Patrick charles is a former marine and now Senior Historian of the u. S. Air force, and now armed in of gun rights to concealed carry, thanks for being with us. Thank you, steve. Glad to be here. Let me begin with the origins of the nra, the National Rifle association. How did the Association Come about and why. Well it came about after the civil war where there was poor marksmanship so two officers decided to form the nra based out of new york with two purposes. One is to facilitate and build and grow long range rifle ranges and to assist the state National Guards in marksmanship. The nra initially, just so you know, was kind of a working to get appropriations from the government and they started off with one organization, they grew to 1700 by 1929. They are also are, just so you know, built on an english National Rifle association and they were predecessor in 1859 so this is the american version. The only thing that differentiated the two to start off with was this franchise like model that you could build a rifle club locally or nationwide and they were part of the rifle club and they would then compete in state, local and National Shooting matches. Would the early founders the nra recognize the Organization Today in 2020 . Oh, no the all. The organization was not at all intended to be political in any way. I think you could even say it is late as 19 mid 1960s that the head of the organization could not see what the nra has become today. The nra, one is became a Political Organization. Not focused on marksmanship and training the national guard. The second thing i would say is that in the 1950s and early 60s the nra officials repeatedly said they did not want to be a partisan organization. That is a disservice to the nra and the American People and today they are closely intertwined and bootstrapped to the republican party. And realize that state rights is one of the formations of our country but it is a patch work of gun laws back then and today. How does this influence or affect the role of the nra . Well, it depends on when youre talking about. Early on the federal government was not involved in gun laws whatsoever. Gun laws were at a state or local level. Primarily local. State laws would cover large swaths, maybe concealed carry, minors not shooting guns but the local laws governed all things that were minor to the town. That continued to be the standard rule of thumb until the 1930s when the federal government wanted to get involved with firearms laws and when they were passed and the nra argued that state governments should control firearms or making those decisions. So which state or states passed the first laws and when . Oh, that is a difficult question. If you look at gun laws it goes back to the colonies back in the 18th century. Or early 17th century there is a couple of gun laws on the books. But those laws were basically either about gunpowder storage, where or where you could not carry a gun, what kind of weapons you could or could not have. How far you could fire away from a settled population, like most laws said that you couldnt fire or shoot a rifle within a quarter mile of the town. So those were the early gun laws. Those evolved mostly into carry laws and then as around the mid to late 90th century things become the modern laws that we talk about, firearms dealers, minors, dangerous people, things of that nature that should not have guns, that is really the modern beginning of gun control as we know it. Which goes dprekt wli to your book, you could elaborate how it has evolved over the last 200 plus years. Yeah. The original write isnt what we know it today. If you look at the founding documents if you look at everything, all of it hints to the idea of the federalized militia debate which was the arguments between states rights and individuals, well the constitution and states, who is the power of the militia. The federal government and George Washington wanted more power to control them during war. When it came to the states, theyre like, no, we want full control. So the concern in the constitution when it came in 1787 and then ratified in 1789, there was too much control. And there are protections but the secondary amendment is a reflection of the that fear. And that is not to say the Second Amendment had a individual right component or was linked at all to an individual having a gun. The conception of liberty that the founders understood was that in order to understand liberty you needed to fight and train for that liberty and that is understanding in a well regulated militia. Now that does not mean the same as an armed citizenry it literally means well trained and they were talking about the most important two important aspects was training, and how they moved their legs. Because it is a economy of force with rifles back then. There wasnt good accuracy with the rifles so turning and maneuvering the forces in a way that could effectuate a economy of the force. In the 19th century we get the individual conception of the right to arms that we more or less talk about today. Those were really guided by state Supreme Court decisions and then every state Supreme Court was faced with this issue where people would challenge gun law or something would come up to court with a criminal law and slowly but surely virtually every not everyone but virtually every state court recognized some kind of individual right to arms, that right, however, was severely limited by the state police power which gives the state the power to legislative in health, safety and welfare and that includes preventing people from getting shot by bullets. So that continues to hold sway. That goes into the early 20th century. The nra really understands that kind of interpretation as well. And then in 19 i believe it is 1939 is the United States v miller which the Supreme Court first ways of detail. That he talked about it in passing in two or three state Supreme Court decisions in the 19th century but nothing in depth. The United States is different because they addressed more of the heart of the issue and its very cryptic but courts after the Supreme Court issued that decision all interpreted it as meaning that the Second Amendment protected a collective right, not an individual right. That is the status quo legally speaking, i could say politically and the average person in the street didnt think that was the case. But legally speaking until District Of Columbia bea heller recognized the Second Amendment protected the right to keep and bear arms distinct and connected to the militia and that rights extends to selfdefense. Just to be clear, during the 1920s and 30s is when we start the gun control legislation in this country. I think more modern as you know together, the categories that are being regulated in