The American government funded the country’s first gun companies. But as the country matured, manufacturers had to find a market beyond the government to stay afloat.
Carney Saupitty: And it made us the major player and the, what you would say, the most powerful tribe on the Southern Plains, because of the ability to have all your people on horseback and to be able to hunt and to be able to take care of yourself. John Bainbridge: They said, “charge!” — both in English and Spanish — and they threw a couple of vulgarities at 'em too.
John Bainbridge: They don't even have to drop their hands to stick a, let's say a shot pistol in a belt and pull out another one. They can put their hands out and continue to shoot with just the movement of the thumb and the forefinger, and they can do it accurately.John Bainbridge: They said that their white adversaries had a shot for every finger on the hand. That's something new to them.
Grace Tatter: This is the factory where the gun first entered the mass market.Alain Stephens: The armory is a large square building, topped with an impressive-looking blue dome. Alain Stephens: We rolled up with a couple of mics, and also a very handy book: Revolver, a biography of Colt by Jim Rasenberger.
Alain Stephens: Or marketing. And Colt was a master marketer. He didn’t just sell a gun, he sold the myth of what it meant to own one: Self-reliant. Tough. The good guy with a gun. And unapologetically… white.Alain Stephens: And another part of Colt’s mythmaking started with his own image. He’d talk himself up as a self-starter — rags-to-riches — when in fact, Colt was an original nepo baby.
Alain Stephens: He… did not succeed. Author John Bainbridge says that’s when Colt decided to rebrand himself. Alain Stephens: And his ideas just might be what Sam Colt needs to turn plucky invention into a household name. More after the break.Alain Stephens: Samuel Walker and the Texas Rangers had used Sam Colt’s revolver at the battle of Walker’s Creek.
Grace Tatter: Unlike Whitney, Colt actually does have the design and the technological know-how. He just needs everything else. So he turns to… Eli Whitney. Or rather, Eli Whitney’s son, who is now running his daddy’s armory. Colt gets him to manufacture the gun. Alain Stephens: And he’s doing all of this marketing at the dawn of mass media in the 1850s, a story told a century later by Hollywood:
Grace Tatter: Hollywood released eight films with gun in the title in 1950 alone. And that trend has continued.Alain Stephens: Movies featuring outlaws with guns, good guys with guns, shoot-outs in saloons, and of course villainous depictions of Native Americans.Alain Stephens: These stories — all about rugged individualism and a wide-open frontier — are some of America’s most significant cultural exports.
That’s Pamela End of Horn. She’s an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Sioux Tribe. In 1890, American soldiers entered a Lakota camp to disarm them. Some of the Lakota warriors fought back. The soldiers opened fire, killing close to 300 men, women, and children. Alain Stephens: Guns are used in about half of suicides among this population. She says one of the biggest defenses to despair is regaining a sense of identity that perhaps has been stripped away.
Alain Stephens: This episode dealt with a lot of heavy topics. For people in need, you can call the Suicide Prevention line — 988. If you’re an indigenous person and you’re in crisis, you can contact Indian Health Services by texting NATIVE or 741741. Again that’s NATIVE or 741741.Alain Stephens: The Gun Machine is a production of WBUR in partnership with The Trace. I’m your host, Alain Stephens. If you want more on this, or any of our other episodes, you should visit the TheTrace.