The NRA: The Unauthorized History

by Frank Smyth

For the first time, the definitive account of America's most powerful, most secretive, and most controversial nonprofit, and how far it has strayed from its origins.

The National Rifle Association is unique in American life. Few other civic organizations are as old or as large. None is as controversial. It is largely due to the NRA that the U.S. gun policy differs so extremely -- some would say so tragically -- from that of every other developed nation. But, as Frank Smyth shows, the NRA has evolved from an organization concerned above all with marksmanship -- and which supported most government efforts around gun control for a hundred years -- to one that resists all attempts to restrict guns in any way. At the same time, the organization has also buried its own remarkable history.

Here is that story, from the NRA's surprising roots in post-Civil War New York City to the defining event that changed its culture forever -- the so called "Cincinnati Revolt" of 1977 -- to the present day, where President Donald Trump is the most ardent champion in the White House the NRA has ever had. For anyone who has looked at access to guns in our society and asked "Why?", this is an unmatched account of how we got here, and who got us here.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Politics, Audiobook, American History, Social Justice, Cultural

304 pages, Hardcover

First published March 31, 2020

Reviews

[Craig Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an Australian that’s hasn’t experienced a multiple gun death incident since 1996, the American obsession with guns is nonsensical, to say the least. I just don’t get it.

So, with that in mind heard Frank Smyth on a podcast and then bought this book on the NRA.

Like most people I guess, didn’t realise it was just a sporting association for most of the first 106 years, that actually supported gun control legislation. Right up until the Cincinnati Revolt in 1977.

Since then it has turned itself into a conspiracy theory bunch of nut jobs that are partly responsible for thousands of gun murders in USA (my words not Smyth’s). Hopefully their current legal and financial problems see them disappear for good. Wishful thinking no doubt.

A very informative and balanced book by Smyth which now makes me want to find a great book on the 2nd Amendment and the gun obsession itself.

[Erika Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book solely to expand my knowledge about the NRA and I feel that it gave me a lot of history and background but I know that I absorb history better with repeated studying. This was my first step into NRA history and there were a lot of people that I was unfamiliar with so it was a great first look. I definitely feel that I would need to read at least one or two other NRA history books to be able to hold my own in a discussion.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

The NRA is either the savior of the US Constitution or the reason American children are dying in their schools. All or nothing. Founded after the Civil War by Union veterans to ensure that American soldiers had the marksmanship skills necessary for the next battle, this non-profit in no ways resembles the behemoth political power it is today. This is the history of the organization that likes to reinvent itself and ignore all that it was before.

Why I started this book: I'm not a fan of the NRA, it's political decisions and connections or what it stands for. I was interested in reading an unauthorized history to learn more.

Why I finished it: Smyth was far more balanced and fair than I wanted him to be. This isn't a "the NRA is amoral" book, but a factual outline of the actual history of the NRA. And it's unauthorized because it hasn't been politicized and air brushed for public consumption. Fascinating to realize that organization claiming to represent the beginning intentions of our nation's historical experiment with freedom is so quick to wipe out its own history. (And it makes more sense why they have embraced Trump. Both the NRA and Trump live in the moment, convinced that the past is something that they will never have to confront again. That it can be changed with each new pronouncement, what they are saying now is what they have always said... that and the Russian ties.) As a historian, like Smyth, I wonder what is locked away in the NRA archives that they are restricting from even NRA members accessing.
My final insight, not acknowledged by Smyth is that the NRA has won political victories because they were better organized than their opponents. But they have always wanted a straw man to point to, someone to fight against. By tying themselves so close to Trump, they have taken on Trump's opposition as their own. It will be interesting to see the long term consequences of this alliance. Trump is notoriously hard on his allies but the NRA is a powerful lobby group and have already changed Trump's tune before.

