Failure™ Magazine

Richard Gatling: Shooting Star

Richard Gatling and the invention of the Machine Gun.

Written by Jason Zasky   Filed under History, Science & Technology

Does Gatling still have an influence on armaments development today?
It’s hard to say. Today, there are guns that use the basic Gatling configuration but shoot thousands of rounds a minute. It’s similar to the Wright Brothers. We don’t ride those kinds of planes anymore, but the basic idea of how an airplane works, which is what the Wright Brothers contributed, is still there. And that’s true with Gatling’s innovation.

Why is Gatling—the man—largely forgotten today when he was so famous in his own time?
This is the core of my book. It’s a theory of mine—and I may be wrong—but I think Americans are uncomfortable with the idea of firearms and military might. We like the idea that America succeeds because of the force of our ideas, and we like the idea that we are spreading democracy throughout the world. We are, but very often we are doing it at the point of a gun. In the book I refer to it as a grubby, uncomfortable truth. There is this terrible ambivalence we have—and always have had—about military might. We are not a nation that likes to go to war. We only do it when we have to. But when we feel we have to we really want to win.

What kind of feedback have you received from gun enthusiasts?
Some of the gun historians I’ve talked to like the book and understand what I’m trying to do. Some of them wish the book was a little more about the gun. But I’m only interested in the gun insofar as it reflects American values in American history—looking at the cultural history of 19th century America through the prism of this gun that really changed the world.

I do wish we could broaden out our conversation about guns and firearms history and not make it all about arguments about the Second Amendment. To me it’s much more interesting to look at the role firearms have played and how they reflect our values and our sense of ourselves in the world and our sense of what it means to be a nation.

Is there any place one can go see a Gatling gun today?
Yes, a couple different places. There is one at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. There is one at West Point [at the United States Military Academy]. And there is one in Gatling’s hometown [Murfreesboro, North Carolina] at the William Rea Museum. There are also a few in museums out west and some in private collectors’ hands. But at the Smithsonian, West Point and Murfreesboro you can walk right up and touch one.

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