Equivalencia de AFD Y AFN

With a history that spans almost 150 years, the NRA has become a part of America's culture. Did America's gun culture spawn the NRA or is the NRA the author of America's gun culture? Framing this important question as a dichotomy inheres to the dilemma defined by David Hackett Fischer as "the fallacy of the false dichotomous question" by posing a question in

77

Mary Christine Cagle, "A Case Study of the Political Struggle between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Rifle Association Over Policy Related to Firearms Violence" (PhD diss., Georgia State University, 2000), 214.

78

Cagle, passim.

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such a way that it demands a choice between two answers which are neither exclusive nor exhaustive.80 Fischer suggests that the historian's best solution is to "indicate the structural deficiencies in the question's framing and to revise the inquiry on that level by the introduction of a more refined and more open question, which can be flexibly adjusted as the analysis proceeds."81 Following Fischer's advice requires a close look at America's gun culture apart from the NRA, the role of the NRA in American culture and the manner in which the NRA accrued influence that was sufficient to author and maintain a nation-wide movement. Equally important to this dissertation is David Konig's suggestion that Fischer's "description aptly describes the current controversy over the historical meaning of the Second Amendment," as a cultural dilemma that has not disappeared with the divided Supreme Court ruling that reduced some, but not all of the component parts of the dichotomy.82

In 1970, Richard Hofstadter wrote that "(T)he United States is the only modern

industrial urban nation that persists in maintaining a gun culture."83 First expressed in an article

for American Heritage and subsequently in a book on violence in America, Hofstadter blamed

three aspects of frontier life for America's affinity for guns. First, with a nation that abounded in wild game, the better one shot, the better he and his family ate. Second, if frontier farmers

80

David Hackett Fischer, Historians’ Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), 11.

81 _{Fischer, 12.} 82

David Konig, “The Second Amendment: A Missing Transatlantic Context for the Historical Meaning of ‘The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms,’” Law and History Review 22, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 119. In the District of Columbia v. Heller, decided June 26, 2008, Scalia writes in majority opinion that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia. Dissenting opinions of Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer challenged Scalia on unlimited gun ownership, connection with the militia, and the rights of self-protection. The fact that the vote was 5-4 strongly suggests that the cultural scaffolding which can and does change the lens through which the Court views its cases remains unsettled. While this may appear to ignore the “originalist” position of strict interpretation of the Constitution, the sources referenced in Justice Scalia’s opinion go well beyond that document. His use of Joyce Malcolm’s arguments for individual rights rather than Lois Schwoerer’s opposing position in and of itself suggests an extra-Constitutional advocacy.

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were to protect their crops, guns were essential to "keep the wolf from the door." Third, there were the original residents who continued to resist, often violently, the encroachment of settlers.84 Lee Kennett and James LaVerne Anderson in their book, The Gun in America, agreed with Hofstadter's use of the American frontier as justification for Americans and their passion for guns. They accentuated their agreement with a quote from the prophet Nehemiah; "(T)hey which builded (sic) on the wall, and they that bare burdens with those that laded, everyone with one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the other hand held a weapon."85 These authors, as well as the prominent historian Fredrick Jackson Turner who wrote that "the farmers met Indians armed with guns...yet, through its sale of guns, gave to the Indian

increased power of resistance to the farming frontier" had little difficulty finding a place for the gun in the American frontier.86

All three gun ownership justifications that Hofstadter and others have embraced for pioneers on the frontier are wanting in twenty-first-century America. Therefore, it is easy to see why William Tonso argued, in his sociological dissertation, that according to Hofstadter "an armed citizenry makes no sense; it is out of place in the modern world -- an anachronism, a cultural lag."87 Tonso used the term cultural lag throughout his work to demonstrate the failure of American culture to adapt to the modern environment regarding gun ownership. Tonso argued that firearms "are tools developed by men to enable them to cope with objective conditions as these conditions are socially defined and subjectively experienced." He further

84 _{Ibid., 7. See also Richard Hofstadter, American Violence: A Documentary History (New York: Knopf, 1970).} 85

Kennett and Anderson, 34. Kennett is quoting the Old Testament Book of Nehemiah 4:17.

