Shall Not Be Infringed: How the NRA Used Religious Language to Transform the Meaning of the Second Amendment

Abstract

Understanding the deep meaning of the Second Amendment is critical to understanding the deeper meaning of guns in American culture. The centrality of the Second Amendment in American culture can be better understood through the intersection of American nationalism with Protestant Christianity. Understanding the transformation of the Second Amendment from an important Constitutional amendment to an article of faith in religious nationalism provides new insight about the meaning of guns for American identity. This paper argues that the NRA has capitalized on the religious nationalism that arose in the late 1970s alongside the Moral Majority and has increasingly used religious language to shape the discourse surrounding the Second Amendment. The use of religious rhetoric, such as references to evil, illustrates the merging of American civic religion with the New Christian Right’s rhetoric. Using issues of the American Rifleman to investigate the changing discourse since the mid-1970s, this paper demonstrates how the NRA increased its use of religious language to frame the political debate about gun rights through a religious nationalist lens.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Gun Ownership

“…Ultimately, the revealing of gun ownership and gun attitudes as connected to religion and supernatural evil is not unexpected given the purposive sample frame, but it is undertheorized in the literature. Importantly, it connects to the notion in other recent work that the National Rifle Association has played an active and exploitative role in generating this narrative (Dawson 2019). In fact, the Second Amendment has come to provide not just rationale for taking up arms, but also “making it an abdication of an individual's moral duty not to be armed and prepared to defend” against evil (Dawson 2019, 10).…”

“…Importantly, it connects to the notion in other recent work that the National Rifle Association has played an active and exploitative role in generating this narrative (Dawson 2019). In fact, the Second Amendment has come to provide not just rationale for taking up arms, but also “making it an abdication of an individual's moral duty not to be armed and prepared to defend” against evil (Dawson 2019, 10). Our work here confirms that fear of evil forces existing in the world not only justifies the ownership of guns, and the moral use of guns, but also the support of gun rights policy.…”

“…We identified three consistent themes associated across these dimensions that are interdependent and even reciprocal in the language of Christian duty: duty to protect, duty to be diligent, and duty to defend. Christian duty can take many forms and is derived from a plethora of theological sources (Dawson 2019). Duty as used here implies obligation, bound by religious practice, and the belief that actions should be guided by Christian or religious principles.…”

What is gun culture? Cultural variations and trends across the United States

“…During the NRA convention of 1977 in Cincinnati, a revolt started that led to the exclusion of the executive vice president Maxwell Rich, which opened the way for a new leadership centered on the Second Amendment. The NRA started focusing on the Second Amendment, using its historic core values of masculinity, self-reliance and reverence to God (Melzer, 2009;Waldman, 2014;Dawson, 2019). In 1981, they hired a communication firm, Ackerman McQueen, to help them with their messaging (Coffee, 2019).…”

“…The term "gun culture" was coined in 1970 by Hofstadter who viewed it as monolithic and described it as the Americans' unique belief in the "notion that the people's right to bear arms is the greatest protection of their individual rights and a firm safeguard of democracy" (Hofstadter, 1970). At the very time Hofstadter published his article, the National Rifle Association (NRA) had not yet become the political lobby we know today and still included many members open to firearm regulation (Dawson, 2019). Hofstadter's definition, limited to a single political view, failed to account for a range of various beliefs, behaviors, norms, and institutions.…”