"a nation of rifleman"

B

bamaranger

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A drive-by comment on another post prompted me to start this one. Townsend Whelen likely started this phrase in a publication in 1932. My question is, are we (the US) still a nation of rifleman?

No we do not have compulsory military service, aka the Swiss or the Israeli's. But we certainly have a lot of rifles and shooters. With our vast population and ease of acquiring a rifle, and our history of public hunting, do we still qualify?
 
I think far less so than in 1932. You're old enough to remember when some rural school districts actually taught firearms safety in the schools. Today, that idea would go over like a pregnant pole vaulter. Same with firearms advertisements showing giving kids rifles for Christmas. Those days are gone.
 
I have to agree that we probably are no longer a nation of riflemen. I don't know what the tipping point would be, but I think today more of the population lives in cities and urban areas than lives in rural or even suburban areas, and a large percentage of urban dwellers not only don't shoot or own firearms, they are actively anti-gun.

I'm a senior citizen. When I grew up in the 1950s, we lived in a rural community in an extended family -- my maternal grandparents lived 3/10 of a mile down the road, and two sets of aunts, uncles, and cousins lived another 2/10 beyond the grandparents. My grandfather kept guns in his house. Both uncles kept guns in their houses. My father didn't, but he was a WW2 veteran, he knew how to use a gun, and when he needed one to dispatch a pesky groundhog he just borrowed one from one of the uncles.

My grandfather taught me to shoot when I was 8 or 9 years old. Around the age of ten my brother and I and all the cousins attended a day camp during the summer months. The camp activities included both riflery and archery, for both girls and boys. Many of the other kids attending that camp came from my home town.

I still live in the same town, but it's no longer rural. There is only one remaining farm, and as far as I can see it operates as a hobby farm, not as a viable, income-producing farm. We are now a suburban bedroom community. Somewhere along the way, the town enacted an ordinance that prohibited discharging firearms within town limits, and also prohibited carrying or possessing loaded firearms in town. There was no exception for carrying with a state-issued permit, and the police department said they considered the ordinance to be unenforceable. But ... it was on the books, and a future chief of police could have decided to enforce it. With the assistance of my state's grass roots pro-gun group, a good attorney, and some financial backing from the NRA I was able (after a two-year battle) to get the ordinance revised so that at least we're not breaking the law when driving through town with a loaded gun and a permit.

The point of that is that such laws don't grow out of communities made up of riflemen. Laws such as that are enacted by people who hate guns, and that became clear during a meeting with the town's governing body. I was there, my attorney was there, and several women from the grass roots group were there to emphasize the point that the [old] ordinance made my town dangerous for women. The lawyer went through all the reasons why the ordinance was unconstitutional and why it wouldn't stand up to a court challenge.

The mayor (a woman, and a professor of law at a nearby university) saw that some of the members of the panel seemed to be sympathetic to our position, so she derailed that in a hurry. "That's all very nice," she said, "but we don't like guns here."

And that was that. That ended the meeting, and there was no further progress until my lawyer made clear that we were going to file a lawsuit, and the town's attorney understood that the town would lose so he recommended revisions. But the revised ordinance still makes it unlawful to discharge a firearm anywhere in town except in lawful self defense, and it also prohibits discharging an air gun, air rifle, or bow and arrow anywhere in town.

How can we be a nation of riflemen when our kids can't even shoot a BB gun in the back yard without running the risk of being arrested? It's the end of the Daisy Red Ryder carbine.

To summarize: Are we still a nation or riflemen? Nope.
 
I don't think we were ever a nation of riflemen. Wheelen's cultural and ethnic centric comments ignored the urban, oppressed and dirt poor parts of the country.

Certainly his military and hunting peers were all excellent riflemen. In many parts of the country people were too poor in 1932 to buy arms or were simply not able to buy arms due to not being allowed in gun shops. The Sear's catalogue relieved some of that but it was still a struggle.