[Diogenes Grief · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our illustrious and demented President gave federal employees the day off, illustrating once again how “the separation of church and state” is a complete lie in the United States of Hypocrisy. So I’ll use this day to excoriate that hypocrisy, with Smyth’s topic as paragon to this fractured, and possibly irreparable, nation. Don’t worry though. VA ERs, ICUs, and COVID-screening teams are still manning the walls against the pandemic so many citizens still think is a farce.

OK, everybody knows who the NRA is in the abstract. Ages ago (back in April of 2019), Mike Spies wrote an investigative piece about the NRA for The New Yorker (https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-d...), where he found “in recent years, [the NRA] has run annual deficits of as much as forty million dollars. It is not unusual for nonprofits to ask prospective donors to help forestall disaster. What is unusual is the extent to which such warnings have become the central activity of the N.R.A. Even as the association has reduced spending on its avowed core mission—gun education, safety, and training—to less than ten per cent of its total budget, it has substantially increased its spending on messaging. The N.R.A. is now mainly a media company, promoting a life style built around loving guns and hating anyone who might take them away.”

What’s more, the highly respected publication has been hammering the journalistic nails into the NRA’s crucifix for quite some time, so here’s a couple more morsels for any student to chew on:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

As well, PBS’s Frontline did their typically outstanding journalism with an episode about the group in March 2020 titled “NRA Under Fire” (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/fi... so, I already had an understanding of the NRA’s history, but the “Cincinnati Revolt” of 1977 was new to me—the fulcrum event that pushed the once moralistic, veteran lead, and civic-minded organization down into the moronic echo-chamber of “defending the Second Amendment” in all their bastardized redneck arguments and deranged “originalist” interpretations. Another quasi-schism happened in ’94, where the organization doubled-down on its internecine betrayals; both events were portents of the septic soul of the NRA, one that was already embracing white nationalism militias, the Klan, and neo-Nazi gangs, all the while holding prayer sessions before upper-crust gatherings. I mean look at the trends in gun purchases. Thanks in large part to the media outlets they have historically frequented (think of Rush Limbaugh blowing a gasket every day on AM radio in the 80s, then on TV in the 90s), gun sales skyrocket every time a Dem is elected (even more so when a black Dem is elected), when urban blacks riot (sometimes for very legitimate reasons), anytime Red-baiting and xenophobia are shrieked by Rupert Murdock’s sock puppets (in which so many don’t have the grey matter to distinguish Soviet Communism from Venezuelan despotism from Scandinavian Democratic Socialism, but that’s the direct programming of their gullible fanatics), or when feces-in-the-fan events like 9/11, Ruby Ridge/Waco, and COVID-19 occur (let’s not forget the many paranoias around “Obama invading Texas” events either).

At best the organization had some 5 million members, a drop in the bucket of the 330+ million citizens, yet they have been an incredibly powerful political force for the NeoCons, with a highly proficient disinformation machine and robust political apparatus further fueled by Citizens United (not to mention many well-paid scholars to support them, such as David Kopel), and have been ironclad Trump supporters from the very beginning (2016), and whose members probably pissed their money away into his $200+ million Clown-car Coup, which will most likely be dumped into the tremendous legal fees his lawyers will rack up once Citizen Trump squats in courtrooms across the country. Like most all of the GOP, like the deplorable Trump White House, like Fox News and One America and NewsMax and Breitbart and InfoWars, like evangelicals and other hypocritical Christian groups, and of course like the lucrative “gun industry” itself—they just double-down on the propagandistic lies and horrendous disinformation ad infinitum. The death tolls speak for themselves, but despite the fraud and grift and Russian influencers, despite the hypocrisy of their patriotism and the monomania of their fetish for stroking firearms, we have yet to see how deep the hole goes. Their strength is on one hand the millions of mostly Caucasian sheep with no critical thinking skills who believe manhood is defined by gunplay and big trucks, who profess to be “Christian” and “patriotic” while in actuality are racist xenophobes and history-blind ignoramuses, and on the other hand the billionaires who want to reap the rewards of the NeoCon agenda with tax breaks, lax oversight for corporations and industries, and loose Wall Street rules, who keep all the above-listed organizations afloat.

