The Political Weaponization of Gun Owners

This chapter analyzes the editorials (1930–2008) from the National Rifle Association's (NRA) American Rifleman magazine, along with gun-related letters to the editor of four major newspapers covering that same period, to document how the NRA created a distinct social identity built around gun ownership, charting the NRA's assiduous, long-term efforts — through not just its membership communications but also its popular firearms programs — to cultivate such an identity and to connect it to politics. The chapter uses the American Rifleman as a measure of the organization's views and priorities and treat pro-gun letters to newspaper editors as a measure of the attitudes and views of NRA supporters. It also utilizes the letters from gun owners to measure their feelings about guns over time. The chapter demonstrates how the NRA has used this identity to mobilize its supporters into politics by portraying gun owners' ways of life as under threat from gun control proposals and imploring its members to take action in defense of it.