---
title: Gun rights and gun control:persuasion on both sides of the U.S. gun debate
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/gun-control-and-gun-rights/
description: since the 1970s both the gun-rights and the gun-control movements have argued mostly in the open, under their own names, and both have also used several…
section: Case studies
---

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[Case studies](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/)

# Gun rights and gun control:persuasion on both sides of the U.S. gun debate

At a glance

Since the 1970s both the gun-rights and the gun-control movements have argued mostly in the open, under their own names, and both have also used several of the same devices: loaded labels, chosen denominators…

- **When:** 1977
- **Actor:** Gun-rights groups…
- **Target:** U.S. voters, members and donors, legislators, the press
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Confidence:** **documented** Primary documents, court records, official disclosures
- **Techniques:** [Semantic hijacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/semantic-hijack/) [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/) [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/) [Glittering generalities](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/glittering-generalities/) [Identity fusion](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/identity-fusion/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/)

Full details

- **Actor:** Gun-rights groups (National Rifle Association, Second Amendment Foundation, Virginia Citizens Defense League) and gun-control groups (Handgun Control Inc./Brady, Violence Policy Center, Moms Demand Action, Everytown for Gun Safety, March for Our Lives)

On this page

- [What happened](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/gun-control-and-gun-rights/#what-happened)
- [How it works](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/gun-control-and-gun-rights/#how-it-works)
- [Then and now](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/gun-control-and-gun-rights/#then-and-now)
- [Positions on the record](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/gun-control-and-gun-rights/#positions-on-the-record)
- [Same-method test](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/gun-control-and-gun-rights/#same-method-test)
- [How to spot it](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/gun-control-and-gun-rights/#how-to-spot-it)
- [Images](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/gun-control-and-gun-rights/#images)
- [Sources](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/gun-control-and-gun-rights/#sources)

On this page

**Content note:** quotes a 1995 fundraising letter comparing federal agents to Nazi storm troopers, and statements made after school shootings in which children were killed.

**In one line:** since the 1970s both the gun-rights and the gun-control movements have argued mostly in the open, under their own names, and both have also used several of the same devices: loaded labels, chosen denominators, staged fear and virtue words.

## What happened

- **May 1977, Cincinnati.** At the NRA's annual meeting a members' faction led by Harlon Carter votes out the leadership. The NRA's own *American Rifleman* calls the meeting the "birthplace of the modern NRA". Carter is reported as saying: "Beginning in this place and at this hour, this period in NRA history is finished." The association's focus moves from shooting sports toward political advocacy against gun restrictions.
- **1975 to 1977.** Both sides print fundraising posters. The Committee for the Study of Handgun Misuse runs "We need handguns like we need a hole in the head". The Second Amendment Foundation runs "We asked four leading crooks for their opinion on gun control" (both below).
- **1988.** Josh Sugarmann of the Violence Policy Center writes in *Assault Weapons and Accessories in America*: "The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons."
- **13 April 1995.** An NRA fundraising letter signed by Wayne LaPierre, invoking the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff and the 1993 Waco siege, calls federal agents "jack-booted government thugs" and says: "Not too long ago, it was unthinkable for federal agents wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms to attack law-abiding citizens." In May, former President George H. W. Bush makes public his resignation from the NRA: "Your broadside against federal agents deeply offends my own sense of decency and honor." LaPierre then says: "If anyone thought the intention was to paint all federal law-enforcement officials with the same broad brush, I'm sorry, and I apologize."
- **20 May 2000, Charlotte.** NRA president Charlton Heston lifts an old flintlock rifle: "I want to say those fighting words for everyone within the sound of my voice to hear and to heed, and especially for you, Mr. Gore: 'From my cold, dead hands!'"
- **Dec. 2000 to 2001.** Handgun Control Inc. and its sister center are renamed the Brady Campaign and Brady Center "to Prevent Gun Violence".
- **Dec. 2012.** After Sandy Hook, Shannon Watts starts One Million Moms for Gun Control, soon renamed Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. On 21 December LaPierre says: "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," and that gun-free school zones "tell every insane killer in America that schools are the safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk."
- **April 2014.** Moms Demand Action and Mayors Against Illegal Guns merge as Everytown for Gun Safety. Michael Bloomberg pledges $50 million.
- **2017.** An NRA video has Dana Loesch saying "They use their media to assassinate real news. They use their schools to teach children that their President is another Hitler," ending: "fight this violence of lies with the clenched fist of truth." The NRA defends the ad.
- **Feb. 2018.** After Parkland, Everytown's count of "18 school shootings" in 2018 spreads widely; *The Washington Post* calls it "flat wrong"; Everytown says: "Every time gunfire breaks out on school grounds, it can shatter a child's sense that they are safe in their school and in their community." **24 March:** March for Our Lives draws hundreds of thousands to Washington (ABC News); Emma González stands silent for 6 minutes 20 seconds. Two days earlier NRATV host Colion Noir had told Parkland students: "your classmates would still be alive and no one would know your names."
- **June 2019.** The NRA stops producing NRATV.
- **20 January 2020, Richmond.** About 22,000 gun-rights supporters attend the Virginia Citizens Defense League's Lobby Day; it ends with no arrests.