The post-1977 NRA mirrors a crazed religious cult entrenched in their diseased ideas, with the leadership greed-driven and power-mad, drunk on their obsession, and many punk and metal bands see it clearly, from Machine Head to Body Count to Anti-Flag to Death by Stereo to NOFX to Rage Against the Machine, and precisely like the most-aptly titled Terminal Nation song “Church of the Gun” from 2019:

Holy Rifle, Gun of God,
Pray for the Victims,
Now and when the Next One f#cking Dies . . .

Baptized in Bullets,
In Gun We Trust,
Hand on the Bible,
Finger on the Trigger . . .

Holy Rifle, Gun of God,
Pray for the Victims, now and when . . .
NOW AND WHEN THE NEXT ONE DIES, AMEN!!!

There is no Heaven in the Church of the Gun!
There is no Heaven in the Church of the Gun!
Sh!t in one Hand, Pray in the Other, and Tell me which One Fills up Faster!!!

Smyth likens NRA leadership to the Soviet Politburo, but it’s all the same. A cult of personality. A cult of twisted ideologies. A cult of hollow truths and magical thinking. Thoughts and prayers will fix everything. A “good guy with a gun” will defeat evildoers every time. The Left wants to mimic Chinese collectivism. Killeen, Columbine, Aurora, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Charleston, Orlando, Las Vegas, El Paso, and countless more mass shootings (I can’t even remember them all; just use the Gun Violence Archive to see for yourself: https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/ , or Mother Jones’s Mass Shootings Database: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/... never-mind the tens of thousands of other deaths inflicted by guns every year in this nation (and never-mind those cold-blooded murders made by sociopathic police officers every year), oh yeah, and let’s never forget Oklahoma City (no guns there though, but plenty of slathering anti-gov fervor). And that’s just in my lifetime. For up-to-date data on gun issues, visit the nonprofit The Trace (https://www.thetrace.org/). (Mike Spies is a staff writer at The Trace too.) They also have a trove of articles specifically about the NRA here: https://www.thetrace.org/category/nat....

The NRA’s propaganda machine has solidified into the simple white-knuckled paranoia of the government talking away their tactical “sporting rifles” (and all the other hilarious euphemisms the gun industry and the NRA have concocted to worm through laws and court cases) and seeing mandatory registration, training, transparency, accountability, and psychological evaluations a direct path to totalitarianism and (Caucasian) genocide. Like kids cradling their favorite toys, gun nuts vociferously fear a left-leaning government and many are willing to kill in defense of a right-leaning one. They think the Left will become jack-booted fascists burning books and confiscating hunting rifles, while they support a GOP regime that models itself on brainwashing the white Christian Nationalist—King James Bible in one hand and an AK in the other—to be ready for the Second Civil War. They send anonymous death threats to those they don’t like, they rally around capital buildings like soldier-of-fortune cosplayers, and they stoke the fires of violence whenever able, but mostly online hiding behind their screens. Sure, there are plenty—probably a majority of gun-owners—who are peaceful, law-abiding, safety-conscious centrists just wanting to be left alone to shoot deer and ducks from a safe distance. Good for you. The issue isn’t about that, and the post-1977 history of the NRA shows how you’ve all been brainwashed by their manufactured creed.

I’m an Army 25th LID-trained Iraq War veteran; my father was a 1st ID Vietnam vet, so don’t even try to lecture me on “patriotism”. I’ve been proficient with sidearms, rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, and anti-tank rockets, and I would now like to see all civilian guns melted into proverbial plowshares. Every single one. Even the dumb muzzle-loaders. This will never happen, of course. History shows us this. What can we do with redneck militias radicalized by baseless conspiracies (whose ranks number in the few millions) having free range (https://www.npr.org/2020/12/15/946381...), and bought-out or impotent politicians unable to accomplish anything substantial or long-lasting, mass murder after mass murder after mass murder after mass murder?? The NRA may well be on the ropes financially and legally, but even it it withers away, there are plenty of other groups already filled with the like-minded, digging deeper and deeper into their own echo-chambers, Punisher skull patches, Homelander flag-capes, $2,000 AR-15s, and all.

