Seattlepi
“The NRA was started, 1871, right here in New York state. It was started by some Yankee generals who didn’t like the way my southern boys had the ability to shoot in what we call the ‘War of Northern Aggression.’ Now y’all call it the Civil War, but we call it the War of Northern Aggression down South.
“But that was the very reason that they started the National Rifle Association — it was to teach and train the civilian in the use of the standard military firearm. And I am one who still feels very strongly that that is one of our most greatest charges that we can have today, is to train the civilian in the use of the standard military firearm, so that when they have to fight for their country they’re read to do it.
“Also, when they’re ready to fight tyranny, they’re ready to do it. Also, when they’re ready to fight tyranny, they have the wherewithal and the weapons to do it.”
It's laughable that the self-aggrandizing huckster thinks his "southern boys" were so much better marksmen than their northern counterparts that the NRA was formed as a result. According to the NRA themselves, the reason was slightly different.
Dismayed by the lack of marksmanship shown by their troops, Union veterans Col. William C. Church and Gen. George Wingate formed the National Rifle Association in 1871.
No mention of the superior Rebel marksmanship. I would imagine the disheartened troops on both side of the Civil War were equally poor marksmen.
Then, somehow, the concern for military troops' ability to shoot became a civilian endeavor. How did that happen? And as if that's not enough, it then became all about tyranny.
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.
So you reject his statement--probably made in jest--and in doing so, you use a quotation that supports or at least doesn't contradict what he said? Against whom were those Union troops fighting?
ReplyDeleteBut I forget so often that you, Mikeb, are an expert on weapons, fighting technique, military history, and so forth...
I blame anti-gunners.
ReplyDeleteYour extremism provides our fringe with credibility. Over several decades, constant pressure from gun control Astroturf organizations have transformed our shooting sports organization into a breeding ground for unpleasant radicals. You made it political, and all must now bear the consequences.
That's really funny. Anything to avoid personal responsibility.
DeleteMikeb, if you believe Triple-T is anything but yet another iteration of E.N., I've got some land a few miles east of Daytona to sell you.
DeleteI don't care, I don't know why you're so obsessed with the identy of each commenter. I take them at face value, you should try it.
DeleteI'm willing to discuss ideas with people who are serious about the process, but those who just want to disrupt the conversation are tedious.
DeleteI would imagine the disheartened troops on both side of the Civil War were equally poor marksmen.
ReplyDeleteTell that to the ghost of Union General John Sedgwick, who said, "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance," just before a southern sharpshooter gave him a lesson about southern marksmanship--the last lesson, please note, the general ever received.
Of course you would imagine marksmanship in the South was just as abysmal as among the feds--you have an impressive commitment to being as consistently, grotesquely wrong as possible. Hats off to you!
You're saying that it's a fact that during the Civil War, the southern boys were better marksmen than the northerners. Now, how would you possibly know such a thing and pass it off as a fact? You demand proof and evidence from me when I make claims, don't you hold youself to the same standard?
DeleteMike,
DeleteBoth sides had sharpshooters, and to fully resolve this question, we'd have to look into it and see which side had more sharpshooters.
Without going into that, we're left with impressions from our American History classes. From these, I remember more stories about Confederate sharpshooters, whereas the one time Union sharpshooters stick out in my memory was at Petersburg near the end of the war.
As for the concept that civilian use of arms preparing future soldiers to be better marksmen, this is a common theme you can find in our history. Frontier hunters with their long rifles became valuable sharpshooters during the American Revolution. Such hunters continued to become valuable sharpshooters during conflicts from then on. Alvin York wrote, in his diary, about how his hunting experience helped him and other backwoods boys outshoot others when they joined up for WWI.
This was the idea of the CMP--a federal program that still exists to this day.
Let's see, in the North more people were working in the trades, factories, and service jobs, while in the South, the economy was based on the land and crops. More people were still hunting for their food and firearms were a daily part of life.
ReplyDeleteIt seems reasonable that the guys whose daily lives involved firearms would be more proficient than the guy on Wall Street or the shipbuilder or the Harvard professor.
