantamount to understanding how the NRA was able to "bring pressure at key moments."
Edward F. Leddy approached his study of the NRA through the lens of a social
movement theorist. He divided the Association's history into four phases: the encouragement of military shooting, the regulation of civilian and international competition, the defense of shooting interests, and active political involvement. He then focused his study on the last two phases which he dated from 1923 to the completion of his study in 1983.64 He, like others, gave credit to the NRA for influencing the gun control legislation of the 1930s. "The National Rifle Association at that time was small, but it could influence legislation because the
proponents of control laws had no organization at all. The National Rifle Association became, mostly because of its legal and technical expertise, the consultant to many legislatures in the
61 Ibid., 110. 62 Ibid., 112. 63 Ibid., 112. 64
Leddy chose 1923 as the starting point for his study because that is when the NRA magazine was first published as an in-house organ. His study focuses on the magazine and how it portrayed the Association. While there were earlier magazines that covered marksmanship and the NRA—The Rifle, Arms and the Man and Shooting and Fishing—they were privately held. In 1923, General James Drain sold Shooting and Fishing to the NRA and the name was changed to The American Rifleman.
writing of gun laws."65 By simply suggesting that a small organization offering legal and technical advice was adequate to successfully oppose public opinion and the extant administration leaves questions unanswered, not the least of which is, how was the
organization able to deploy such skills and organization that could withstand the policy goals of a popular President? Leddy did not address the genesis of the political influence that existed prior to the NRA's response to the early twentieth century legislative agenda and how that political influence was built through a relationship with the National Guard.
Leddy does credit the creation of the National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice with aiding in the establishment of "the program of the National Rifle Association as the law of the land" regarding competitive marksmanship that brought additional federal resources and encouraged membership.66 However, he was focused on the social movement aspect of the Association’s twentieth century growth and did not look back to the nineteenth century and the possible role that might have been played by the National Guard. Furthermore, during the 1930's debates, there was considerable support for gun control, some of which was well- organized. More importantly, the NRA's position was aggressively opposed by the very popular Franklin Roosevelt, and his attorney general, Homer Cummings. Without the grassroots
organization, based in a large part on a relationship with the National Guard, the NRA would not have been able to exert the level of influence seen during the gun control debates of the 1930s.
Historians, like the political scientists who address the early years of the NRA, do not dwell on the Second Amendment and look elsewhere for the basis of the NRA's strength. Lee
65
Leddy, Magnum Force, 85.
66
Kennett and James Anderson suggested that Attorney General Cummings "probably
underestimated the forces opposing him" who consisted of small arms manufacturers and the nation's hunters and gun collectors "who found a common spokesman in the National Rifle Association."67 These historians point out that "(G)overnment sales of surplus arms were a vital element in the organization's growth" which was critical to the 1920s expansion of rifle clubs.68 That strength was particularly evident when, during the 1963-1964 Congressional hearings in response to demands for stricter gun control, there was marked support against any such measures. "The periodic deluges of pro-gun letters that have descended on congressmen are usually attributed to the prompting of the NRA. Yet in many cases they have been
spontaneous. This self-propulsive tendency at the grass-roots level is perhaps the hallmark of the 'gun lobby'."69 The effectiveness of that lobby was no better articulated than by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in a letter, made public in the Washington Post, to Senator Edward Kennedy who was staunch proponent of stronger gun control measures.
"Congressional inaction over gun control legislation poses an open and permanent invitation to violence and disorder. I am frankly shocked that Congress has been so remiss in enacting the necessary controls to assure that the sale and use of weapons is effectively kept out of the hands of those who use them to threaten the right of free dissent."70 Contrary to the position taken by Kennett and Anderson, the grassroots organization that caused inaction by flooding Congress with letters was not spontaneous. It was the result of a nationwide organization, created with the help of federal and state government support over fifty years earlier.
67
Kennett and Anderson, The Gun in America, 205
68 Ibid., 205. 69
Ibid., 240.