In the more urban areas guns were fast disappearing.
 
"That's all very nice," she said, "but we don't like guns here."
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And there it is.

It's almost pointless to argue with such a viewpoint. The exception is if they're willing to go to the range with me and shoot some targets. I don't think I've ever taken somebody to the range where they didn't have a good time. I suppose this is because if they're willing to go to the range they just might WANT to have a good time. While everybody has a good time at the range some still retain their anti-gun or gun control views. Sigh.
 
Another post on this thread.

When I was a kid I could take my .22 rifle and bicycle south of town and do some plinking. Gophers, tin cans etc.

Today if I go south of my home town I'm in another town. Urban expansion. Also kids today can't even go out an play for a "day". If they're gone on their own for anything like that time period parents get VERY nervous.

Also my YMCA had a 50 foot indoor range used for .22 rifle programs for the youth and handgun leagues for the adults. That range has LONG since be converted to more 'appropriate' use.

On the third had, in Minnesota we've seen the high school trap shooting sport take hold...so there is some hope.
 
Lyndon Johnson's Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA68) was like the "Battle of Midway" was to Japan. We're still winning a battle now and then, like Japan did after Midway, but we lost the war when GCA68 passed.:(
 
I'm saddened to say we're just not those people any more.

In colonial times, it wasn't unusual for towns to require militia enrollment. They would hold musters on the weekend in which people were required to show they kept their rifle and ammunition in proper working order.

Things may have changed in the late 19th century, when the concept of community policing gave way to municipal police departments. From there, the burden and expectation of protection shifted from the individual to the state.

Couple that with the push for gun control as a public safety effort and the demonization of gun ownership since the middle of the 20th century, and the mentality the founders intended has been pretty much erased.
 
Aguila Blanca said:
How can we be a nation of riflemen when our kids can't even shoot a BB gun in the back yard without running the risk of being arrested?
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A more important question might be “Does it do any good to be a nation of riflemen if you are a nation of men that doesn’t let your kids shoot BB guns in the back yard for fear of being arrested?”

As to the original question, how are we measuring it? By comparison to the past, we may appear lacking at first... on the other hand there are more millions of people with better education and knowledge of riflery than ever before in this country.

If we measure it on a per capita basis conpared to our past, then we might have fewer but far more knowledgeable riflemen.

If we measure it relative to any other country in the world at this modern time, we are certainly a nation of riflemen no other country can compare with.
 
We never were a nation of riflemen, in the sense that everyone had a rifle (or any gun) and knew how to use it. What we once were was a nation where more of our population had their own arms than any other nation.

The quote ascribed to Yamamoto (though there is no proof he said it) about there being a "rifle behind every blade of grass" wasn't meant to be literal it was meant to describe the fact that the US, unlike every other nation, would have an armed populace AS WELL as the military, and that any invader would have to overcome both of them, which is an insurmountably difficult task.
 
Any invader would still have their work cut out for them today. I'd say it more likely these days that some fools would welcome a foreign occupation but it would be bloody beyond all reckoning.
 
Prior to W.W. II, very, very few military age men, in the U.S or here, ever saw a real firearm outside of a movie theatre. Even during the Western Expansion period, depicted in Western movies, very few people, virtually none in cities, owned or ever saw, a firearm either. Exactly the same thing is going on now. Most new cops or military recruits have ever seen a real firearm outside of a movie theatre or TV show.
"...have a lot of rifles and shooters..." I don't think it's as many as you'd think. The USF&W estimated 5 percent of the U.S. population 16 years old and older, hunt. About 30% of homes have firearms. 57% have none.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/10/22/facts-about-guns-in-united-states/
"Homeland Security is a Nation of Riflemen." is what Whelen said in 1932. From an old post on another forum. This one. Appleseed being one of the best ideas there is.
https://appleseedinfo.org/smf/index.php?topic=51613.0
"...people were too poor..." That included some of the newer gun rag writers. I recall seeing at least one talk about having to stretch a box of .22's. Forget who.
"...would welcome a foreign occupation..." Nothing new about that. It happened in every country the Nazis invaded.
Lyndon Johnson's Gun Control Act of 1968, a reaction to assassinations of the 1960's, also gave you the ATF. Who as unelected civil servants are permitted to make law by regulation and have been allowed to confiscate private property and require paperwork that is defacto firearms registration without benefit of legislation. Worst of it is they exported some of their stupid ideas.
 
