Title: Lessons Unlearned: The Gun Lobby and the Siren Song of Anti-Government Rhetoric
Publication Date: April 2010
What does it say?
The Violence Policy Center has mapped connections between gun lobby organizations and right-wing, anti-government extremists, making the case that the gun lobby has transformed itself from a single issue group to a kind of hub for right-wing anti-government fundamentalists. Gun lobby organizations have cranked up the anti-government rhetoric since 2008 and, as in the early 1990s, risk validating the paranoid and violent fantasies of lone wolf extremists like Timothy McVeigh, who turn the fantasies into horrific realities.
The report traces the overlaps between the NRA's Election Volunteer Coordinators (EVCs) and organizers for the Tea Party or other links to the anti-government Patriot movement (see Section Four, p. 11). Specifically, they document connections with EVCs and extremist groups in the states of AZ, IL, MS, MT, NJ, OH, OK, TX, and WY.
How can I use it?
Email this report to friendly legislators to give them resources to properly frame gun lobby organizations’ true identities and activities. Familiarize yourself with the organizers in your state who are far more than “single issue” gun advocates and expose the larger agendas their aggressive gun ownership is designed to protect.
Citation
Sugarmann, Josh and Marty Langley, Lessons Unlearned: The Gun Lobby and the Siren Song of Anti-Government Rhetoric, Washington, DC: Violence Policy Center, April 2010