By Tobias Roemer

The United States has experienced a sharp increase in school and mass shootings in recent years. Previous research has primarily focused on the effects of these events on support for gun regulation and electoral outcomes. This paper focuses on a heretofore understudied consequence of school shootings: counter-mobilization by the pro-gun political right. I provide causal estimates of the impact of school shootings on non-electoral political participation on the right in affected counties by examining donations to the NRA Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF). Using a staggered difference-in-differences setup, my event study indicates that school shootings lead to an approximately 30% increase in donations compared to the pre-treatment baseline, with elevated levels persisting for several years.

Preprint, 2023. 28p.

By Matthew J. Lacombe

The tumultuous year of 2020 may mark an important turning point in the political development of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and, as a result, the broader gun rights movement. This essay explores how the year’s events — and the role of guns and gun rights supporters in them — were in numerous ways a culmination of the NRA’s approach to politics over the course of several prior decades. This approach involves linking guns to a broader, right-wing populist worldview; mobilizing political action among gun rights supporters by portraying that worldview as deeply threatened by government and media elites; and building alliances with like-minded politicians, most notably Donald Trump. The essay then explores how the aftermath of the events of 2020 leaves the NRA in a difficult position. With Trump (the NRA’s close ally) out of office, some within the GOP looking to move on from his approach to politics following the failed January 6 insurrection, and Democrats more supportive of gun control than at any other point in recent history, the NRA may find itself somewhat politically alienated. Moreover, given its current organizational challenges and its position on the right wing of the GOP, the NRA may also struggle to recruit the many Americans who bought guns for the first time in 2020 — a group that could potentially diversify the gun owning community and renegotiate the sociopolitical meaning of guns in important ways. Only time will tell the NRA’s future, but what is clear now is that the tumultuous events of 2020 can be traced to the organization’s past and will surely impact both its future and the future of the gun debate.

New York: Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, 2011. 8p.

By Rukmani Bhatia

The National Rifle Association (NRA), an organization originally established in 1871 to train hunters and marksmen on gun use and safety, has transformed into one of the most effective political lobbies in modern American history. The group advocates for gun rights, resisting any encroachment on what it deems to be an inalienable right to unhindered, unregulated gun ownership. To advance its mission, the NRA deploys a disinformation campaign reliant on fear-mongering and the systematic discreditation of opposition voices in order to secure its position as a powerful lobbyist for the gun industry. The NRA has masterfully constructed a narrative based on gun rights propaganda, evoking images of a society devoid of rule of law and under constant threat of attack from an unidentified but ever-present enemy. Due to the insidious nature of this messaging approach, the NRA has successfully embedded its false narrative throughout much of the country. By deploying a carefully crafted campaign of misinformation, deception, and confusion, the NRA has both undermined legitimate arguments for common-sense gun law reform and made it substantially more difficult for its emotive, provocative propaganda to be countered with fact and reason. In this way, the NRA’s tactics are deceitful not only because they falsely allege to protect American freedoms but also because they mirror fundamentally un-American sources. The propaganda machine of the NRA is similar to that of authoritarian and undemocratic political regimes around the world that deploy disinformation campaigns to secure control over public discourse in their nations, enabling autocrats to maintain a vice grip over information and ensure their power is unchecked and unquestioned.

Washington, DC: Center for American Progress, 2019. 40p.