The National Rifle Association, or NRA, built itself up from a marksmanship club after the Civil War to one of the U.S.’s most powerful lobbying organizations, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to loosen and oppose gun control legislation.
But in January, the organization declared bankruptcy, and now gun control reform is on the table after the mass shootings in Atlanta and Boulder, Colorado.
Host Callum Borchers speaks with Matthew Lacombe, assistant professor of political science at Barnard College and author of “Firepower: How the NRA Turned Gun Owners into a Political Force,” about his studies into the NRA’s legacy and future.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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