Years ago, when I was still an assistant curator, I gave a vault tour to the Outdoor Channel’s Gun Stories production crew. When I opened one of the vault doors, they got incredibly excited to see a firearm about which I knew very little — a firearm that’s rare in the United States and one that has developed a cult following — the British EM-2 Rifle.
This selective-fire bullpup rifle went head to head during the NATO Trials (1950s) with the guns that would become the U.S. M14 and the FN FAL. While I’ve discussed the unique technological developments that stemmed from this time period in previous articles, especially in terms of experiments with actual space age materials and concepts, one thing I haven’t touched on was the impact of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
In 1949, NATO was established by