## How it works

- [Semantic hijacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/semantic-hijack/): Sugarmann's 1988 paper says in its own words that public "confusion" between automatic and semi-automatic guns helps the case for restrictions: the technical line between the two is the thing the word blurs. The NRA's journal *America's 1st Freedom* argues that "gun safety" and "gun violence prevention" relabel "gun control" the same way. The renamings are documented; whether they stretch the words is the argument between the sides. No gun-rights document of the Sugarmann kind was found for this page.
- [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/): the 1995 letter says agents may "harass, intimidate, even murder law-abiding citizens", pointing to Ruby Ridge, where a U.S. Marshal and an FBI sniper's gunfire killed Weaver's 14-year-old son and wife, and Waco, where 76 Branch Davidians died in a 1993 fire after an FBI standoff. Those events were real; the letter's claim was that they showed a pattern reaching "law-abiding citizens" generally, which Bush and the NRA's own later apology rejected. LaPierre's 2012 statement pairs "every insane killer" with one remedy, armed security in every school. The 1976 poster puts a bullet hole beside a woman's face and repeats "nothing is done".
- [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/): the two 1970s posters choose opposite denominators. One turns the share of murders among acquaintances into each owner's odds; the other divides murders by every handgun in the country. Everytown's 2018 count used a definition that took in any discharge on school grounds, including a suicide outside a school closed for months, which it then removed. Some gun-rights advocates object that "gun deaths" totals include suicides (54 percent in 2021) when the totals are used to argue for measures not aimed at suicide (The Trace).
- [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/): "jack-booted government thugs" is a label placed on a whole class of officers, generalized from two named events to "if you have a badge". Bush called it "a vicious slander on good people", and the NRA apologized. The gun-control example found for this page is narrower: an Everytown release headline calls the 2017 NRA video a "Shameful, Race-Baiting Ad", a label on one item the reader can watch, where the 1995 label covered a whole class of officers.
- [Glittering generalities](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/glittering-generalities/): "freedom" and "law-abiding citizens" on one side; "gun sense", "common-sense gun laws" and "safety" on the other. Each names a virtue its opponents also claim, in place of a specific measure.
- [Identity fusion](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/identity-fusion/): the Loesch video assigns the media, the schools and entertainers to "they", so contrary reporting arrives pre-labelled as the other side's "lies". Political scientist Matthew Lacombe traces how the NRA built a gun-owner identity around being "law-abiding citizens". March for Our Lives' statement that "There cannot be two sides" frames its goal as beyond debate; it does not tell supporters to distrust critics as a group, so it is not tagged.
- [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/): Heston's Revolutionary-era rifle, and the colonial dress and Gadsden flags at Lobby Day, borrow the founding era for a present-day policy position. No equivalent device was documented for the gun-control side on this page.

**Plain open persuasion.** Most of this record is ordinary, attributed advocacy: members' votes, lobbying, candidate questionnaires (Everytown's "Gun Sense Candidate" distinction says it is "not an endorsement"), petitions, fundraising under the group's name, and lawful mass rallies. González's silence and the names read before it are a commemoration, not a technique in the taxonomy.

## Then and now

![We need handguns like we need a hole in the head (1976)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/we-need-handguns-hole-in-head-1976.jpg)

*[We need handguns like we need a hole in the head](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/we-need-handguns-hole-in-head-1976/), Committee for the Study of Handgun Misuse, 1976. Public domain.*

![We asked four leading crooks for their opinion on gun control (1977)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/four-leading-crooks-gun-control-1977.jpg)

*[We asked four leading crooks for their opinion on gun control](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/four-leading-crooks-gun-control-1977/), Second Amendment Foundation, 1977. Public domain.*

The pair show the method on both sides in the same years. One poster says "the odds are far greater you will kill someone you know, or even love"; the other says "Less than one thousandth of one percent of the handguns in this country will be used to commit murder in 1977" and asks "Is the gun really the problem? Or is it the criminal?", the same argument as the slogan "guns don't kill people, people do". The 2018 school-shooting count and the dispute over suicides in "gun deaths" turn on the same question: what counts as a case, and what it is divided by. Survey estimates of defensive gun use show the same spread, from roughly 60,000 to 2.5 million a year depending on the survey (RAND).

