Taking Aim: Rhetorical Conspiracism, Far-Right Extremism, and the Narrative Politics of Guns

<p> </p> <p>In this dissertation, I interrogate the conventional culture of gun violence in the United States by<br> providing a rhetorical history of how that culture has evolved from the 1990s to the present. I<br> demonstrate through my analysis how extremist and “mainstream” gun advocates have concurrently<br> given life to U.S. gun violence culture through conspiracy narratives rooted to this country’s settler-<br> colonialist history. This project thereby situates the U.S.’s longstanding saturation in gun violence<br> with recent trends in far-right mobilization and violent white-Christian ethnonationalism worldwide.<br> Building on interest in rhetoric and communication studies in the policy-oriented discourses of guns<br> and gun rights, this dissertation relies on racial rhetorical criticism and narrative analysis to scrutinize<br> a range of far-right extremist and/as mainstream narratives as they circulate within their pro-gun<br> communities, particularly as those narratives intersect with white-male supremacist and ultimately<br> eliminationist rhetorics that have global reach. I contend this approach is necessary to substantively<br> address the diverse harms of gun violence culture as it festers in the U.S., without committing to<br> terms of engagement that only accommodate the minoritarian interests of white, gun-hoarding<br> citizens.<br> Through case-driven analyses, I develop my argument by linking digital and historical<br> archives of right-wing advocacy to demonstrate how pro-gun narratives have evolved from<br> “militia”-based defense against governmental tyranny to racialized urgencies for armed “self-<br> defense.” Moving chronologically, my case studies traverse through contexts including the<br> newsletters of civilian militias in the 1990s, a recent multimedia advocacy campaign from the<br> National Rifle Association of America, and the odious manifestos of contemporary white<br> supremacist terrorists worldwide. Overall, my analyses trouble pro-gun advocates’ ongoing attempts<br> to naturalize a heavily-armed citizenry through claims of constitutional mandates or imperatives for<br> individual self-protection in all spaces, stances that only further privilege white-male supremacist<br> <br> <br> <br> </p> <p>mechanisms of political control. I then conclude this project by considering the rhetorical means by<br> which advocates might resist a violent culture of gun-facilitated vigilantism as it expands into other<br> issues like reproductive rights and education.<br> “Taking Aim” ultimately extends the interdisciplinary conversation surrounding guns and<br> gun violence by situating the narratives of firearm advocacy within recent manifestations of far-right<br> extremism and white supremacist mobilization. By drawing attention to the rhetorical commonalities<br> in these domains, this project underscores how the distinct harms of a rampant gun violence culture<br> are not contained within the U.S., but in fact contribute to transnational violence targeting<br> communities frequently deemed to be enemies of white domination. This project also offers a novel<br> framework for using narrative analysis in political contexts as a methodology to deconstruct harmful<br> discourses as they pervade fringe digital networks and mainstream political conversations. This<br> approach scrutinizes how far-right movements give form to their communities through longstanding<br> justifications for violent, antidemocratic interventions according to principles of “liberty.” Though<br> such principles claim to apply to “the” people, this project shows how othered communities are<br> violently excluded from the full protections—including the right to bear arms—that privilege white<br> citizens.</p>