the 1920s and 30s are no different but you see modern types of laws and regulations and theyre becoming more comprehensive in that answers your question. And lets go back farther. And you said the genesis of the nra post civil war. How did they view the Second Amendment then versus how we view it today . Are there differences . Yeah. I think when the nra is first established in 1871 it is a hard find to see them talking about the Second Amendment. It is really at turn of the 20th century that they Start Talking about the Second Amendment and it is almost always in the context of what is called the 1911 sullivan law which was new york law, the first law to require someone to get a permit to purchase and own a handgun before that there were no such laws other than a brief chicago law, i believe chicago enacted their law in 1908 and it didnt stay on the books very long and that is very important because new york at that time was the epicenter of the new york, in terms of population, i think cities 50 to 100 and if you take them in that city at the time and you add them up, they still didnt equal new york city. That is how Central New York was at that time. And obviously they had a big fear. And remember that nra is an organizing charter out of new york. And that is where most of the members are and the headquarters is at. So that is when they Start Talking about the Second Amendment. More so in passing than death. Under the auspice of the weapons crossing border in the 19th century we have and then the mob violence and Gang Violence and how did that affect the debate in this country . There is an interesting thing about the mob of gang i think everybody in the United States agreed there was a problem. So no one disagreed there. The only disagreement was in terms of how do you solve that problem . There was a movement in the United States that more or less looked at the United States, that the government was passing too many laws to catch the criminals that were hurting lawabiding citizens and that extended to firearms. So when theyre debating that, while everybody agrees gangsters are a problem, including the nra, the nra is arguing that well maybe the gun laws are being financed by gangsters and they are the ones that want them because then we, the lawabiding citizen will not be armed and cant fight back. And conversely you have people supporting gun control, individuals more than a movement, but their argument is the reverse to that. They say well maybe it is the gangsters financing the sportsman and the nra are financing the laws to stop the laws from being passed so that way they could continue to carry guns and doing crime as usual. It is interesting that no one disagrees that gangsters are the epicenter of why the gun laws come to the foray but both sides are using them with propaganda with no factual basis to support it. When did the nra move to its origins to where we are today. What was the pivot point . Was it world war ii, was it post world war ii . I would say it is 1932. 1932 is when the nra backed legislation known as the uniform firearms act which was a model station legislation that was supposed to be enacted everywhere to make the laws uniform and in doing so that would protect sportsman if i was traveling interstate from indiana to ohio, if ohio had stricter laws and i was traveling in my car, i would be not be harmed by going into the state because the laws would be uniform. Their uniform firearms act was so popular the nra convinced the new York Assembly by overwhelming majority to enact the legislation. Not a super majority to override the veto but then the governor decides to veto the legislation. When governor roosevelt vetoed the legislation the nra ramped up efforts and put advertisements for recruitment that were targeted at then fighting firearms laws and they start putting in the margins of the american riflemen and the first three relate to fighting firearms legislation. So that is, i think, the genesis of where the nra becomes. But the nra for many decades after that, other than let me caution and say in the 1930s the attorney general of the United States knew who the nra was in fighting firearms legislation. They became very well aware of what the nra was doing and the general public was not. So the nra was able to continue to do this for decades until jfk gets assassinated that the america gets introduce toss the nra that we have come to know today that comes to fight firearms laws. How did a marine become a historian for the u. S. Air force . Well went to the marine corp and was stationed overseas. Was actually what we call Marine Security guard. Protected embassies, paris and shanghai and from then i got the International Affairs bug and went to George Washington and it is probably the most Political Organization in or Political University in the country. Got the law bug. Then one thing led to another to lead myself back to the air force history. But im very fortunate to be serving with them and ive been very lucky to have served with a lot of these men and women. And we mentioned your book at the top of the conversation xg the title is arced in america, history of gun rights from coloni colonial militia to concealed carry. If you could conceive one talking point, one takeaway from your book, what is it . Well i hope people take away is that the right to arms as we know it today is not the same as it was discussed 200 years ago, 100 years ago or even 50 years ago. It is evolved and changed up to the times. And i also hope the other takeaway is that the laws have changed at times to adapt to the environment, to gun violence, to changes in technology and what not. And that if you have whatever your side is, if youre progun control or in the middle somewhere, the big takeaway, to take away from the book is that you have a conversation about it. There are things in for anybodys perspective may take away and like but it is not just the perspective that you like but there is different perspectives to view as well. Patrick charles joining us in new york part of the gathering of the american historical association. We thank you for being with us. Thank you, steve. Tonight on American History tv beginning at 8 00 eastern, a look at why june is lgbtq pride month. Six days of protests began on june 28th, 1969 after a raid on a Greenwich Village gay club in new york city. It proved to be a key turning point in the gay rights movement. Historian mark stein editor of the stonewall riots a documentary history joined us to mark the 50th anniversary of the uprising. Watch American History tv tonight and over the weekend on cspan3. American history tv on cspan3 exploring the people and events that tell the american story every weekend. 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