Washington DC: National Rifle Association of America, 1968 (entire year, Jan. - Dec.). Complete run of 12 issues (binder size: 315 x 230 mm), each profusely illustrated with photographs and preserved in original color-printed wrappers, stapled as issued, housed in original NRA-issued binder with working metal catches (SEE IMAGES): maroon cloth, upper cover embossed with depictions of rifles, American eagles, and the NRA logo, spine embossed with depiction of an early rifleman (upper joint splitting, some unobjectionable wear to contents, the binder and magazines leaning on outer bottom corners). Very good. Item #3978

"AMERICANA" AT ITS WORST: THIS IS THE MOST SICKENING THING WE HAVE EVER HANDLED.

The year 1968 marks a turningpoint in the National Rifle Association and the war against "gun control." Following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in April, and Robert Kennedy in June, then President Johnson exhorted congress to pass a gun control law that would stop "mail order murder." The measure, which was Title IV of the Safe Streets and Crime Control Bill, received stiff resistance from the NRA, which suddenly became opposed to any and all gun regulations. The NRA undertook a mass-mailing lobbying effort to undermine the legislation, and successfully eliminated much of the support for gun licensing and registration restrictions. Congress eventually enacted the first major piece of gun legislation since the New Deal, the Gun Control Act of 1968 in October, a watered-down version of the Johnson administration's anticrime and gun control proposal. The act prohibited the interstate shipment of pistols and revolvers to individuals, but it specifically exempted rifles and shotguns from any regulations. NB: Lee Harvey Oswald had purchased the rifle he used to assassinate JFK through a mail-order ad that appeared in "American Rifleman." Then, as now, gun control legislation became the NRA's best friend.

The present year of "American Rifleman" documents -- and truly contextualizes -- the NRA's development through its 1968 campaign. In response to congressional attempts to contol guns, we note with interest the NRA's arguments in unsigned editorials herein; for instance, the July 1968 issue alone features: "Can Three Assassins Kill a Civil Right?" (fear-mongering); "Non-Violence Begins at Home -- on the TV" (a more rational argument, sympathetic to certain aspects of the Gun Control Act then in developent); and "Congress Restricts Handgun Sales." Also in this issue is a 1/4 page (!) notice "NRA Marks Passing of Robert Kennedy," followed by a full-page (!) article: "Bomb Threats, Profanity and Pickets: Effort to Blame NRA for RFK Tragedy ends in sidewalk pounding." Incidentally, there was no mention of MLK's assassination in the 1968 "American Rifleman."

We confess that hitherto we have never actually read the "American Rifleman," vintage or otherwise, and were utterly shocked to see children being groomed and desensitized to instruments of pain and death; young "attractive" women objectified; "sports" killing commercialized and disseminated by mail-order; American patriotism hideously warped; and humanity "targeted." We are reminded by Simone de Beauvoir's penetrating "Must We Burn Sade?" in which is described a small man who seeks to wrest control and pummel Nature into submission by torture and murder, tormented by infinite Nature's inexorable supremacy, while attempting to resist the powers of the State, which he believes seeks to imprison all "lovers of freedom."

WRONG BUT HIGHLY SIGNIFICANT. MUST BE SEEN TO BE FULLY APPRECIATED.

Price: $500.00