Silly Me, I though that Nation of Rifleman had it's origin in or about WW1. This had to do with the number a rounds per enemy dispatched.

You know, if you look at the original 4473 you will see the influence of Lee Harvey Oswald in detail. Seems like there was a gut level response to seeing JFK assassinated on film.
 
Prior to W.W. II, very, very few military age men, in the U.S or here, ever saw a real firearm outside of a movie theatre. Even during the Western Expansion period, depicted in Western movies, very few people, virtually none in cities, owned or ever saw, a firearm either. Exactly the same thing is going on now.
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This isn't true around here at all. Approximately 100% of the population in my county of around 100K people own at least one firearm. Everyone has seen one. They sell them at Walmart. I'd say the same is true for most of rural America, given the dozen or so states I have lived in.
 
T. O'Heir said:
Prior to W.W. II, very, very few military age men, in the U.S or here, ever saw a real firearm outside of a movie theatre. Even during the Western Expansion period, depicted in Western movies, very few people, virtually none in cities, owned or ever saw, a firearm either. Exactly the same thing is going on now.
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I also have to take exception to this. I don't even date to before WW2 -- I was born during the war, while my father was in China. I grew up in the 1950 and 1960s.

And in the mid-1950s, for several years my brother and I attended a day camp during July and August. It was a co-ed day camp, and many of the campers were from my home town and attended the same grammar school I did. The camp was owned and operated by two teachers from a somewhat upscale prep school located up-state from where I lived.

Camp activities included both archery and riflery -- for both boys and girls. Nobody raised an eyebrow at this; it was considered normal that young people of both sexes should and would be taught to shoot. If this was commonplace in the 1950s, I have no doubt that it was commonplace prior to WW2. I know that my maternal grandfather and both uncles who lived in the same town all kept guns in their houses. All of us kids -- my brother, me, and all our cousins -- knew where the guns were. And none of us would have thought about playing with any of the aforementioned guns without asked one of adults.

The world was a different place 60 or 70 years ago.
 
1870’s for a few decades we probably qualified as said nation.

Even up thru the 1970’s you could see a rifle in many/ most pickup truck gun racks in Southwest areas, but not many in cities across the nation, and the owners knew the proper care of their weapons.

Today I’d submit the only true “nation of riflemen” is a subset of the US population, the USMC.
 
I graduated from high school in 1961. The Principal was a field grade officer in WW1 serving in Russia after the war. Consequently, the school had a strong ROTC program. Every member of the ROTC program had a course in basic marksmanship. The Model 75 Winchester's were rolled out and ROTC cadets shot on the school indoor range. One guy managed to shoot over the targets breaking the tile wall. By 1920 half the people in the US lived in cities. Today, how easy is it to find a place to shoot(not talking about the hood). Also, how many of the prospective shooters live in a single parent home.
 
Nation of riflemen is a legend. My own research into the blackpowder sharpshooter shows plenty of examples of people who didn't know how to shoot. That said, we were always fortunate to have riflemen who answered the nation's call when beckoned.

Interest in the shooting sports is decreasing too. The young are not picking it up in the same rate that we did and it doesn't happen with range closures becoming more frequent.
 
4V50 Gary: We have noticed more and more gray hair showing up at matches and in club meetings. Locally, participation in formal matches is dropping. There is some interest in the assault firearms. Another event is that many paying members have not been to the range in years. For me, it's participation in five matches a month with fellow gray haired dinosaurs.
 
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