During the 1950's and early 1960's the federal government disposed of much of its stock of surplus World War II small arms to NRA members--only one to a customer. They snapped up thousands of .45 pistols at $17 and M-1 carbines at $20, about a third of what the government paid for the guns. Since stocks of the weapons are now exhausted, the sales have ended.

For its part, the Army received a supply of well-trained marksmen. In 1965, the Arthur D. Little Co. found that previous marksmanship training--such as that given by NRA clubs--aided the rifle scores of Army draftees. The American Rifleman, the NRA's magazine, regularly publishes an "honor roll" of NRA members who receive medals in Vietnam. As of March, they had two Medals of Honor, eight silver stars, nine bronze stars, one Navy Cross and one Distinguished Flying Cross on the roll.

But the cozy relationship between the NRA and the government has grown strained in recent years, due to the NRA's opposition to most of President Johnson's proposals for tightening up the sale of guns.

An NRA pamphlet published in 1964--entitled "The Gun Law Problem"--sets out the organization's basic attitude toward gun laws: "The National Rifle Association does not advocate, propose, or suggest any restrictive gun legislation at any level of government."

The organization strays a bit from this principle by throwing very small bones to anti-gun sentiment when the public demands stricter gun laws. After the tumultuously violent '30's, the NRA supported the 1935 National Firearms Act, which levied a $200 tax on the possession of machine guns and other gangster weapons. It also gave less enthusiastic backing to the 1938 Federal Firearms Act, which prohibits the sale of firearms to criminals or fugitives from justice. The law also requires gun dealers to purchase a Federal license, and requires them to keep records of all gun sales, including the name of the buyer.

Neo-Capones

These are the only major Federal gun laws on the books. The NRA often points to them as examples of "responsible" gun legislation. If ineffectiveness is an index of responsibility, the NRA is right. The National Firearms Act did cut down the number of machine guns in circulation, but latter-day Al Capones have had little trouble finding substitutes.

But on January 29, 1968, the Supreme Court cut the ground from under the National Firearms Act. The Court ruled that the Fifth Amendment protected anyone who did not register a machine gun. (Only those who had not paid the $200 tax--and thus were illegally possessing the weapon--had to register it.)

The Federal Firearms Act is even more useless. It really keeps no one--even a criminal--from buying a gun, since there is no means for assuring that the name given by the buyer is correct. The license fee for dealers is a token $1 per year. Until a recent crackdown by the government, many gun fanciers used this portion of the act to declare themselves "dealers" and receive discounts from wholesale gun houses.

Shortly before the assassination of President Kennedy, the NRA helped Sen. Thomas J. Dodd (R-Conn.) draft another bit of gun legislation, which would have tightened up gun sales slightly. The bill would have required purchasers of mail order handguns to submit a notarized statement that they were over 18 and that their state allowed them to have a pistol.

Even at the time, not all gun owners were happy with the NRA's support of this bill. They argued that--no matter how minor its provisions--it would lead the way to more drastic legislation. After President Kennedy was shot, President Johnson and Senator Dodd pushed for a much tougher bill. The NRA withdrew its support.

The Administration-Dodd bill, first introduced in March 1965, would ban all interstate gun sales and forbid over-the-counter sales of pistols to out-of-state residents. The NRA moved to support a slightly tightened version of the original Dodd bill, now introduced by Sen. Roman H. Hruska (R-Neb.).

Then the NRA went to battle against the tough Administration bill with all the formidable resources at its command. The association has a $9 million yearly budget financed by membership fees and advertising in the American Rifleman. With this money the NRA Washington headquarters at 1600 Rhode Island Avenue sends a constant stream of news releases to congressmen and notices to gun owners--all designed to cow congressmen into killing gun laws.

According to most reports, the NRA runs a "clean" lobbying effort. Like many of the other "educational" organizations, it is too powerful to have to stoop to blatantly illegal means of influencing legislation. One notice in the American Rifleman opposing a proposed gun law will send a stream of thousands of protest letters to Capitol Hill from gun-owners who see their prized possessions as prey to an encroaching government.

Though they have the support of much of the media, anti-gun forces have not yet mobilized a comparable mass of public support. So Congress--especially representatives from the South and West, where guns abound--listens to the NRA. For three years, the Administration bill kicked around in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Only last week, after the assassination of The Rev. Martin Luther King, was a weakened version of the bill reported out. The weakened version--halfway between the NRA-supported bill and the Administration bill--would ban mail order sales of pistols, but would place no controls over the mail order sale of rifles.