Journalist Frank Smyth takes a look at the secretive organization in the 2020 book The NRA: The Unauthorized History, and he will discuss the book during a livestream conversation with Norman Stockwell, publisher of The Progressive. However, the NRA's focus wasn't always what they now push, and it doesn't necessarily want you to remember that. Are there too many guns, or not enough? How did we get here? Part of the answer is political action by the National Rifle Association. would disagree the country has a problem with guns, but there are diametrically opposing viewpoints on the issue. The NRA arguably looms larger than life in the American consciousness because it also somehow gives America back, refracted and intensified, to itself.Award-winning investigative journalist Frank Smyth is the author of 'The NRA: The Unauthorized History' (Flatiron Books, 2020).įew in the U.S.

But the gaps in his history underscore the key problem of thinking about the organization, which is far bigger than Smyth’s book. Smyth’s combination of eagle-eyed precision and odd credulity is even more disappointing when it comes to the recently exposed interactions between the NRA’s leadership and shadowy figures in a so-called 'gun rights' movement in Russia. A bigger issue, though not unique to Smyth’s book, is the tendency to see the NRA as singularly powerful and to overlook its position within a broader network of conservative organizations. For all the excellent work it does at dismantling the NRA’s myths about itself, and at laying out the biographies of some of its key modern players, Smyth’s book has some striking blind spots. He skillfully exposes how NRA funds have been used to prop up ersatz advocacy groups and think tanks. As a seasoned investigative journalist, Smyth is particularly good at following the money.

Smyth documents the NRA’s early years, rich in paradox and incident, with verve. The fact that no other popular history has ever been written by anyone not on the NRA’s payroll means that Smyth’s book is a worthwhile intervention it also means that the book’s shortcomings and unevenness are worth studying. as a veteran journalist who has covered the association for years, has gleaned abundant material, from interviews to tax filings to court briefs to archives of the organization’s (numerous) magazines.

The NRA by Frank Smyth