Gun rights advocates and gun control advocates occupy opposing positions on the political spectrum regarding the role of guns in America.

Perhaps no other subject in America engenders the level of controversy and intensity of emotions as the Second Amendment. Using issues of the American Rifleman to investigate the changing discourse since the mid-1970s, this paper demonstrates how the NRA increased its use of religious language to frame the political debate about gun rights through a religious nationalist lens. The use of religious rhetoric, such as references to evil combined with references to civic obligation, illustrates the merging of American civic religion with the New Christian Right’s rhetoric. Understanding the transformation of the Second Amendment from an important Constitutional amendment to an article of faith in religious nationalism provides new insight about the meaning of guns for American identity. This paper argues that the National Rifle Association (NRA) has capitalized on the religious nationalism that arose in the late 1970s alongside the Moral Majority and has increasingly used religious language to shape the discourse surrounding the Second Amendment. The centrality of the Second Amendment in American culture can be better understood through the intersection of American nationalism with Protestant Christianity. Understanding the deep meaning of the Second Amendment is critical to understanding American gun culture.

What is the second amendment