Opposing Movements and the Politics of Blocking: How the Gun Rights Movement Preserves its Political Advantage

• In Event: 2483 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 12. Right Wing Social Movements and Guns

Abstract

By attracting media, public, and political attention, “critical events” can create mobilizing opportunities for both sides of an opposing movement pair. One side moves to capitalize on a temporary boost in public and institutional support, while the other moves to preserve past gains. This raises the question: how do social movements minimize losses when the political context temporarily shifts in favor of their opponents after a critical event? I answer this question by examining how the agendas of two major gun rights organizations (The National Rifle Association and The Second Amendment Foundation) evolved between January 2011 and December 2014, focusing on how their strategies shifted after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012. I use historical-comparative and ethnographic techniques to analyze over 100 hours of fieldwork and thousands of organizational documents and newspaper articles to determine how these groups allocated their attention across various political and cultural venues, the kinds of initiative they supported in these venues, and how changing contextual and organizational constraints influenced these agendas. I find that while the gun rights movement became more defensive after the shooting, it also used the threat of the shooting and of the gun control movement to its advantage. Gun rights groups focused on mobilizing supporters and strengthening the movement, they balanced blocking unfavorable legislation in hostile states with advancing favorable legislation in sympathetic states, and quickly returned to litigative, legislative, and electoral offense once the period of acute threat passed. These findings suggest that movements can minimize losses during periods of heightened threat by picking their battles so that they play to their strengths, quickly returning to their own agenda, and building up their structural advantages.

Author

• Eulalie Jean Laschever, DePaul University