MERCHANTS OF THE RIGHT

A sociological study of gun sellers and the way their politics sustain gun rights as a defining element of American conservatism.

One of the consequences of the 2020 pandemic was a surge in gun sales—not just to the typical White, straight, conservative, male buyer, but also to women, racial and sexual minorities, and liberals. Carlson, professor of sociology at the University of Arizona, author of Policing the Second Amendment, and a 2022 MacArthur fellow, saw this as an opportunity to gauge “how American gun culture [is] defended as conservative terrain” and how gun sellers act as “merchants of conservative thought.” Interviewing 50 sellers from four states, the author chronicles their responses to the pandemic, the new buyers, and activist initiatives such as Black Lives Matter. Their thinking coalesces around three ideas: Owning a gun reinforces personal responsibility (armed individualism); behind all official stories and state action are “hidden power brokers” (conspiracism); and defining the boundaries of citizenship is a democratic necessity (extreme partisanship). This information allowed Carlson to group sellers into libertarians who cast individual rights as the “preferred remedy to social ills”; illiberal conservatives, who embrace democracy but narrow the concept of “the people” to those who share their beliefs (thereby excluding liberals); and eclectic conservatives, who balance individual rights with collective obligations. For each, defending gun rights is “a means of defining” democracy and protecting political rights. In contrast, Carlson favors a liberal democracy that is “consensus-based, justice-oriented, and equity-driven” and can assert political equanimity, civic grace, and awareness of shared vulnerability to bridge the current political divide. The author treats her subjects with respect and intellectual generosity, and her positioning of gun culture in democratic thought is a model of thoughtful scholarship.

An insightful account of the glue that binds one of the dominant strains of conservatism and threatens liberal democracy.