False and easily disproved statements are not, sadly, exclusive to the political left. Lately, with the gun control debate again hotly contested due to the GOP takeover of Congress in the election just past, not to mention the sweeping victory of Donald Trump and JD Vance, I’ve seen an old one recycled, which I will paraphrase as “the NRA’s attackers are racist because they don’t know the NRA was formed to arm freed slaves against the KKK.”
Even though I would find the actions of anyone in those times seeking to do exactly that to be laudable, that’s not why the NRA was founded; indeed, it’s just stunningly easy to show otherwise - and it only takes a matter of moments to not only show this to be false, but to learn the truth.
From the “A Brief History of the NRA” page:
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. The primary goal of the association would be to "promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis," according to a magazine editorial written by Church.
After being granted a charter by the state of New York on November 17, 1871, the NRA was founded. Civil War Gen. Ambrose Burnside, who was also the former governor of Rhode Island and a U.S. senator, became the fledgling NRA's first president.
An important facet of the NRA's creation was the development of a practice ground. In 1872, with financial help from New York State, a site on Long Island, the Creed Farm, was purchased for the purpose of building a rifle range. Named Creedmoor, the range opened a year later, and it was there that the first annual matches were held.
Political opposition to the promotion of marksmanship in New York forced the NRA to find a new home for its range. In 1892, Creedmoor was deeded back to the state and NRA's matches moved to Sea Girt, New Jersey.
Marksmanship. Not politics. It's important to remember that, unlike the Confederates, the Union Army was largely drawn from urban populations, many of whom had never handled a musket before, and that showed in their battlefield performance.
That, not the freed slaves, was the concern of General Burnside and his compatriots. Not that they didn't have some problems regardless: Even in the waning years of the 19th century, some jurisdictions weren't friendly to shooting sports. But the NRA wasn't really in that fight, not as such; their primary purpose was training, just as it is still to this day.
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The NRA did, early on, promote one thing that the left today would screech about: Rifle clubs in all colleges and universities.
The NRA’s interest in promoting the shooting sports among America’s youth began in 1903 when NRA Secretary Albert S. Jones urged the establishment of rifle clubs at all major colleges, universities and military academies. By 1906, NRA’s youth program was in full swing with more than 200 boys competing in matches at Sea Girt that summer. Today, youth programs are still a cornerstone of the NRA, with more than one million youth participating in NRA shooting sports events and affiliated programs with groups such as 4-H, the Boy Scouts of America, the American Legion, Royal Rangers, National High School Rodeo Association and others.
The NRA has always been a gun safety and training organization. NRA-certified trainers are the gold standard. The political arm of the NRA draws all the attention, but training, marksmanship, and shooting sports have been the NRA's focus since its founding, in those years just after the Civil War.
Now, the Second Amendment, bearing arms and knowing how to use them, would have been very helpful for the freedmen of that time, and we see no evidence that the NRA opposed those people arming themselves; but that's not why the NRA was founded.
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We only embolden our adversaries when we use false arguments like “the NRA was founded to arm freed slaves.”
Readers here know that I have long attacked the gun-grabbers for their abysmal lack of knowledge of the very items they want to regulate out of existence. Many on the left and in the legacy media (but I repeat myself) fancy themselves the party of “science” and “reason,” but when it comes to firearms, they are anything but; it’s all about the feelings, and they can’t be bothered to actually learn anything.
Take the late Senator Feinstein’s bleating on the power and deadliness of the 5.56mm NATO round fired by the AR-15, for example, or the famous “shoulder thing that goes up” remark. Not to mention this bit of nitwittery (skip ahead to 2.48 for the nitwittery):
So let’s co-opt their claim to science and reason for ourselves. When it comes to firearms, we are the ones who know the specifics. Please, please, please don’t ruin it by making false claims like the one above that can be dis-proven in a ten-second web search.
