In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

110 4 Under Attack “An armed resident is a citizen; an unarmed resident is a serf,” Quincy, an NRA lifetime member tells me, repeating one of many phrases widely used by gun rights proponents.1 “Tell that to a liberal, and they think it’s about taking over the country,” he adds and, without pause, corrects his hypothetical liberal critic by insisting that gun ownership is actually about “preventing government tyranny.” Quincy is a white, married father of two and is in his mid-forties. He is a college graduate, a lifelong Republican, ex-military, an NRA-certified instructor, and lives in an upper-middle-class community in the Southeast. Like most NRA members, his first memories of picking up a gun are tied to his dad. He reads the NRA’s political magazine, America’s First Freedom, “cover to cover” each month and describes it as “excellent.” Quincy joined the NRA for political reasons: “If the Democratic Party had their way, they’d ban guns tomorrow. What part of ‘shall not be infringed’ don’t people understand?” he asks me, both rhetorically and incredulously. He supports instant background checks on gun purchases to keep guns out of the wrong hands, and self-identifies as usually a single-issue voter for gun rights. Quincy is satisfied with the NRA’s leadership, pointing out the group’s large membership. The truth is, he tells me, “People against the Second Amendment do more for our membership than our leadership does.” Quincy believes that his fellow members perceive threats to gun rights just as he does and that Democrats pose the primary threat. He worries that the Democrats and the UN are working together to subjugate countries and their citizens to treaties that include gun control and confiscation . To help inform his voting decisions and keep his congressional representatives tuned into his concerns about gun rights, Quincy discusses gun issues with them. He “never misses a chance to vote,” and only votes Republican in national elections so that he can help prevent federal gun control legislation. In short, Quincy is a Gun Crusader. Under Attack 111 By framing threats to gun rights and individual rights and freedoms, the NRA stokes its members’ fears and motivates them to mobilize. The power of the NRA’s rhetoric is evident by their peak membership levels at a time when conservatives controlled all three branches of government and the threat of restrictive gun control was nonexistent. Perhaps even more impressive, the NRA exceeded four million members several years into the new millennium, despite an ongoing decline in the number of U.S. hunters and gun owners. Because of the reputation of the NRA’s lobbying wing and the media attention it receives, the true source of the NRA’s power—the millions of members and activists—has largely been overlooked. The NRA can spark its highly motivated Gun Crusaders to pressure politicians at key moments .2 When NRA lobbyists and leaders remind legislators to consider how NRA members might respond to gun-related proposals or even the politician’s next run for office, the threat is real. Like any organization with a large support base, the NRA’s members are not always in agreement, even concerning the issue that initially brought them together, guns. However, similar to the NRA leadership , members are overwhelmingly conservative, and so they support the organization not only because it opposes gun control but also because broader threats to their values and beliefs mesh with NRA rhetoric . Those I interviewed represent the more committed members, and, as I discuss in detail in chapters 6 and 7, the Reserve and Critical Mass members, nearly without exception, range from moderately to extremely conservative. Most Gun Crusaders perceive serious threats to gun rights. Further, they connect threats to gun rights to threats to broader freedoms and frontier masculinity. What makes them uniquely fascinating is that they believe gun rights are the backbone of all rights and freedoms. They think the same people who attack gun rights—gun control groups, liberals, and the media—are basically Communists, socialists, and fascists, whose agenda to confiscate guns is the prelude to an across-the-board culture war victory for the Left. Threats to Gun Rights, Freedom, and Frontier Masculinity Many NRA members are old enough to remember when gun control was not part of the national dialogue, and certainly not part of a culture war. Zach, in his seventies, observes, “We went through that era where the [3.145...

Share