Know your history, kids, and understand that the rest of the “developed world” has already handled this issue incredibly well. Use New Zealand as the most recent example of sanity and morality. #wecallbs on the Hypocrisy of it all, for what it’s worth. This book will help you grasp a better understanding and maybe nudge you a little harder towards how you vote.

Kathleen Belew has published a recent book that can add additional light to this topic, tying Vietnam vets to a reinvigorated anti-government, white nationalistic, and disgustingly Christian movement playing out in real-time today. Belew was interviewed on NPR’s Throughline (https://www.npr.org/2020/12/01/940825...). You could also read Mutual Radicalization: How Groups and Nations Drive Each Other to Extremes by F. M. Moghaddam (2018), It Came From Something Awful by Dale Beran (2019), Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein (2016), Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire by Kurt Andersen (2017), amongst so many others, to better understand the complexity of the powers at play, and the grand web of lies they’ve weaved for decades.

So, maybe the only recourse is to purchase your own high-powered rifle and matching sidearm (you don’t need an arsenal, just a lot of ammo and magazines, and some oil—ladies, they make designer weapons for you too), bury cases of ammunition in the backyard, and wait it out. Best case scenario, the feds will come for your guns. Worst case scenario is an every-family-for-themselves lawless dystopia. Even then at least you’ll have an easy out with the sidearm.

We’re no where close to being out of the woods yet, but FU, 2020, and good riddance.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frank Smyth's history of the NRA is a fascinating, instructive, well-researched account, meticulously documented and a credit to the author, a top-flight investigative journalist of several decades' standing. Smyth's reporting is fair-minded and even-keeled as he describes the NRA's history and evolution since its founding in 1871. In particular he charts its shift since the 1970s from an organization primarily concerned with marksmanship and conservation that was open to firearm regulation, to its current incarnation as a politically powerful opponent of any such regulation. An enlightening read.

(Disclosure: The author and his work are known to the reviewer since 1990.)

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book. It can be a bit of a slog at times but I read this along with other books and would only read for 20-30 minutes at a time. Glad I educated myself on the founding of the NRA and the politicizing of the NRA. My biggest takeaway is that the NRA has become a very dangerous organization and that Wayne LaPierre uses the rhetoric to fire up his base and gaslight them while he lines his pockets and the pockets of those close to him. It’s not unlike other Washington/LA power brokers like Harvey Weinstein and others. Glad I was reading this while the NY AG’a lawsuit came out. If nothing else, seems like it’s an incredible misuse of the 501C3 status.

[Novall · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW!
This is a bomb blast to shatter the facade of the present political-overreach of the NRA.

An unsurpassed insight into the evolution of the calculated propaganda and pronounced hypocrisy of the pseudo-conservative, pseudo-civil rights, pseudo-constitutional organization that pretends to defend the 2nd Amendment.

Thank you, Frank Smyth, for the impressive effort and invested research.

This book should be required reading for ALL high school students as part of the study of post-civil war US history and the nature of our republic and therefore the contextual nature of the US Constitution, i.e. the ideals of the Enlightenment.

Please reference the author's interview:
https://the1a.org/segments/an-unautho...
https://www.wglt.org/post/unauthorize...

[Margaret Eastham · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a well researched and factual history of the NRA. It was illuminating without being overtly political. I listened to the book and, although I’m generally not a fan of authors reading their own books, Frank Smyth did an excellent job of narrating

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

Smyth tries to establish his 2nd Amendment bona fides, but never quite measures up to my way of thinking. What organization doesn't exibit some elements of infighting when a few million members are involved.

[FMLDNR · Rating 5 out of 5]

very good book, a lot of good history.

