Harlon Bronson Carter (August 10, 1913 – November 19, 1991) was an American advocate for
gun rights and a leader of the
National Rifle Association
The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) is a gun rights advocacy group based in the United States. Founded in 1871 to advance rifle marksmanship, the modern NRA has become a prominent Gun politics in the United States, gun rights ...
.
Carter's 1977 election as NRA Executive Vice President marked a turning point for the organization. During his tenure, from 1977 to 1985, he shifted the organization's focus from promoting marksmanship and sports shooting towards strident advocacy for less restrictive gun laws. Under Carter's leadership, the NRA became less compromising on gun rights issues. It also tripled its membership and gained considerable political influence.
When Carter was 17 years old he killed 15-year-old Ramón Casiano and was convicted of Casiano's murder, although this conviction was later overturned. This incident was not generally known during most of Carter's leadership of the NRA, but rose to greater prominence and infamy later.
Biography
Carter was born in
Granbury, Texas, and his family subsequently lived in
Laredo, Texas. On March 3, 1931, 17-year-old Carter shot and killed 15-year-old Ramón Casiano. Carter believed that Casiano had information about the theft of his family's car, and, carrying a shotgun, he pointed it at Casiano and demanded that he return to the Carter home to submit to questioning. When Casiano refused Carter fatally shot him. No evidence tying Casiano with the car incident was ever found. He was convicted of murder, but the conviction was overturned by the
Texas Court of Appeals, which found that the judge in the case had issued incorrect jury instructions regarding laws related to self-defense.
Carter graduated from the
University of Texas and from
Emory University School of Law. In 1936, Carter began a career with the
United States Border Patrol
The United States Border Patrol (USBP) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement agency under the United States' U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Customs and Border Protection and is responsible for securing ...
, where his father had also worked. Carter rose through the ranks and commanded the entire border patrol from 1950 through 1957 where he led
Operation Wetback. From 1961 to 1970, Carter directed the Southwestern region of the
Immigration and Naturalization Service
The United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was an agency of the U.S. Department of Labor from 1933 to 1940 and the U.S. Department of Justice from 1940 to 2003.
Referred to by some as former INS and by others as legacy INS, ...
. He retired from government service in 1970.
Carter first joined the National Board of the NRA in 1951, and served as the organization's president from 1965-1967. In 1975, Carter became director of the NRA's lobbying arm, the
Institute for Legislative Action. During the 1960s and 1970s, NRA leaders debated the organization's mission. Many of the organization's leaders believed that the NRA should focus on its traditional mission of promoting
marksmanship
A marksman is a person who is skilled in precision shooting using projectile weapons (in modern days most commonly an accurized scoped long gun such as designated marksman rifle or a sniper rifle) to shoot at high-value targets at longer-than- ...
and
shooting sports
Shooting sports is a group of competitive sport, competitive and recreational sporting activities involving proficiency tests of accuracy, precision and speed in shooting — the art of using ranged weapons, mainly small arms (firearms and airgun ...
. Carter, on the other hand, led a faction that wanted to see the NRA focus on advocating against gun control legislation.
The NRA leadership was ambivalent about the
Gun Control Act of 1968
The Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA or GCA68) is a U.S. federal law that regulates the firearms industry and firearms ownership. Due to constitutional limitations, the Act is primarily based on regulating interstate commerce in firearms by generally ...
, the first gun control legislation since the 1930s.
Franklin Orth, the group's Executive Vice President at the time of the act's passage, supported some parts of law, including limits on mail-order gun purchases and bans of
Saturday night specials, inexpensive, often low-quality handguns, while opposing other provisions as "unduly restrictive and unjustified in their application to law-abiding citizens". In contrast, Carter believed that no gun control legislation could be acceptable. He wrote to the NRA membership: "We can win it on a simple concept – No compromise. No gun legislation." Carter opposed background checks for gun purchasers, saying that the acquisition of guns by violent criminals and the mentally ill is the "price we pay for freedom".
In 1976, the NRA leadership fired seventy-four employees, most of them supporters of Carter. Carter resigned in protest. However, in 1977, at the NRA's annual meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio, Carter and other activists succeeded in changing the organization's bylaws and voting out much of the leadership. Carter replaced Maxwell Rich as Executive Vice President, responsible for the NRA's operations. In July of that year, he was featured prominently on the cover of ''
The American Rifleman'', the official magazine of the NRA. Carter remained in this position until 1985. Under Carter's leadership, the NRA's membership tripled to over three million. The organization's budget and political influence also increased.
In 1981, newspaper reporters learned that Carter had been convicted of murder related to the 1931 death of 15-year-old Ramón Casiano. Carter initially denied any knowledge of the incident but later acknowledged that he had been responsible for the shooting.
Carter died of lung cancer in 1991 at his home in
Green Valley, Arizona.
In popular culture
The album ''
American Band'' by the
Drive-By Truckers features a song, "Ramon Casiano", about the shooting of Casiano, and Carter's subsequent career.
Notes
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Carter, Harlan
1913 births
1991 deaths
People from Granbury, Texas
American gun rights activists
Presidents of the National Rifle Association
United States Border Patrol agents
University of Texas at Austin alumni
Emory University School of Law alumni
Activists from Texas
People from Green Valley, Arizona