Don’t tell Erick Erickson — the blogger who objected graphically to our front-page editorial, “The Gun Epidemic” — but guns had a place in the corporate culture of The New York Times long before his parents were born.

Guns, that is, for target practice.

The Times Rifle and Pistol Club, which existed from the 1920s through the 1940s, had members from around the company. The markswoman who would leave the greatest mark on American culture was probably Clotilde Embree, a noted illustrator of children’s books.

The existence of the club was brought to our attention by the writer Patrick Sauer. He was researching an article for The Trace, “New York Times Staffers Used to Hold Shootouts for Thanksgiving Turkeys,” and stopped by to pore through copies of The Little Times and Times Talk, two of our house organs, in order to piece together what he could of the club’s activities. (The turkeys, it should be noted quickly, were paper targets. We were not shooting live birds in our basement gun range on Times Square.)