70
Two dissertations were published during the 1970s that did locate a rise in the NRA's power during the first decades of the twentieth century. Russell Gilmore, in "Crackshots and Patriots: The National Rifle Association and America's Military-Sporting Tradition," argued that the real increase in the NRA's power did not come until the mid-1920s. For Gilmore, the NRA's assumption of the lobbying role previously played by arms and ammunition manufacturers marked its rise to power as an effective political force. While he credited the ability of the NRA to leverage a relationship with the War Department and a "wholesale enrollment of bank vigilantes that had to be members of the Association," he does not address the relationship created with the National Guard or the importance of the nationwide grassroots network.71 Taking a broader view, Donald Lefave’s dissertation, "The Will to Arm: The National Rifle Association in American Society, 1871-1970," examined the NRA's role in a changing American society. Lefave’s work looked closer at the relationship between the National Guard, the National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice and the growth of the NRA, and he went so far as to note that all three organizations were often represented by the same leaders. Lefave’s work is singularly significant in that he appears to be the only historian who has linked the three organizations in a meaningful fashion.72 However, he concluded that the NRA gained its
strength by leveraging America's desire to become a more military society that was highlighted by the preparedness movement of the early twentieth century. Roger Possner's book, The Rise
of Militarism in the Progressive Era, 1900-1914, provided affirmation for Lefave’s arguments.
Possner suggested that the Army and the progressives shared the values of a well-structured
71 Gilmore, "Crackshots and Patriots," 257. 72
Donald George Lefave, "The Will to Arm: The National Rifle Association in American Society, 1871-1970” (PhD diss., University of Colorado, 1970), 29-51, 284.
society that placed "social duty above private desire" as reflected by the conduct of frequent military tournaments and marksmanship contests. As if to offer a vote of confidence in Lefave’s argument, Possner began his book with a quote from Senator Albert Beveridge, "Our blood is the most militant blood on the face of the earth...Militarism in America! It is here indeed, here in the blood we young men of America have inherited from our fathers."73
Law professor Leon Friedman pointed out that efforts in the 1930s to implement firearms control at the federal level had the support of the American Bar Association, the International Chiefs of Police and "according to a Gallup Poll, 79 percent of the Nation's population."74 Those efforts were marginally successful in the face of opposition from the emerging anti-gun control elements that were led by the NRA. In a footnote in his work,
Violence in America, Friedman added that "Nearly 30 years later, in a May 1967 survey, 85
percent of adults said they would back...a law" that required owners of pistols and revolvers to register with the government.75 Similar to the efforts of the 1930s, the gun control measures implemented in the 1960s fell short of requiring national registration. In a summary statement, Friedman noted that "whatever the effectiveness of current federal firearms policy, the
prospect for developing a more effective policy is not encouraging."76 Friedman's conclusions were reaffirmed during budget debates that were conducted in the late 1990s that placed the bureaucracy represented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in direct opposition to the NRA.
73 Roger Possner, The Rise of Militarism in the Progressive Era, 1900-1914 (Jefferson, N.C: McFarland, 2009), 1-3. 74
Leon Friedman, Violence in America, 99.
75
Ibid., 99n15. Friedman is citing the Gallup Opinion Index: Gallup Political Scoreboard (1968), 6-7. The “30 year” reference is to the passage of the 1938 Federal Firearms Act, the last federal gun control legislation prior to the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968.
76
In 1992, the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPIC), an arm of the CDC, initiated a study of the role firearms played in violent injury to Americans. Sensitive to any effort that might impact the ownership of guns, the NRA became an early opponent to the CDC study, arguing that funds for the NCIPIC effort were a misuse of tax payer dollars for "flawed, biased, and politicized firearms research...to produce pseudo scientific research."77 In a study of the interaction of Congress, the federal bureaucracy and a special interest group (the NRA), Christine Cagle examined the interaction of the CDC and the NRA as each sought to influence the congressional budget process.78 Though the NRA was not able to bring about the
defunding NCIPIC efforts to study violence in America, the 1997 fiscal year appropriation did include the statement that "none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control."79 The fact that that statement remained in CDC budget documentation for subsequent years is a reflection of the NRA's ability to impact the allocation of the nation's resources to protect the interests of the Association and its allies.