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National Rifle Association of America history
National Rifle Association of America company history timeline
On November 25, 1871, the group voted to elect its first corporate officers.
The National Rifle Association was chartered in the State of New York on November 17, 1871 by Army and Navy Journal editor William Conant Church and Captain George Wood Wingate.
The National Rifle Association was founded in New York state in 1871 as a governing body for the sport of shooting with rifles and pistols.
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.
The range officially opened on June 21, 1873.
After beating England and Scotland to win the Elcho Shield in 1873 at Wimbledon, then a village outside London, the Irish Rifle Team issued a challenge through the New York Herald to riflemen of the United States to raise a team for a long-range match to determine an Anglo-American championship.
New York governor Alonzo Cornell, predicting a long age of peace, cut the NRA's funding in 1880.
In 1892, Creedmoor was deeded back to the state and NRA's matches moved to Sea Girt, New Jersey.
The association languished until the twentieth century, when the deadly accuracy of untrained farmers with rifles in the Boer War awakened military interest in the NRA in 1901.
The US Congress created the National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice in 1901 to include representatives from the NRA, National Guard, and United States military services.
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.
In 1907, NRA headquarters moved to Washington, D.C. to facilitate the organization's advocacy efforts.
The United States Army began funding NRA-sponsored shooting matches in 1912 at the NRA firing range on Long Island, New York.
In the National Firearms Act of 1936, the NRA succeeded in getting handguns, including the infamous Saturday night specials, exempted from interstate prohibitions.
In 1938, the NRA supported provisions to limit the sale of guns across state lines and prevent the sale of guns to fugitives and convicted felons.
The NRA's efforts to encourage assistance for Britain in 1940 resulted in the collection of more than 7,000 firearms for Britain's defense against German invasion.
In 1949, the NRA, in conjunction with the state of New York, established the first hunter education program.
1975: Institute for Legislative Action, the NRA's lobbying unit, is created.
In 1975, recognizing the critical need for political defense of the Second Amendment, NRA formed the Institute for Legislative Action, or ILA.
In 1975, it began to focus more on politics and established its lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA), with Carter as director.
The next year, its political action committee (PAC), the Political Victory Fund, was created in time for the 1976 elections.
The army ceased providing funds and guns for the NRA-sponsored shooting matches in 1977.
Led by the Texan Harlan Carter, they staged the Cincinnati Revolt at the annual membership meeting in 1977, stripping power from the elected president and giving it to the appointed executive director—Harlan Carter.
After 1977, the organization expanded its membership by focusing heavily on political issues and forming coalitions with conservative politicians.
As part of the nationwide conservative surge in 1980, Carter turned the NRA's moribund Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) over to professional lobbyists Wayne LaPierre and James Jay Baker.
A national print advertising campaign launched in January 1982 gained wide attention.
After three high-profile assassinations using firearms—John F. Kennedy (1963), Robert Kennedy (1968), and Martin Luther King Jr. (1968)—the Democratic-controlled Congress passed the Gun Control Act of 1968, ending mail-order sales of weapons. Its membership had jumped to three million by 1984, with fifty-four state chapters and fourteen hundred local organizations.
Surrounded by scandal, however, Arnett lasted only until May 1986, when ILA leader J. Warren Cassidy became the next executive vice-president.
In 1986, the NRA had three million members and income of about $66 million a year.
Nevertheless, in 1987 the NRA refused to endorse Robert Bork's nomination to the United States Supreme Court by claiming itself first and foremost a progun group, not a conservative organization.
However, the NRA was unable to overturn a new ban on handguns in Maryland in 1988.
The NRA Foundation was created in 1990 to raise tax-exempt funds for gun education.
At the 1991 national convention, Knox's supporters were elected to the board and named staff lobbyist Wayne LaPierre as the executive vice president.
Moreover, Refuse to Be a Victim seminars, introduced in 1993, lectured women on personal safety issues.
Ef-forts to overturn New Jersey’s ban on semiautomatic weapons and Virginia’s gun-rationing program in 1993 both failed.
——, Under Fire: The NRA and the Battle for Gun Control, New York: Henry Holt, 1993.
Annual revenues for the NRA approached $150 million in 1994 as the group attracted a more active and high profile membership.
The NRA repeated the rhetoric in a 1995 fundraising letter, prompting former president George Bush to rescind his life membership.
Knox again lost power in 1997, as he lost reelection to a coalition of moderate leaders who supported movie star Charlton Heston, despite Heston's past support of gun control legislation.
Still, the group held the largest convention in its history in 1998, attracting 41,000 attendees.
However, Newsweek reported, the fear of political retaliation from the NRA killed a new round of gun control bills in June 1999.
The Guardian was renamed America's 1st Freedom in June of 2000.
The organization reports a membership of more than 4 million, which included 1 million new members alone in 2000.
In 2001, the NRA had replaced the american association of retired persons as Washington's most powerful lobbying group, according to Fortune magazine's top 25 list.
At the NRA's annual meeting in Kansas City in 2001, its firearms law seminar offered legal advice, strategies, and theories for undermining local government enforcement of existing gun laws.
LaPierre, Wayne R. 2002.
Leading up to the NRA's 2019 national convention in April, there were reports that North and LaPierre were at odds, with North demanding that LaPierre resign and LaPierre accusing North of extortion.
On June 25, 2019, the NRA severed all ties with Ackerman McQueen and shut down the NRATV operation.
On January 15, 2021, the NRA announced in a press release that it and one of its subsidiaries had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas in Dallas.
"National Rifle Association of America ." International Directory of Company Histories. . Retrieved June 21, 2022 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/books/politics-and-business-magazines/national-rifle-association-america
Olbrich, Bill "National Rifle Association ." Dictionary of American History. . Retrieved June 21, 2022 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/national-rifle-association
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National Rifle Association of America competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gun Owners of America | 1976 | $2.2M | 2,015 | - |
| The Public Interest Network | - | - | 180 | 5 |
| American Cancer Society | 1913 | $720.1M | 8,258 | 57 |
| National Wildlife Federation | 1936 | $91.1M | 2,016 | 6 |
| Interfaith Youth Core | 2002 | $4.5M | 25 | - |
| EAA | 1953 | $900,000 | 50 | - |
| Good News Partners | 1976 | $1.6M | 30 | 15 |
| Connecticut Association for Community Action | 1974 | $530,000 | 50 | - |
| Knoxville Chamber | 1869 | $4.6M | 47 | - |
| United Way of Central Indiana | 1918 | $1.6M | 50 | - |
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