I have previously mentioned in passing the existence of a Master Narrative of Democracy Destroying Right-Wing Gun Culture that exists as a paradigm in the interdisciplinary academic field of gun studies (and as a key organizing idea in the wider culture). This broader narrative complements The Standard Model of Explaining the Irrationality of Defensive Gun Ownership. Maybe someday I will be able to merge these two components of the dominant approach to understanding guns in the United States into one Grand Theory.
This evolving post is going to be a repository for me to highlight scholarly and popular works that contribute to this Master Narrative. First, read a bit about scientific paradigms generally and then get to the specific works after the Thomas Kuhn book cover.
Hey, buddy, can you paradigm?
Generally, a paradigm can be understood as a school of scholarship in which members are in fundamental agreement about key theoretical presuppositions, concepts, empirical procedures, and exemplary studies. The concept of scientific paradigms was developed by philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn in his landmark 1970 book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
In fact, the level of consensus that Kuhn finds in scientific fields such as physics does not usually exist in sociology. In Kuhn’s terms, most social sciences are actually “pre-paradigmatic.” This makes the level of consensus in the interdisciplinary field of gun studies remarkable.
Following are examples of works that fit the Master Narrative. I will continually update this list as new examples are published.
Paradigmatic Exemplars of The Master Narrative
My first example is actually not by a scholar, but the book so purely reflects the Master Narrative that it provides a great starting point: Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America by Ryan Busse. (I have previously reviewed the book here.) Busse is the former Vice President of Sales for the gun manufacturer Kimber. He is mad and he doesn’t deny it. He also wants to atone for his sins and this book is part of that process.
Busse argues that the National Rifle Association and its economic arm, the gun industry, have played a “leading role” in politically radicalizing America (p. 57). He concludes, “The gun industry and the NRA have successfully transformed an entire country” (p. 303).
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Gun Culture 2.0 
The NRA has long served as the anti-gun activists’ Emmanuel Goldstein.
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Had to Google that reference
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Note here also the assumption of irrationality & gullibility of gun owners, who’ve been duped rather than arrived at a rational conclusion on their own. We encounter the same when the Left accuse opponents of just believing whatever they hear on ‘Faux News.’
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I don’t know if it made it in the final manuscript but I did use the term “cultural dopes” at one point to describe this phenomenon
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Orwell was prescient.
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I found Ryan’s book a good read but like Jenny’s Merchants of the Right (also a good read), I think both assert far too strongly that it is the NRA and gun companies/gun owners radicalizing America. Having watched this issue for decades, the two sides, left and right, seem to have a positive feedback effect on each other and react to each other’s assaults with greater fury. Both the left and right, for example, use the black AR symbol for their own purposes, either asserting unlimited gun rights or that gun owners need to be disarmed of everything invented after 1903. Whether red states with abortion prohibition or blue states with gun prohibition, the chasm widens.
I think the NRA did go goofy with its social media. I would have been far more rational than the NRA TV stuff. Where I think the left gets it wrong is in assessing extremism to the other side alone.
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Not entirely exaggerating with the “anything after 1903” snide comment. The draft Martin Heinrich (D, NM) bill would even ban sales of the WW II era M-1 Carbine (gas operated, external magazine) as well as all ARs and AKs and my previously safe Ruger Mini-14. It also might ban blowback pistols. No one reading it in its New Mexico Legislature version was quite sure. Now if you believe in gun rights, this is a shot across the bow analogous to the six week abortion bans in some states.
So sure, you get polarization. Duh.
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