“Firearms are a very convenient shorthand in the Republican Party,” says Robert Spitzer, a political scientist at the State University of New York in Cortland and author of five books on guns and politics in America.
It’s not that every candidate who brandishes a firearm will become a crusader for gun rights if elected, Spitzer says. It’s symbolic language.
“Having a gun in an advertisement is a way to summarize your opposition to the Democrats, to Barack Obama, your suspicion of big government, your valuing of individualism, and it also expresses a kind of sense of power that is very appealing to base voters in the Republican Party,” Spitzer says.
Now that the political primary season is mostly over, it remains to be seen whether candidates will use hi-caliber firepower in the general election, where mainstream voters may not be as impressed by belligerent imagery.
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