[Scott Holstad · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have found it somewhat ironic, in a rather sick way, that the current version of the NRA (obtained in a coup of the old timers who WERE decent people and wanted to promote sportsmanship, etc back during the Nixon years), many of whom - particularly their leaders - I find among the most detestable of animals often referred to as “human” when instead they seem to be more like various Frankensteins created by Mengale in hell — this current rather small group of Neanderthals are so totally devoid of basic ethics and morals (while it seems most of them claim to be Christians - one of many excellent reasons to hate that group of hypocritical genocidal maniacs - that they actually express nothing but sending an overused phrase I massively hate (“sending our thoughts and prayers” — why don’t you put your money where your mouth is and pay for the damn funerals, rebuild schools and communities and pay for years of therapy who you fucking TAUNT will need? Cause you’re lying hypocrites mouthing empty, meaningless words. I have a t-shirt with a more “real” response: “FUCK YOUR THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS!”

The thing is, I’m not anti-gun and I started shooting with my father when I was 9, got my hunting license on my 12th birthday, decades long subscriber to Soldier Of Fortune, Guns and Ammo, etc, have had and do have a nice collection of basically every caliber by brands ranging from Glock to S&W, Taurus, Beretta, SCCY, H&K, Ruger, Sig Sauer, etc. Turned my wife into a shooting addict.

But you can enjoy shooting, target practice, hunting, etc and still have a fucking heart and know and care what “empathy” means, while apparently a requirement for admission to and remaining an active member requires losing what a just described so you can lose your humanity while laughing at teens who just saw your classmates blown away. You could have competed with the Nazis for cruelest and most insane fucks in world history.

Here’s the deal. The NRA wields tremendous political and social influence — but why??? I literally have no idea. These right wing freaks have been screaming about their wish for a US “civil war” for years now. And they’re motivated and heavily armed, as well as largely organized. But I think they fail to realize a few key facts. They are nobody! Their crooked organization is crumbling from the criminals at the top on down. Their membership has been plummeting because there actually are, or were, some decent members who apparently got sick of hearing Wayne say, Pity about all those massacred kids, but they just had more guns in the schools so the band teachers could defend the tuba players with well placed head shots. Yeah. Wayne, how often has that happened? Right, never you fucking traitor to humanity! Technically there HAVE been a couple of times when a quick thinking, cool and calm person used their firearm to save a situation from major disaster, but far more often, they find out that at a mass shooting, there often HAVE been legal carriers who did NOTHING to stop massacres, because they froze, were too chicken or whatever. The fact is there are quite a few liberal NRA-hating gun owners and a lot of people wearing shirts that say “Even leftists have guns.” The NRA is estimated to have a max of 10% of US gun owners with some estimates dropping down to 6%! That’s it. There are actually a LOT more non-NRA gun owners out there and recent studies have shown close to a third of gun owners despise the NRA. So two variables. 1) Ideally, you want your civil war? You may find you’re no longer the only ones, that there are a LOT more than you who are sick of your intimidation, bullying and threats to “exterminate” everyone not like them. The other side of the coin lies solely in their corner though. They can count on not many liberals taking up arms to defend themselves because they’d rather “dialogue.” And that’s the Achilles Heel for the libs. Too idealistic and stupid to recognize reality. The other side doesn’t respond to “ration” or “reason,” they don’t care about rules and fight dirty and you people will end getting shot like a fish in a barrel unless you put aside your moral objections, get a pragmatic backbone for once, and prepare to defend yourselves in numbers the Alt Right NRA can’t match. Book? Definitely recommended. As well as some others by people like Bray and others. It’s time a long term cancer be healed for the good of the country and any future that is still capable.

