Are we allowed to win this time: new warrior culture in action and government betrayal in the American Rifleman 1975–2023

The emergence of New Warrior culture in the post-Vietnam era has largely been unexplored by sociology of culture. While recent research on the NRA has explored significant aspects of gun culture such as advertising, narratives, as well as ratings of gun empowerment etc., less work has investigated how the NRA facilitated changes not only in gun culture but in the “systems of social relations” between gun owners and the government but also in “systems of meaning” in how gun owners understand their guns. This paper argues that the NRA’s use of Native American warrior narratives, combined with other New Warrior narratives, maps onto Swidler’s unsettled time. Merging classic warrior narratives based in service to the nation alongside extensive use of Native American warriors, the NRA leveraged warrior narratives as a way of facilitating the transformation of warrior identity from one who defends the nation to one that is prepared to fight their government. In this way, the NRA was able to communicate antigovernment narratives without openly embracing the conspiratorial antigovernment ideals espoused by some factions of the militia movement by changing warrior cultural narratives from defending the nation to fighting against its government.

Jessica Dawson