![Crowd with signs reading "Enough" and "Our lives are worth more" at March for Our Lives, Washington, 24 March 2018](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/march-for-our-lives-enough-2018.jpg)

*March for Our Lives, Washington, D.C., 24 March 2018. Photo: Lorie Shaull, CC BY-SA 2.0.*

![Crowd with Gadsden, "Come and take it" and US flags and "Ask me about voluntaryism" signs at Lobby Day, Richmond, 20 January 2020](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/richmond-lobby-day-crowd-2020.jpg)

*VCDL Lobby Day, Richmond, Virginia, 20 January 2020. Photo: Anthony Crider, CC BY 2.0.*

## Positions on the record

- **Gun-rights groups** say gun laws fall on "the law abiding" while "The criminal will always find a way to get a gun" (SAF, 1977), that "Swift and sure punishment is the way to fight crime", and that "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun" (LaPierre, 2012).
- **Gun-control groups** say "something must be done" because "77% of the public want handgun control legislation" (1976 poster), and in 2018 March for Our Lives asks for universal background checks and bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
- **This archive's reading:** documented here are each side's own words, the posters, the 1995 letter and apology, the renamings and the disputed counts. Not shown here: which policies work (this page takes no position), and any claim that either movement's members are dishonest as a class. Both sides are lawful advocacy groups; no violence by either organization is part of this record.

## Same-method test

Swap the names on the two 1970s posters and the finding is unchanged: each picks the denominator that helps it. A gun-control letter calling federal agents storm troopers, or a gun-rights paper saying public confusion over technical terms "can only increase" support, would be tagged the same way.

## How to spot it

- For any gun statistic, ask what counts as a case (suicides? any discharge on school grounds?) and what it is divided by.
- When a key term appears (assault weapon, gun safety, law-abiding), look for its legal definition in the bill or statute.
- Notice when "they" owns the media, the schools or the gun lobby: the frame decides whose evidence you hear before any is shown.
- Check whether a quote is the group's own document or a rival's summary of it.

## Images

| Image | Source | Licence |
| --- | --- | --- |
| *We need handguns like we need a hole in the head* (c. 1976) | [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/2015649957/), Yanker poster collection | Public domain (no copyright notice; LoC: no known restrictions) |
| *We asked four leading crooks...* (c. 1977) | [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/2016648118/), Yanker poster collection | Public domain (no copyright notice; LoC: no known restrictions) |
| March for Our Lives (2018) | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Enough,_March_For_Our_Lives,_Washington_DC.jpg), Lorie Shaull | CC BY-SA 2.0 |
| Lobby Day, Richmond (2020) | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Virginia_2nd_Amendment_Rally_(2020_Jan)_-_49416189646.jpg), Anthony Crider | CC BY 2.0 |

### Image gaps

- **The 1995 NRA letter, the 2017 Loesch video, NRATV stills, NRA and Everytown logos and ads, and Sugarmann's 1988 paper:** copyrighted; cited, not hosted.
- **Heston at the 2000 convention and González at March for Our Lives:** news photos, copyrighted; no openly licensed copy found.
- **A White House photo of President Reagan with Harlon Carter at the 1983 NRA convention** is public domain on [Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:President_Ronald_Reagan_waving_with_Harlon_Carter_after_addressing_the_1983_Convention_of_the_National_Rifle_Association_NRA_Phoenix_Civic_Plaza_Arizona_-_DPLA_-_032f0fa96bdaa3595627fd265011f865.jpg); left out to keep the images even between the sides. It can be added with a matching gun-control-side image.

