In Merchants of the Right, Jennifer Carlson takes on a topic of crucial importance: the relationship between conservative gun culture and the core commitments of American democracy. Along the way, she sheds fascinating new light on the factors that galvanized the largest gun-buying spree in the country's history in 2020 and shaped how many Americans responded to the tumult of that year. Balancing engaging prose with a sober tone, Carlson shows how American gun culture has developed over the past 50 years, articulates the "civic toolkit" it provides its adherents, and vividly describes how that toolkit was applied during a year marked by pandemic, protests, and contentious politics. Carlson relies on interviews with 50 gun sellers located in diverse areas of the country. Conducted between April and August 2020, these interviews provide insights into how gun sellers made sense of the year. Carlson's use of gun sellers as a window into gun culture during the pandemic is astute and clever; these individuals are not only enmeshed in gun culture, they in many ways act as its gatekeepers. Carlson's interviews focus on how adherents of the "dominant strains of gun rights" (a phrase used to clarify that not all gun owners hold this outlook) conceive of American civic life and democracy-an approach she argues has come to be reflected in conservative politics writ large. The book contends that this culture provides individuals with a civic toolkit consisting of three interrelated tenets, which inform their political outlooks generally and their reactions to the pandemic specifically.
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