[Laurie · Rating 3 out of 5]

So this is a quick little book by someone who is not an anti gun activist. In fact the author is a gun owner and has been a member of the NRA. he actually was and eye witness to Some of the incidents he describes in the book. He takes us on a trip through history dating back to the post Civil War era to -bout 2020. The NRA was founded by two Union Army veterans in New York, concerned about the level of marksmanship in the population who would be called up to serve if need arose. They emphasized accuracy, safety, and sportsmanship. Their writings do not mention the second Amendment. Until the 1950s the organization was primarily a sporting and conservation group, encouraging responsible hunting and rarely getting involved in politics. Withe the red scare this started to
Change and members of leadership began focusing on the communist threat a
No becoming more adamant that the second amendment was sacrosanct. In the 80s the group had a power struggle and the more militant faction became dominant. Since then the NRA has grown more and more anti gun reform, and bizarrely effective at lobbying Congress and terrifying its members with false narratives about the left coming after its guns. There is next to no transparency in the group’s financial dealings, no acknowledgment of the history of the group that was concerned with conservation and environmental responsibility, but plenty of planned misinformation and deflection of concerns about the influence of the group on congress and its ties to the gun industry.

The book is 270 pages long and has at least 20 pages of notes in very fine print.

[T · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty straight-forward history of the NRA so it was very informative. I listened to the audio version and rewound a few times to make sure I caught salient details. The book is not long (about 300p if I recall) and just slightly dry in places. The author narrates and does a good job.
It was interesting to learn of the 1968 Cincinnati Revolt at the NRA annual meeting where a revolutionary hijacking of leadership took place via parliamentary procedure. This changed the organization to the 'protect the 2nd Amendment at all costs' organization that we know today. The book also does a good job of documenting the rise of Exec VP Wayne La Pierre (the position of the most power as the President is a voluntary role) and his PR prowess.
This book was published on the front end of the NRA's recent problems (such as the lawsuit by the state of NY) so this era is not fully addressed.

[Hugo Salas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una historia sin duda interesante que explica una de las más importantes peculiaridades de este país. Fundada como una organización que tenía el objetivo de educar a las masas sobre el uso correcto de las armas, hoy es otra que no permite ningún límite a su venta, portación o rastreo con la excusa de que cualquier límite llevaría a la tiranía.

Le daría 3.5 si pudiera. Me aburrió que se concentrara tanto en las historias personales de algunos personajes relevantes dentro de la organización.

[Kevin Carlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was really enjoying this book until near the end, the author makes a reference to the Aurora theater shooter being found mentally incompetent to stand trial. Considering I was one of the stenographers on the team that transcribed the trial of the Aurora theater shooter, this forced me to wonder how many other things in the book are factually inaccurate. Bummer. It was a good read.

Edited to note the author is fixing the error. I'm very impressed that he's taking the time!

[Tim Parks · Rating 1 out of 5]

Manipulative, deceptive, misleading. Just like most of the MSM. According to this author, all shootings are the fault of the NRA, people who support the NRA want kids to die, and those are the only choices.

[Barry Martin Vass · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. The National Rifle Association was formed in 1871, six years after the end of the Civil War, by two Union Army officers, George Wingate and William Church, who felt that marksmanship and practice had not been stressed enough leading up to the war. Put simply: "...soldiers who could not shoot straight were of little value." There had also been a recent war in Europe in which Prussia, a small nation, had defeated both France and Austria simply by virtue of having better weapons and much better marksmanship. So Wingate and Church set about the goal of developing better shooters, better ranges, and ultimately, better weapons. The NRA: The Unauthorized History takes you through the gangster years of the 1930's, through the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr., when increasing pressure would be put on the Association to agree to more gun control. A pivot point was reached in 1977 when the NRA turned away from being champions of the "hunter-conservationist" to its unyielding defense of the Second Amendment and the absolute right of Americans to keep and bear arms. Here's a sample of the writing: "Every other developed nation in the world has gun control based on the licensing of gun owners and registering of guns, to the degree that private gun ownership is permitted at all, and every one of these same nations has exponentially less gun violence and fewer police shootings than the United States does. Even more staggering, more Americans have died from gun violence since 1968 - the same year, ironically, that a compromise gun control law, later weakened, passed with NRA support - than have died in all the nation's wars since the Revolutionary War." Author Frank Smyth draws an interesting picture of the pressure that has grown on the Association with the botched raids on Ruby Ridge and Waco, the increasing number of mass shootings, and the absolute vehemence of the group to agree to any sort of gun control or licensing. This will definitely make you think.

