DCM Transition to CMP History

[Discogodfather]

Recently I was trying to find information on the transformation of the DCM (Director, Civilian Marksmanship) program, which was administered as a Army program, to the private corporation we now know as the CMP (Civilian Marksmanship Program). There is actually very little written about it that has any good factual information.

My memory of the events is probably the same old story circulated among the gun community, which is that Bill Clinton forced them to shut down as a Federally administered and funded program. Clinton then forced the destruction of many M14's, which would have been next in line to be distributed from the program.

My question is, is this accurate? What actually happened? I did some quick research and found that this specific order ended the Army's role in the program:

"Title XVI of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1996 (Public Law 104-106, 10 February 1996)" (On page 13)

I remember the massive military cuts in those years, was this just a part of that? Did Clinton ever mention the DCM program specifically? Was there a specific plan and was the DCM targeted by the Clinton administration? What is the real story behind it?

Please no wikipedia quotes, we can all read that already, the article on the CMP only briefly mentions this situation.

[bohoki]

the m14s were all machine guns and were mostly pretty beat

i remember when it all changed back in the day around 93-96 you could get a garand for like 3-400 and a carbine for like 2-300 as a bunch of them came in from somewhere

[TRAP55]

I remember the battle and petitions over the M-14's, and 1911's. I also vaguely remember at least two Democrat Senators pushing hard for it, but don't remember who they were.
In Clinton's signing statement, there isn't a word about it, but the 4th paragraph is interesting.

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=52387

[OpenSightsOnly]

It's better to run the civilian marksmanship efforts if it is privitized - DCM's budget is not dependent on how much the Army will allocate.

It used to be that the you can only get one Garand from DCM. Nowadays, you can get more than one plus affordable ammo. All of the CMP sales is used to support/subsidize the National Matches, regional Games (like Western Games at Ben Avery), and the youth air rifle/marksmanship program.

I'm sure that Saving Private Ryan gave the CMP rifle sales a boost as well as US martial arms collectors.

Almost forgot - the CMP sold a forged parts kit for the M1A, reclaimed parts and a stock set from the crunched-M14s.

[Crunch130]

I believe a 60 Minutes episode on the subject back in about 1996 contributed to the distancing of the DCM as an Army program from the citizens of the US.

Back then, the advanced social thinkers thought we could win all future wars with airpower and smart weapons, with minimal "boots on the ground." "Civilian Marksmanship" became an outdated artifact of WWI thinking.

Then Afghanistan and Iraq happened.

Crunch

PS - Afghanistan and Iraq also saw a lot of M-14s brought out of stores, fitted with various combinations of match-grade barrels, McMillan stocks, scopes, bipods etc for use as squad-level designated marksman rifles due to greater effective range than the 5.56 cartridge.

[TRAP55]

The M-4 failures are just hitting the news, Colt screwed the pooch.
A good friend of mine, a Lt.Col. in the NightStalkers snagged two crates of unissued M-14's, for his last deployment. A bunch of us on Mauser Central scrounged up mounts, rings, and Bushnell scopes, and shipped them over to him. They proved to be invaluable as squad support weapons, and still are. They passed them on to the troops that rotated in, and they're still there.

[smle-man]

The Army was frantically demilling M14s in the 90s along with providing them to the Baltic countries plus Ethiopia, Israel, and others. Also large numbers were given to law enforcement agencies in this country. I remember at the time the Army stating that the time and money spent inventorying the obsolete M14s was better spent on other items. Their desire was to maintain a small amount for Navy requirements plus honor guards, EOD, and the like. At one time there was only about 24k serviceable M14s either in service or ready to issue condition. I think they managed to dredge up more but not a whole lot more. Imagine that over a million were made and that was all that was left!

One of the Baltic countries (perhaps Lithuania?) with their U.S. supplied M14s. One of the Baltic contingents went to Iraq with M14s but I believe they were traded out for M4s or M16s.

[smle-man]

To answer the question about the DCM to CMP, the democrats wanted to eliminate the DCM altogether as they felt that government subsidized marksmanship training and rifle sales was inappropriate. At one time there was a requirement that you had to be an NRA member to receive a DCM rifle but that was done away with before the DCM was converted. The Army wasn't crazy about supporting the DCM as it took resources that they didn't want to supply. The compromise was actually better for us: the CMP as a self supporting corporation with first dibs on all appropriate surplus arms and ammunition suitable for shooting competition. All FMS weapons that are returned plus firearms loaned by the government (VFW) accrue to the CMP. This also stopped the wholesale crushing of M1 rifles that was going on at the same time as the M14s. I encountered demilled M1 parts at a scrapyard once. They looked like new except for surface rust from sitting out in the weather. The government went to an enormous amount of effort to destroy each part.

[THBailey]

Here is some of the factual data:

"History

The Office of the Director of Civilian Marksmanship (DCM) was created by the U.S. Congress as part of the 1903 War Department Appropriations Act. The original purpose was to provide civilians an opportunity to learn and practice marksmanship skills so they would be skilled marksmen if later called on to serve in the U.S. military. Formation was precipitated by adoption of the M1903 Springfield rifle as the national service arm. Civilians experienced with popular contemporary lever-action rifles were unable to sustain an equivalent rate of fire from the unfamiliar bolt action M1903 rifle.

Over the years the emphasis of the program shifted to focus on youth development through marksmanship. From 1916 until 1996 the CMP was administered by the U.S. Army. Title XVI of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1996 (Public Law 104-106, 10 February 1996) created the Corporation for the Promotion of Rifle Practice & Firearms Safety (CPRPFS) to take over administration and promotion of the CMP.[2] The CPRPFS is a tax-exempt non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation chartered by the U.S. Congress, but is not an agency of the U.S. government (Title 36, United States Code, Section 40701 et seq.). Apart from a donation of surplus .22 and .30 caliber rifles in the Army's inventory to the CMP, the CMP receives no federal funding.

The National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice (NBPRP), an advisory board to the Secretary of the Army (SA), which was created in 1903, was disestablished by this law and replaced by the CPRPFS. The initial board was appointed by the SA and is responsible to develop all policies and procedures for the implementation of all aspects of the CMP."

[smle-man]

One other bit of info: President Theodore Roosevelt was a major force behind the formation of the ancestor of the DCM in 1903 as well as the national matches. Perhaps without his strong support the DCM and eventually the CMP would not have existed at all.