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ABSTRACT Understanding the deep meaning of the Second Amendment is critical to
understanding American gun culture. The centrality of the Second Amendment in American
culture can be better understood through the intersection of American nationalism with
Protestant Christianity. This paper argues that the National Rifle Association (NRA) has
capitalized on the religious nationalism that arose in the late 1970s alongside the Moral
Majority and has increasingly used religious language to shape the discourse surrounding the
Second Amendment. Understanding the transformation of the Second Amendment from an
important Constitutional amendment to an article of faith in religious nationalism provides
new insight about the meaning of guns for American identity. The use of religious rhetoric,
such as references to evil combined with references to civic obligation, illustrates the merging
of American civic religion with the New Christian Right’s rhetoric. Using issues of the
American Rifleman to investigate the changing discourse since the mid-1970s, this paper
demonstrates how the NRA increased its use of religious language to frame the political
debate about gun rights through a religious nationalist lens.