Gun crusaders : the NRA's culture war / Scott Melzer.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 271-304) and index.

Acknowledgments -- Preface -- Introduction -- Part 1: Defending Guns, Defending Masculinity -- 1: Frontier masculinity, America's "gun culture," and the NRA -- 2: Why a gun movement? -- Part 2: Talking Guns, Talking Cutlure War -- 3: Framing threats to gun rights -- 4: Under attack -- 5: Fighting the culture wars -- Part 3: Committing To THe NRA, Committing To The Right -- 6: Politics of commitment -- 7: Right and far-right moral politics -- 8: Ties that bind -- Epilogue: Tomorrow's NRA -- Appendix: Studying the NRA -- Notes -- Index -- About the author.

From the Publisher: Nothing conjures up images of the American frontier and a pick-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps view of freedom and independence quite like guns. 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.