--- title: TIME Ideas: Gun Control Advocates Have a Lot to Learn From the NRA | TIME description: Igor Volsky may not agree with anything the NRA stands for, but he does agree that gun control advocates can learn a lot from the organization's tactics. canonical: https://time.com/video/sg2qnrB6/ og:title: TIME Ideas: Gun Control Advocates Have a Lot to Learn From the NRA og:description: Igor Volsky may not agree with anything the NRA stands for, but he does agree that gun control advocates can learn a lot from the organization's tactics. og:url: https://time.com/video/sg2qnrB6/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/sg2qnrB6/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: TIME Ideas: Gun Control Advocates Have a Lot to Learn From the NRA twitter:description: Igor Volsky may not agree with anything the NRA stands for, but he does agree that gun control advocates can learn a lot from the organization's tactics. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/sg2qnrB6/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # TIME Ideas: Gun Control Advocates Have a Lot to Learn From the NRA > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: TIME Ideas: Gun Control Advocates Have a Lot to Learn From the NRA [Watch (HLS stream): TIME Ideas: Gun Control Advocates Have a Lot to Learn From the NRA](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/sg2qnrB6.m3u8) (2:42)  _Published 2019-04-19. Igor Volsky may not agree with anything the NRA stands for, but he does agree that gun control advocates can learn a lot from the organization's tactics._ --- Jan 5, 2024 6:57 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [This Is How The NRA Got So Powerful](/video/M3qXfmOi/) ### This Is How The NRA Got So Powerful [Trump Says NRA Will Do Something On Gun Control ](/video/65sN3zp5/) ### Trump Says NRA Will Do Something On Gun Control [An NRA Employee Accidentally Shot Himself at the Organization's Headquarters](/video/ow1SFCtJ/) ### An NRA Employee Accidentally Shot Himself at the Organization's Headquarters --- ## Transcript My name is Igor Volsky. I'm the executive director of Guns Down America and the author of the new book Guns Down. Since the 1970s, by almost any measure, the gun lobby has been one of the most successful political organizations in America. How did the NRA become so successful? And what can the gun control movement learn from their success? The NRA has a clear, tight message. It distills everything to a single word freedom. Any effort to restrict access to guns is an infringement on that, right? The NHRA builds a patriotic identity and community around owning guns. Half of all gun owners tell pollsters that having a firearm is very or somewhat important to who they are as people. And that's no accident. According to new research from political scientist Matthew Larcombe. The NRA established this identity through its publications and its communications with members. Larcombe analyzed 79 years of the NRA's American Rifleman and separately editorials in four American newspapers. He discovered that 80% of The Rifleman editorials that portrayed gun rights as being under threat used identity language that portrayed gun owners in a positive light of the pro-gun letters to the editor in Tacoma analyzed 64% relied on identity language. The NRA's members were internalizing and echoing its message. This explains a lot, but it also holds some key lessons for gun control advocates. All too often, we use wonky language and stats to explain why we support this law or that. But maybe what we need to do is to reclaim and redefine what it means to be a patriotic American as it relates to gun ownership. Being a patriotic American means raising the standard for how firearms are produced and purchased. The firearms industry must be regulated, and people who choose to own a firearm should prove to their neighbors and to their communities that they could own one responsive alley. These are the building blocks for a new American future, one with fewer guns in circulation and as a result, safer churches, classrooms, households and American communities. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"TIME Ideas: Gun Control Advocates Have a Lot to Learn From the NRA","description":"Igor Volsky may not agree with anything the NRA stands for, but he does agree that gun control advocates can learn a lot from the organization's tactics. ","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/sg2qnrB6/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2019-04-19T21:20:22.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/sg2qnrB6.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/sg2qnrB6/","duration":"PT2M42S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/sg2qnrB6/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```