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171 6 The Politics of Commitment “There’s not a gun law that’s ever been written to promote gun safety,” Bob assured me. Bob is white, in his late forties, grew up in the South, attended a military school, and works in a family business involving precision diagnostics. He has been an NRA member for more than twenty years and is currently a consecutive five-year voting member. Bob has been to many NRA annual meetings and is active in the organization “financially and physically.” He donates money to the NRA, writes to legislators about gun rights issues, volunteers for the NRA’s political lobbying wing, participates in the NRA’s Eddie Eagle program (directed at gun safety practices for young children), and is an instructor for the NRA’s self-defense program. When I asked Bob why he is so active in the NRA, he responded without hesitation, “Because I believe in the Second Amendment to the Constitution.” Bob would like to see unlimited gun rights but knows that the public does not feel the same way. He is a political pragmatist and is committed to the NRA, because they are “more realistic” than other gun rights organizations: “We can’t have everything we want all of the time.” For example , he thinks that guns should be allowed in schools so that armed citizens can respond to campus shooters, but he concedes that this “good idea” is “bad publicly” and a “lost cause” that will not help the image of gun owners or the NRA. Bob’s main criticism of the NRA is that it is too focused on “image control” and “very heavy damage control” in response to negative media depictions of the NRA as ignorant gun lovers who are unsympathetic to victims of gun violence. NRA employees’ dossiers reveal a “very diverse, politically correct bunch,” he told me, adding that the organization is always looking for “college-bred” people, sometimes at the expense of applicants who are more committed to gun rights. He understands the NRA’s concerns about its image. “[It’s] because of the press. They’re at our jugular every day.” Overall, Bob is a highly committed Critical Mass NRA member. 172 The Politics of Commitment Fellow member Frank agrees with Bob that the media misrepresents gun rights supporters: “I think there’s an attitude [in the media] that the NRA is a bunch of radicals.” Unlike Bob, however, Frank is less invested in the NRA and gun rights, believing that the Second Amendment is “probably as important as any of them,” but he is not a single-issue, gun rights voter. Frank is white, a married father of three, and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area but lives in the South. He was in the U.S. Air Force for four years and has a bachelor’s degree in marketing, but he is now a busy retiree, including volunteering as a Reserve Deputy with his local sheriff’s department. He volunteers because, “I have an interest in good law enforcement and I [can] make a contribution.” Frank bought his first .22 rifle at the age of twelve, and has been an annual member of the NRA, on and off, for fifteen to twenty years. In 2002 he attended his first NRA annual meeting, because a friend invited him and he likes Reno. He has been to a couple of NRA fundraising dinners, but, overall, “the NRA [for me] there’s not a lot of participation.” Frank sees the NRA’s priorities as “the gun safety issue as well as the right to maintain your arms,” and he is relatively pleased with NRA leadership. Though he believes the leadership is doing well, they could do more to “[combat] a lot of the negative views held by so many people, [that] firearms are simply an instrument of death.” “When I grew up [in the 1950s and 1960s], there wasn’t as much negative sentiment about firearms as there is now,” Frank said, adding, “I used to ride my bicycle up to the hills in Oakland, and I’d carry my rifle with me on my bicycle so I could go target shooting at the target range.” Of course, you can’t do that today, he laments. Frank has become more concerned about the loss of gun rights, as our society’s views and laws have changed since his childhood. He worries about major political figures in the Democratic Party who want to...

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