Social movement organizations (SMOs) often aim to influence society through policy change. However, policy change may actually be the result of public opinion, political opportunities, or other factors, thus creating a spurious relationship between SMO activity and policy outcomes. Interestingly, the power of the National Rifle Association (NRA) to influence policy is often assumed but seldom tested. Drawing on social movement and political-sociological theories of policy change, this study assesses NRA influence on state-level firearm policy outcomes using the case of concealed carry weapons (CCW) laws. Using event-history analyses, I find the NRA does influence CCW laws, but its effect is mediated by public opinion, political ideologies, competitive elections, and political opportunities. Issue-specific public opinion and political ideologies also interact with one another to influence CCW laws. These findings build upon a growing literature that illustrates how SMOs interact with political contexts to generate policy change.

Previous research has paid little attention to legal firearm demand, instead often focusing on illegal firearm demand. This study expands sociological research on firearms by theoretically identifying and empirically examining a new type of legal firearm demand, status anxiety demand, while also examining recreational and security firearm demand. We use unique background check data from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System to measure firearm demand and test our hypotheses using random effects pooled time-series generalized least squares (GLS) regressions. Findings indicate that our measures for recreational demand and status anxiety demand both affect overall firearm sales, but that actual crime risk and the number of police in a state do not. We find that both increases in National Rifle Association (NRA) membership and Democratic Party strength in the federal government increase firearm demand, suggesting that changes in legal firearm demand are associated with political factors and not just recreational or self-defense motivations.

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There is a popular belief that the use of military equipment can improve police efforts at social control. Recent protests and riots across the country, however, have piqued public concern about racial disparities in law enforcement and the acquisition and use of military equipment by police in the United States. By using data from the Department of Defense's 1033 Program, we conduct an agency‐level analysis to assess the validity of rational choice arguments and minority threat explanations of police participation in the 1033 Program. Our results reveal that higher violent crime rates and lower drug arrest rates increase law enforcement participation in the 1033 Program. Participation in the 1033 Program, however, is also a function of minority threat, with the functional form of minority threat varying across models predicting 1033 participation and the value of materiel acquired by successful departments. Specifically, a curvilinear relationship exists between the relative size of the Black population and involvement in the 1033 Program, and an exponential relationship between the relative size of the Black and Hispanic populations and the value of property departments receive annually from the 1033 Program.

Objective How can social movements increase their presence in the news? We argue that press releases can do so via social movement framing. Press releases from, and news coverage of, social movement organizations (SMOs) in the gun control debate serve as our case. Methods A qualitative framing analysis is conducted to identify frames in press releases from the National Rifle Association and the Brady Campaign. Logistic regressions assess the effect of frames in press releases on New York Times coverage of the gun control debate. Results We find that both organizations use systematic framing strategies in their press releases. Only the Brady Campaign has a significant association between specific frames in its press releases and coverage in the New York Times. Conclusions Press releases are viable tactics for SMOs, but biases in news media have implications for how effective press releases might be for an SMO.