Amazing the Winchesters, International Harvesters, Harrington & Richardson, Bell & Howell's, Singer, were all built to the same specs in different factories during WWII, and started up again during Korea.
The CMP was founded in 1903. Back when America prided itself on young men knowing how to shoot, handle rifles, and be,.....OMG,...." Men Of Character ".
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.
Gee,... seems others had the same attitudes even earlier.
"And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the Press, or the rights of Conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms..."
Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer, 1798 - Sam Adams
"Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valour, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar."
Sir Winston Churchill
"There are no good guns. There are no bad guns. Any gun in the hands of a bad man is a bad thing. Any gun in the hands of a decent person is no threat to anybody -- except bad people."
Charlton Heston
"Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American."
Tench Coxe 2/20/1788
"Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom."
John F. Kennedy
"The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed -- where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once."
Justice Alex Kozinski, US 9th Circuit Court, 2003
"That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there."
George Orwell
etc,.. et al.... The CMP is only a handful of a very few Gov't programs that if utilized actually WORK.