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Armed Citizens and the Stories They Tell

The National Rifle Association's Achievement of Terror and Masculinity

Stanford University

Since 1926, the National Rifle Association's (NRA) flagship publication has without pause featured "The Armed Citizen," a column that reports instances in which law-abiding citizens have successfully defended their property, person, and/or family with firearms. These reports are brief (100 to 200 words) and have remained remarkably untouched over the past 80 years with regard to style, diction, and narrative structure. Their rhetorical effect, however, has not. In 1977, the year the NRA became a social movement, these narratives began to contribute to the production of a terror-filled, deeply masculine (and surprisingly biblical) NRA discourse that led (and continues to lead) to the mobilization of its members to defend the right to keep and bear arms in the face of extraordinary public opposition: to perpetuate what has come to be known as the "gun-control paradox."

Key Words: National Rifle Association • terror • narrative • rhetoric • American masculinities • David and Goliath • social movements • discourse

Men and Masculinities, Vol. 9, No. 4, 457-475 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1097184X05281390


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