Constitutional Law

NRA birthday

It's its 137th, founded Nov. 17, 1871. Founded by William Church, who'd been a Union officer during The Great Unpleasantness, and was dismayed by his troops' lousy marksmanship. And more dismayed to discover the Army had no real shooting manuals. As I recall, the drill manual just showed how to stand when firing offhand, not a word about sight alignment, much less bullet drop, trigger squeeze, etc..

And Church was in at the beginning of the war. I read one late 1864 report from Gen. Hancock, commanding II Corps, that one-third of his corps had never fired a live round from their muskets. His corps had been pretty badly shot up, and replacements were new guys who'd drilled on loading but never actually had fired a shot.

Full post as published by Of Arms and the Law on November 17, 2008 (boomark / email).