## Sources

- [This Day in Quotes, 2016: LaPierre's "jack-booted government thugs" letter, quoting its Ruby Ridge and Waco references](https://www.thisdayinquotes.com/2016/04/wayne-lapierres-infamous-jack-booted-government-thugs-quote/)
- [History.com: the Ruby Ridge standoff](https://www.history.com/articles/ruby-ridge)
- NRA: [American Rifleman, "Cincinnati '77: Birthplace of the Modern NRA"](https://www.americanrifleman.org/content/cincinnati-77-birthplace-of-the-modern-nra/); [America's 1st Freedom, "The Danger of Gun-Control Speak"](https://www.americas1stfreedom.org/content/the-danger-of-gun-control-speak/)
- [The Daily Beast on Harlon Carter and 1977](https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-teen-killer-who-radicalized-the-nra/)
- [Washington Post, 11 May 1995: Bush resigns from NRA](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/05/11/bush-resigns-from-nra-citing-broadside-on-agents/22f449e9-9e19-4bba-951e-9cc92135b89c/); [Washington Post, 18 May 1995: NRA apology](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/05/18/nra-executive-issues-apology-for-letter-attacking-us-agents/91909291-ba42-4ba9-97e4-7ccf21ab81c6/); [The Trace: Bush's letter](https://www.thetrace.org/2015/11/george-bush-nra-membership-wayne-lapierre/)
- [Las Vegas Sun, 21 May 2000: Heston at the NRA convention](https://lasvegassun.com/news/2000/may/21/nras-heston-lashes-out-at-gore-in-speech-at-conven/); [Creators Syndicate editorial quoting the Heston speech](https://www.creators.com/read/daily-editorials/11/21/how-the-nra-used-the-columbine-massacre-to-make-gun-control-the-enemy)
- [GBH, 21 Dec. 2012: LaPierre press conference](https://www.wgbh.org/news/politics/2012-12-21/nra-ceo-the-only-thing-that-stops-a-bad-guy-with-a-gun-is-a-good-guy-with-a-gun); [Slate on the same](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/12/nra-s-wayne-lapierre-press-conference-gun-group-breaks-silence-in-wake-of-newtown-shooting.html)
- [MPR News on the 2017 NRA video](https://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2017/06/critics-of-nras-clenched-fist-of-truth-campaign-say-it-incites-political-violence/); [The Hill: NRA defends the ad](https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/340077-nra-defends-closed-fist-of-truth-ad-from-critics/); [Everytown press release on the ad](https://www.everytown.org/press/real-news-the-nra-just-said-theyre-proud-of-shameful-race-baiting-ad/)
- [Washington Post, 24 March 2018: Colion Noir video](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/03/24/nra-host-taunts-parkland-teens-no-one-would-know-your-names-if-classmates-were-still-alive/); [Variety, June 2019: NRATV production halted](https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/nratv-production-halted-dana-loesch-1203253364/)
- [Reason, 2018: "Assault Weapons," Explained (quotes Sugarmann 1988)](https://reason.com/2018/05/14/assault-weapons-explained/)
- [Brady: Our History](https://www.bradyunited.org/about-us/our-history); [Moms Demand Action: name change](https://momsdemandaction.org/press/one-million-moms-for-gun-control-gets-a-name-makeover/); [Everytown launch, 2014](https://www.everytown.org/press/new-gun-violence-prevention-group-everytown-for-gun-safety-unites-mayors-moms-and-millions-of-americans-on-new-paths-to-victory-state-capitols-corporate-responsibility-voter-activation/); [CNN, 2014: Bloomberg's $50 million](https://www.cnn.com/2014/04/15/us/bloomberg-gun-safety-initiative/index.html); [Gun Sense Voter FAQ](https://gunsensevoter.org/faq/); [Moms Demand Action: Gun Sense Candidate distinctions](https://momsdemandaction.org/press/record-breaking-3000-moms-demand-action-gun-sense-candidate-distinctions-awarded-this-cycle/)
- [O'Brien, Neffinger, Kohut and Quinlan, *Preventing Gun Violence Through Effective Messaging* (2012)](https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/748675/gun-violencemessaging-guide-pdf-1.pdf)
- [ABC News: González's silence](https://abcnews.com/US/emma-gonzalez-brings-march-lives-rally-emotional-silence/story?id=53988048); [Participedia: March for Our Lives 2018](https://participedia.net/case/12302)
- [Washington Post, 15 Feb. 2018: "18 school shootings"](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/no-there-havent-been-18-school-shooting-in-2018-that-number-is-flat-wrong/2018/02/15/65b6cf72-1264-11e8-8ea1-c1d91fcec3fe_story.html); [CNBC on Everytown's definition](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/15/heres-how-everytowns-disputed-report-of-18-school-shootings-breaks-down.html)
- [Johns Hopkins, 2023: 2021 gun deaths](https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2023/new-report-highlights-us-2021-gun-related-deaths-for-second-straight-year-us-firearm-fatalities-reached-record-highs); [The Trace: should suicides count as gun violence?](https://www.thetrace.org/2021/12/gun-violence-suicide-rate-data-shooting-deaths/); [RAND: measuring defensive gun use](https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays/defensive-gun-use.html)
- [NPR, 20 Jan. 2020: Richmond rally](https://www.npr.org/2020/01/20/797895183/richmond-gun-rally-thousands-of-gun-owners-converge-on-virginia-capitol-on-mlk-d); [13News Now: Lobby Day 2020](https://www.13newsnow.com/article/news/local/virginia/lobby-day-richmond-gun-rights-rally/291-1b3e099b-5536-49ee-8e9e-b33d96bd1e29)
- Scholarship: [Matthew Lacombe, *Firepower* (Princeton, 2021)](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691207445/firepower); [Kristin Goss, *Disarmed* (Princeton)](http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8328.html); [Adam Winkler, *Gunfight* (Norton)](https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393345834)