[Tabby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had no idea who founded the NRA, so it was nice to learn about William Conant Church and George Wood Wingate and their hopes and plans for the organization, and how different it is today. I found it interesting to learn that in 1977, under Harlon Carter, the NRA changed their mission statement and stopped focusing on the promotion of accurate, efficient and safe use of small arms for pleasure and protection among citizens and to promote shooting skills among law enforcement agencies and the military and changed to “keep and bear arms”. It’s also interesting that at that same time the NRA ended a 51 year tradition of sharing annual financial reports with their members - meaning they began withholding financial information from their members. I enjoyed reading how the organization began as gun safety and proper shooting and moved “to cater to a more mainstream audience, with less emphasis on the technicalities of firearms and a more general focus on self-defense and recreational use of firearms.” Another interesting mention was that the associations President, David Keene, spoke to a group in Russia, and told them about “…the NRA’s shift from a group focused on marksmanship to one that concentrated on gun rights…”. Overall it was a really interesting book all about the NRA, including the pieces the organization does not want the public to know. I feel like NRA supporters and nonsupporters should read this book to learn how the organization started, the goals, how things changed and what it is today and why, and to see the hidden pieces the organization does not want the public to know - like how they deflect, deflect, deflect when it comes to school shootings or any mass shootings.

[Kristen · Rating 2 out of 5]

How can a book about such a secretive, controversial organization be so...boring? Maybe it was the word "unauthorized" in the title that got me - I was expecting to be gripped, and instead I slogged through it. I guess I was expecting more analysis, more leaning in to the controversies, more salacious stories (or maybe the stories just needed to be told more salaciously!).

My main takeaway was that the NRA didn't used to be this way. Originally created to offer gun owners (mostly hunters and ex-soldiers) training, tips, and to hold shooting competitions, the old NRA feels like an upstanding organization most anyone could get behind, even coming out in favor of gun control legislation in its early years. Smyth spends the second half of the book exploring how the NRA pivoted into what it is today. But there are so many characters it's hard to tell who will be dispatched in one or two paragraphs, and who you'll need to remember when they reappear in the narrative. Smyth doesn't help you much by providing any sort of deep background on the important ones. You don't feel you really get to know anyone, other than the original two founders.

This book is like a long road trip where you don't stop to get out and look at any interesting scenery - you can only glance at it as it passes by, because the car's still moving.

[Adam Schwartz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wrote my senior thesis on the impact the Black Panthers had on modern gun philosophy. While I was writing that thesis in spring 2020, this book came on my radar as a potential trove of sources to discuss how the NRA adopted its hardline stance. Unfortunately, it wasn’t released while I was writing.

Haven taken the time to read it now, I’m reminded of my research and the way in which the NRA (knowingly or not) has adopted the language and stance of the original Black Panthers. It’s largely a meme at this point about the fact that Reagan and the NRA supported stripping the Panthers of their right to bear arms, but it is important to know that that happened.

I think, towards the end, the book gets disorganized and jumps around in neither chronological, nor thematic, order. But, this is a good book for people wanting to understand that the NRA wasn’t always like this, and the dramatic changes that have taken place in the last 50 years since the ouster of sporting, environmental, or even hunting concerned members being in charge. The lobbyists and politicians are in charge, and America is worse for it.

[Samantha Orszulak · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with most non-fiction books, there were slow parts to this book that was hard to get through, however, I think this unbiased, historical rundown of the National Rifle Association (NRA) is both important and fascinating. Shockingly, the NRA wasn't always bad...they actually advocated for gun safety and gun control (they even helped craft some of the country's few gun control bills). Never would I have thought I actually agreed with what the NRA stood for.

