John F. Kennedy's M1 Garand Rifle Is Up For Auction September 2015 At Rock Island Auction Company

The War Department Appropriations Bill of 1903 established many things, but the one that begins our story today is its founding of the National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice. Teddy Roosevelt was in office at the time and his enthusiasm for the shooting sports, and this bill, also gave rise to the National Rifle and Pistol Trophy Matches. Needless to say that the government wanted its citizens proficient in firearms use, perhaps spurred on by the recently ended Spanish-American War (1899) and the numerous other conflicts in which America involved itself in the Caribbean, Pacific islands, and Central America (a.k.a. "The Banana Wars").

By 1905, Teddy has signed off on "Public Law 149,"which permitted the sale of surplus military rifles, ammo, and equipment, at cost, to qualified rifle clubs. This was followed by the National Defense Act in 1916. The NDA, an update of the Militia Act of 1903, expanded the National Guard and Army, basically prepared the United States for eventual war, and authorized the War Department to distribute guns and ammunition to the qualified rifle clubs. It also opened military ranges to civilians and even gave funds to keep all those ranges open. Many of the responsibilities for these arms and ranges were under the umbrella of the "Office of the Director of Civilian Marksmanship (later the CMP), which was in turn administered by the Army.

Back in 1959, the Director of Marksmanship for the CMP was Colonel John K. Lee Jr, a man who very likely would have been made aware that a young upstart senator from Massachusetts had been selected to receive an M1 Garand. That senator was John F. Kennedy.

That was Dave Marshall Williams, aka *Marsh*, whose brother was my former Yugo mechanic when I spent a bit of time around Cumberland County, NC in the mid-1970s. It was the short-stroke gas system, not the feed/magazine unit for which he was partially responsible, and there's a very heavily fictionalized account of those events in the film Carbine Williams in which Marsh was portrayed by Jimmy Stewart. Williams also had quite a bit to do with the *floating chamber* used in the .22 conversion unit for the M1911A1 pistol and allowed the less-powerful .22 cartridge to function the slide of the larger and heavier .45; the same idea was applied to the .30 caliber light machinegun, a real ammo and money saver, and which allowed practice with the guns on indoor ranges at local armories. The system also turned up in some Winchester and other commercial semiauto shotguns after WWII, and the Ruger Mini-14 gas system is derivative.

I also got to bend elbows with some of 'ol Marsh's neighbors and kin, who showed me the half-inch holes in the ceiling of one local watering spot where Marsh had unloaded a pair of .45 Colt Commanders upward one New Year's Eve. Edicts about ex-cons with firearms were either not then in force, or were simply disregarded thereabouts, as were many other edicts from the King in Washington.

The M1 you told me about recently is for sale.

I am very fond of Garands, and they work very well for me. The one I have is a good friend and companion, and though I wouldn't mind having a spare, I think the two of us make a pretty fair team.

You might find the same thing to be so if you find the right one, but I can't tell you if any particular one is the right one. Only you will know that.

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