A few years ago, during the last presidential election cycle, I got into a discussion with a very good friend of mine. He said if Mitt Romney were to get the Republican nomination, he would never vote for him because he was Mormon, and to him the Mormon Church is like a cult. I quickly replied, "You know, one of the greatest Americans ever is a mormon." He immediately queried back, "Who?!" His voice was a mixture of curiosity, disbelief, and shock. He was at a complete loss as to what great American could be a Mormon. "John Moses Browning." I told him. His immediate response was, "Yes, you are right, I hadn't thought of that."If you're a gun fanatic like myself, you would have to be living under a rock or fighting in Iraq (or fighting in Afghanistan or elsewhere -- thank you for protecting us) to not know that 2011 marks the 100th anniversary of the US military adopting John Moses Browning's masterpiece, the Government Model, better know by it's military designation, the M1911. To put this in perspective, when Browning designed this handgun the horse was still the primary mode of transportation for many, if not most Americans. He didn't have the luxury of the computer like firearm designers do today.
Browning designed handguns, shotguns and machine guns have fought in every war, battle and skirmish since WWI. The 1911 was just phased out of military service in 1985, but continues to see use in the military to this day. The M2 .50 cal machine gun still fights to this day, and if the troops had their way, it would fight another 100 years. If not for J.M. Browning, I'd venture to say we would have probably had to rely on the weaponry of foreign countries, and during times of world war, there wouldn't have been enough to go around to all the allied countries, which would have greatly impeded our fighting. Not to mention, most of the other weaponry was inferior to Browning designs.
Due to this, I believe that without the weapons designed by Browning, our military would have not been as well armed as it is/was, meaning wars would have turned out differently, and it's quite possible we would not be a free country (possibly German territory x2), and we would certainly not be the world power that we are.
This all leads me to the point: John Moses Browning deserves to be categorized as one of the greatest Americans ever. Perhaps not at the level of our founding fathers and Lincoln, but a step or two below. Certainly greater than Kennedy. I would most likely put him at the level of Theodore Roosevelt. But he will never get his due because he designed firearms, and academia is the ones who sit around and discuss such issues as "greatness," and to much of academia guns are bad.
Maybe this 100 year anniversary of the military adopting the 1911 will renew America's interest in John M. Browning. The admiration has always been there within the firearms community, but it should go beyond that. There should be a national monument to the great man, I believe.
