The Rifleman Report: Magnificent Milestones

The last major milestone that I remember marking our nation’s founding, the 1976 bicentennial, occurred when I was a high schooler, a year before I enlisted in a nearby military academy’s Junior ROTC program. That introduced me to parade drills, blank-firing field-combat simulations and blindfolded disassembly and reassembly exercises, all using government-issue M14 and AR-15 rifles—exhilarating extracurricular activities for a 15-year-old boy from the small town of Woodstock, Va.

Mere blocks down the road, and 200 years earlier, Lutheran pastor Peter Muhlenberg had finished reading from Ecclesiastes before reportedly throwing open his clerical robe to reveal a Continental Army colonel’s uniform and declaring, “And this is the time of war …” after which he raised up 300 men to form the 8th Virginia Regiment that would serve under the command of Gen. George Washington as our fledgling nation faced off against the mighty British military in its fight for independence.

I realize today, half a century after those formative experiences with military training, that poet Ralph Waldo Emerson was right to characterize the events of April 19, 1775, as “The Shot Heard Round The World” because they were destined to reverberate globally for generations. Of course, the nation’s “semiquincentennial” celebration does not technically begin until next year, as our official Declaration of Independence occurred on July 4, 1776. Still, the battles of Lexington and Concord mark the opening of the American Revolution, and they took place exactly 250 years ago this month, so we’ve chosen to celebrate that day on our cover with the illustration “Minute Man Massachusetts Militia 1775” by renowned artist Don Troiani, whose expertise in visually rendering Revolutionary War subject studies is well-established. There is more about him in our Opening Shot and more of his work in the story titled “The Shot Heard Round The World: The Arms & Events Of April 19, 1775” by author and researcher Joel Bohy. Both men have devoted countless hours to tracking down primary accounts and examining rare surviving firearms and artifacts to give us a clearer picture of what really happened during those fateful first engagements of the war.

Our commemoration of the birth of America also happens to coincide with NRA’s celebration of its 154th Annual Meetings & Exhibits. And, as we’ve seen expressed by our countrymen in earthshaking terms through the recent presidential election, the spirit of individual liberty in America appears to have been awakened anew. In fact, in “Freedom’s Nexus: New Guns & Gear 2025” we offer 25 cutting-edge examples of the tens of thousands of products among which Americans can choose from an industry that is thriving here in a way unparalleled anywhere in the world.

Many more such products—along with historical exhibits, games, special presentations and other activities—will be available for freedom-loving NRA members from all corners of the nation to handle and compare when they converge at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta on April 24-27. There they’ll find myriad firearms, optics, ammunition and accessories on display across acres of exhibit-hall space, along with company representatives willing to answer questions and listen to suggestions. Some of the emerging and accelerating trends in technology represented by the products covered in this year’s preview story include: “2011”-style pistols; compact sound suppressors; carbon-fiber barrels and furniture; and thermal optics including riflescopes, “clip-ons” and handhelds.

And while it’s true that these advancements serve to make shooting more efficient and more enjoyable for the millions of Americans who daily exercise their Second Amendment freedoms, they also stand as evidence of a culture born of the willingness to fight and the resiliency to prevail. Fortunately for the cause of freedom, it appears that most Americans still highly value their individual liberty, which is why America remains the greatest country the world has ever known—a place where the “Shot Heard Round The World” still resounds.