Gunning for the Masses: How the NRA Has Shaped Its Supporters’ Behavior, Advanced Its Political Agenda, and Thwarted the Will of the Majority

Abstract

The National Rifle Association (NRA) is much more politically powerful than we might expect it to be. Despite both shockingly high rates of gun violence and deep, durable public support for stricter rules on gun ownership, the NRA regularly defeats or weakens the content of gun control legislation. Its influence is not well explained by the diverse existing literature on group policy influence, which focuses on what might be described as private channels of influence – influence gained through behind-the-scenes tactics such as lobbying and campaign support. In general, influence in these models is a product of the financial resources and/or organizational characteristics of groups. The NRA, with its mostly middle-class membership and independence from big business and wealthy elites, does not fit neatly into these explanations. Whereas the existing scholarship mostly focuses on financial resources and private channels, I argue that the NRA has used ideational resources to influence politics through mass channels. I contend that it has magnified and elaborated its political influence through the cultivation and dissemination of ideas, identities, and rhetorical frames, thereby structuring the environment in which policy is created, debated, and enacted. More specifically, I argue that the NRA’s power emerges from two distinct sources: (1) The creation of a “gun owner” social identity that increases the political salience and intensity of opinions held among gun owners and mobilizes individuals to engage in various forms of political participation; and (2) the linking of gun rights to other political issues, generating a broader political ideology that suggests a different set of positions that go together. These resources have enabled the NRA to become a core part of the Republican Party’s coalition. Together, I find that these approaches have enabled the NRA to shape the contours of the gun debate in ways that systematically advantage it while also building its influence along other, more conventional dimensions of power, such as elections, legislation, and agenda setting.