Gun Crusaders
The NRA's Culture War

Scott Melzer (Author)

9780814764503

Paperback / softback, published 17 September 2012

336 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.454 kg

"Melzer brilliantly integrates deep personal observation with data and theory to construct a three-dimensional portrait of the modern gun rights movement. In a wonderfully written, engaging, and scrupulously fair narrative, Melzers book makes a major contribution to our understanding of this tumultuous social movement and also happens to be a really good read. It's fresh, clear-eyed, and fair. Anyone wanting to understand the gun movement must read this book." - Robert J. Spitzer,author of The Politics of Gun Control "Melzer takes us inside the NRA to reveal that more than gun controlmuch moreis at stake: a way of life and a definition of manhood that members feel is disintegrating in their hands... [This is] a book that is both balanced and brave, critical and yet compassionate to men who have so lost their way that their guns offer their last tenuous hold on their identity." - Michael Kimmel,author of Guyland "This book is well written, and raises interesting issues about the transformation of interest groups in a period of polarized politics." - Clyde Wilcox (Political Science Quarterly) "The author argues a very credible thesis: that the National Rifle Association (NRA) is more than a single-interest group defending the right to own and bear arms. The NRA should also be understood as a social movement organization dedicated broadly to preserving traditional, conservative values." (Choice)

Gun Crusaders is a fascinating inside look at how the four-million member National Rifle Association and its committed members come to see each and every gun control threat as a step down the path towards gun confiscation, and eventually socialism. Enlivened by a rich analysis of NRA materials, meetings, leader speeches, and unique in-depth interviews with NRA members, Gun Crusaders focuses on how the NRA constructs and perceives threats to gun rights as one more attack in a broad liberal cultural war. Scott Melzer shows that the NRA promotes a nostalgic vision of frontier masculinity, whereby gun rights defenders are seen as patriots and freedom fighters, defending not the freedom of religion, but the religion of individual rights and freedoms.