How a Maine Businessman Made the AR-15 Into America’s Best-Selling Rifle
Neither a gun enthusiast nor a right-wing ideologue, Richard Dyke used political connections and lobster giveaways to build Bushmaster, the company that popularized assault-style rifles.
“He was somewhat a Donald Trump. In that it was always ‘I, I, I’ with him and not ‘we, we we,’” Kent said. “If we were in a meeting and someone disagreed with him, you better not pick up that rope because you were gone.”
In the late 1970s, Dyke called Kent with a proposition. “I was just at the bankruptcy court,” Dyke told his friend. “There’s an interesting gun company there. I don’t know the first thing about guns, but you do.”
Dyke wanted to buy the company and offered Kent a stake for a $25,000 investment. That was almost every penny Kent and his wife, Joan, possessed. “Dick has always been good to us,” Joan told him. “So let’s take a chance.”
Dyke also confided his plans to his younger brother, Bruce.
“You don’t even hunt,” Bruce recalled telling him.
“Well, this guy in Bangor has this little outfit,” Dyke replied. “I think it could really do something. He doesn’t have any idea how to get (the guns) out and sell them.”
Former Gun Company Executive Explains Roots of America’s Gun Violence Epidemic
The “little outfit” made a futuristic weapon, the Bushmaster Arm Pistol, named after a Central American viper. It was designed for Air Force pilots whose planes had been downed. The automatic version could rattle off 550 rounds a minute, its founder Mack Gwinn boasted to a local reporter. An early reviewer for Guns & Ammo noted, “for civilian use, it will provide knock-down power far exceeding many heavy pistol calibers,” and it was “light enough for a woman to handle.” On the flip side, the writer warned, “Its production, I believe, will create considerable controversy and certain uneasiness by (federal) Agents! Its deadly appearance is against it in the eyes of the man on the street.”