And I'd be willing to bet that even in today's society, in general, the guys and gals from Texas or any other Southern state would kick the ass in marksmanship of say an Illinois or New York or Mass., dandy.
It ain't braggin' if it's the truth.
orlin sellers
I think its a reasonable hypothesis that the rural life in the south probably gave them a marksmanship advantage early on, and left the North scrambling to find, train, and better utilize sharpshooters--something which they had done by the end of the war.
Delete"Reasonable assumption" is different from fact. Or, does the requirement of providing proof and evidence only apply to my assumptions?
DeleteGiven that both sides used a lot of smoothbore muskets and given infantry tactics at the time, the conclusion is that marksmanship wasn't a big concern for either side. The generals for both the Union and the Confederacy were using military doctrine from the Napoleonic wars, namely lining up masses of soldiers and firing generally at the enemy. There were innovators--Beford Forrest, Berdan, and so forth--but they were outside the norm.
DeleteOne reason for this was the availability of rifles designed for precise shooting. Loading those took longer than the standard infantry weapon. They were specialty guns, more expensive and requiring more training to use.
But Americans had a tradition of using sharpshooters going back to the Revolutionary War, and the two who started the NRA looked to that tradition. There's a line about World War I that the Germans fought with the best hunting rifle, the Americans with the best target rifle, and the British with the best battle rifle. Our rifle, the Springfield M1903 was built with the idea that American soldiers should be able to pick off targets at long ranges.
After World War II, we went to that wretched M-16, thanks to a doctrinal shift, but I'll let that be, since I don't want to go through another rant from Democommie.
Still don't want to talk about virulently anti-gun Steven Rosefnfeld's assertion that the marksmanship focus of the early NRA was in response to the superior shooting of the rebel troops?
DeleteThe NRA was founded in 1871 by two Yankee Civil War veterans, including an ex-New York Times reporter, who felt that war dragged on because more urban northerners could not shoot as well as rural southerners.
I guess I wouldn't either, if I had been the one trying to accuse people making similar comments here of just making shit up (oops--I mean "fleshing things out a bit").
Mike,
DeleteNot sure if you were aiming that at Orlin or Me since neither of us used the phrase you put in quotation marks. If that was aimed at me, I'll just point out that I called Orlin's comment a reasonable hypothesis--in case you can't remember from studying the scientific method, your hypothesis is an educated guess that you try to prove of disprove.
The whole discussion has been aimed at Kurt, although since he usually can't express himself without including some unnecessary nastiness, most of his comments don't make it this far.
DeleteI agree it makes sense that the southern boys may have been better marksmen than the northerners for all the reasons mentioned, but Kurt presented this as an indisputable fact. It's not that.
Thanks, Greg, for that reasonable explanation. Using Civil War era weapons, marksmanship had less of an importan role than it did a century later.
DeleteAre you saying Kurt is wrong, then?
Good grief, Mike. Is your English comprehension and reasoning ability really that weak? You can't see that Greg pointed out that marksmanship wasn't as much of a concern for the line infantryman, but that it was the province of specialized marksmen, the type I assume Kurt, like the rest of us, has been talking about? (I have to assume since you edit out many of his posts, leaving us only seeing your side of the argument.)
DeleteAre you saying Kurt is wrong, then?
DeleteIs he "saying [I am] wrong" about what? Wrong to challenge you on your implication that President Porter was laughably wrong (lying?) in his assertion that superior marksmanship on the part of the rebels played a part in motivating the formation of the NRA?
It's laughable that [President Porter] thinks his "southern boys" were so much better marksmen than their northern counterparts that the NRA was formed as a result.
. . . Kurt presented this as an indisputable fact.
ReplyDeleteI remember presenting no such thing. If you want to dispute an assertion I make, let's dispute it. If I can't back it up, I'll acknowledge that it's my opinion, rather than a fact (something I try to do from the very beginning, rather than waiting to be challenged on it before making that concession).
Throwing out some outlandish claim, and then acting offended when challenged for supporting evidence, is your "fleshing things out a bit" style, not mine.
For your edification, Mikeb:
ReplyDeletehttp://clevelandcivilwarroundtable.com/articles/means/sharpshooter.htm