86

Frederick Jackson Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," a report of the American Historical Association,in the Fifth Year Book of the National Herbart Society (University of Chicago, 1839), 204.

87

William R. Tonso, Gun and Society: The Social and Existential Roots of the American Attachment to Firearms

expanded his thesis to suggest that Americans have become attached to guns for symbolic and recreational purposes. This in turn, Tonso argued, has expanded the gun's significance well beyond the original intent of society. This expansion has ensured that the interest in guns survives any diminution of their practical function.88 While Tonso clearly stated his

disagreement with the way in which Hofstadter had reached the conclusion that American federalism's demise had led to gun control failure, he is in full agreement that the issue was driven by cultural norms, and it was not likely to change in the near future. Tonso's conclusions add cultural norms to the political status quo that Goss has suggested is so difficult to change in a federal system. Established as a component of the "web of significance" that we recognize as American culture, the NRA has secured a well-protected position for itself.89

Historians, constitutional scholars, and political and social scientists all have a place in deliberations over gun control. The paramount question which they have failed to answer, however, is how the NRA has come to wield so much power. The ubiquitous bumper stickers that extol the virtues of gun ownership represent individual beliefs and personal impulsive desires to identify with those beliefs. As Robert Shalhope noted in his discussion of the origins of the Second Amendment, "(I)t is the National Rifle Association (NRA), however, that

transforms this popular impulse into one of the most powerful and active lobbies in Washington.90 Finding and defining the source of that power is the objective of this

dissertation in order to better understand the way in which state and federal bureaucracies interact with special interest groups. It will provide a new perspective on the gun control

88

Tonso, Gun and Society, 39.

89

The reference to a "web of significance" refers to Max Weber's suggestion that "man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun."

90

Robert E. Shalhope, “The Ideological Origins of the Second Amendment,” The Journal of American History 69, no. 3 (December 1982), 599.

paradox in the U.S. that over 70% of Americans support greater gun control yet the federal legislature and judiciary remain at odds with this position. In her study of the conflict between the CDC and the NRA, Christine Cagle found that "another aspect of the NRA's reputation for power is its aggressive lobbying presence in all 50 state capitals, and a consistent ability to effectively mobilize its large membership."91 Though she made no reference to his work, Don Cupps also concluded that "(I)n political terms, the real strength of the NRA lies in the

effectiveness of its state and local organization. Although the national office in Washington is efficient, well organized, and financially independent, it is the local apparatus -- organized in 52 State Rifle and Pistol Associations and more than 12,000 affiliated gun and hunting clubs -- that provides much of the information which the American Rifleman brings together for members each month."92

As a nationwide, grassroots organization with a presence in the nation’s capital, the NRA is recognized by political scientists as a "federated organization." "In federated organizations an individual member's greatest loyalty is likely to rest with the constituent unit to which he belongs, since it is the state or local unit that has the greatest access to, and contact with, the rank-and-file membership. This can be especially damaging to the power of the national organization if the constituent units antedate the federated body."93 The NRA's original

founding is rightfully dated to 1871, but the organization was not successful until the twentieth century, coincident with the creation of the National Guard, that served as a surrogate

organization for the NRA at the state and local levels. "An excellent example of the way in

91 _{Cagle, 196.}

92

Cupps, "Bullets, Ballots, and Politics," 101.

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which federated interest groups concentrate their efforts on Congress can be seen in the political activities of the National Guard."94 As noted by political scientist Don Cupps, "a highly important and desirable tactic used by groups that operate in hostile environment, is the forging of 'symbiotic' relationships with other groups that possess well established points of access to governmental power."95 By marshalling the support of the National Guard and its lobbying arm, the National Guard Association (NGA), the NRA was able to exert exceptional influence during the legislative debates of the 1930s and beyond. Quoting from Martha Derthick's The Politics of the National Guard, Cupps pointed out that "(T)he chairman of the NGA executive committee was a political general with a vast chain of command" that

empowered him to reach into every state and territory that supported a National Guard unit, thus providing constituent pressure on members of Congress.96 Derthick's interest in

federalism drew her to study the National Guard as an interest group without concern for marksmanship or the NRA. However, her identification of the Guard's "several distinctive advantages" is equally applicable to the NRA.97