HOWEVER, it's obvious their original mission was soon discarded, adopting a dangerous mentality that not only compromises our democracy and Constitution, but also our general safety. It's no surprise gun violence is extremely out-of-control and prevalent in the U.S. like nowhere else. This is a direct reaction to the changes made within the NRA in the late 1970s.

This book is mostly a historical read and doesn't go into how to make the United States a safer place for everyone. This is a good start if you want to understand the NRA a little more and how we, as a country, have gotten to this point.

[Sarah Bodaly · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m glad I didn’t really have high hopes for this book, for then they weren’t dashed. The book started out historical, but then it just got political and grumpy. And I almost dare say the author couldn’t decide if he liked the NRA or not. He also got his NRA membership just so he could “get inside” and use his membership to dig up more dirt. That was really nice of him. Plus…. Uber secret society, “I’ve got all the dirt,” and . . . yawn. This book was a chore to read. Okay, we get it that the NRA has changed since its inception. You have mentioned that fact 362 times (give or take a couple), but, hey… most organizations have changed over the passage of time, too. The first half of the book had some interesting history to pull out of the rivetingly dull, “unauthorized” narrative, but the second half was just a whole lot of discombobulated names. Unless you’re writing a term paper on something to do with weaponry and organizations that involve such devices, you’ll probably be better off reading something else.

[neekah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Smyth’s history was well researched and narrated to clearly reveal the Association’s troubling present. With each page, Smyth keeps his reader engaged with crafty comments and insights all while presenting detailed and information. A good match for anyone interested in the history of guns in the US.
Two main takeaways— follow the money; New histories can always be devised to justify an end. Remember this is an “unauthorized” version of their story-Smyth uses the information that is available to him. Guess this will do until another history of the Association is written just as soon as it opens up its archives and shares information about itself for all to have access.

[Mary Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This history of the NRA was certainly an eye opener, but it was somewhat tedious to read. Smyth is a member of the NRA and keeps an open mind when he write about its transformation from a organization devoted to marksmanship and competition to a group that after 1977 has infiltrated every level of government in its attempt to control gun law legislation. It will be interesting to see what the future brings for this group.

[Sandeep Sampang · Rating 4 out of 5]

An insightful read on the evolution of NRA to one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the USA. I was looking for a different genre to read and this worked out great. The dynamics between NRA, Gun Industry, and American politics is definitely something to learn about, on which one quote perfectly sums up:

"Companies in the firearms industry donated between $19.3 million and $60.2 million to the NRA over seven years from 2005 to April 2011."

[Edgar · Rating 4 out of 5]

The NRA was created so that its members could learn how to operate guns safely. The premise of this book is that the NRA has changed from this initial goal of keeping people safe by teaching responsible actions and has drifted to arming everyone without regard to safety - e.g. allowing people who are mentally or emotionally unfit to own and operate guns. The author is a journalist who is an NRA member himself. Recommend.

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kind of picked this up partly out of a curiosity, partly due to the horrible taste in my mouth gun nuts and 27 years of living in the US has given me. As can be expected, this book details the small bit of respectable history and next century of despicable fear-mongering and xenophobia in excellent detail. Smyth ties in the NRA’s history with the necessary American/World history of the time, and anyone interested in/hateful towards the NRA, or just interested in US history may enjoy this one.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well done book. Full of great insights and well researched information. Basically the NRA has lost its way and no longer supports reasonable regulation of guns. They used to be an association that supported hunters, sport shooting and the like. Now they only care about selling fear and making money.

[Mariah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was reading this already when we witnessed another round of mass shootings. I appreciate that the author is neutral & informative, which, unfortunately, also makes the book pretty dang boring. But it's a helpful overview of how the NRA got from what it began as to the powerful lobby it is now Decent read regardless your position on firearms.

[William Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

The current state of the NRA is deliberately unrepresentative of its historical foundations. Smyth does an understatedly fine job of exposing how the modern re-imagination of the NRA as a vehement firearm anti-regulating, powerful lobbyist stands on the shoulders of a modest, reasonable, and amiable foundation of sensibility that was the 1900s incarnation of the NRA.