ABSTRACT
White-hot rhetoric is no stranger to American political discourse. Yet one would be hard-pressed to find an issue that has provoked more anger and vitriol through the years and even decades than the gun debate. The legislation mentioned in the National Rifle Association letter excerpt above that prompted such outrage and alarm was a bill introduced by Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg (NJ) that would have preserved for ten years the gun background check data of applicants identified as suspected or actual terrorists and preserved other criminal background check records for 180 days. The Brady Campaign letter was sparked by an NRA-backed bill to allow loaded
guns to be carried onto Amtrak trains in stowed luggage (President Obama later approved the measure once it had passed Congress). Such heated, even hysterical language is, in fact, typical of the tone and style of the messages these groups transmit to their members as well as of much of the political discourse on gun control.1
