How did the NRA transform from a sporting group to a mighty political force?
Compiling newsreels, articles and television news reports, The Rifleman examines some four decades in the history of the National Rifle Association (NRA). Via these archival materials, the US director Sierra Pettengill frames her portrait of the controversial gun-rights group around Harlon Carter, the former NRA president and a US Border Patrol chief, with an overturned murder conviction to his name, who was central in forging the NRA’s transition from a sporting organisation to one of the most potent and controversial political forces in the United States. Tracing the many overlaps between Carter, the NRA and US Border Patrol, Pettengill finds a group that, since the dawn of Carter’s influence, has been propelled by reactionary racism.
videoKnowledge
A Kichwa activist on ayahuasca’s rise – and what it really means to her people
15 minutes
videoDemography and migration
The volunteers who offer a last line of care for migrants at a contentious border
30 minutes
videoHistory
In Stalin’s home city in Georgia, generations clash over his legacy
20 minutes
videoHuman rights and justice
Surreal, dazzling visuals form an Iranian expat’s tribute to defiance back home
10 minutes
videoEngineering
Can monumental ‘ice stupas’ help remote Himalayan villages survive?
15 minutes
videoFairness and equality
There’s a dirty side to clean energy in the metal-rich mountains of South Africa
10 minutes
videoFairness and equality
‘To my old master’ – a freed slave answers the request to return to his old plantation
7 minutes
videoFairness and equality
Visit the small Texas community that lives in the shadow of SpaceX launches
14 minutes
videoPolitical philosophy
The radical activist couple who fought for social change in the courtroom
21 minutes