Ricochet Guns Greed is the subject of a wide-ranging interview with investigative reporter Mike McIntire, who details how the modern gun-rights movement expanded as gun regulations narrowed, and how the Supreme Court may soon set a new standard for evaluating firearms laws.
Ricochet Guns Greed and the Supreme Court’s AR-15 case
McIntire said the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a challenge to state bans on AR-15-style rifles, a case likely to turn on whether such weapons are in “common use.” He explained that the Court created the common-use test in earlier Second Amendment rulings. If a firearm is commonly possessed by law-abiding Americans, it is generally protected and cannot be banned. He noted there is nothing in the original Second Amendment text or its early history that mentions this test, which emerged after the 2008 Heller decision recognizing an individual right to possess a handgun at home for self-defense.
Lower courts have questioned the logic of the common-use standard, McIntire said, pointing to the example of fully automatic machine guns, which might be widespread today had Congress not enacted strict controls in 1934. He added that some justices have already signaled views on the issue, including Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who has described AR-15s as commonly used. McIntire expects the Court’s conservative majority may strike down AR-15 bans.
How Heller reframed the Second Amendment
McIntire outlined how Heller shifted prevailing interpretations from a militia-centered reading to one that protects an individual’s right to keep a gun, at least in the home. He traced the common-use idea to a 1939 Supreme Court case involving a sawed-off shotgun, where the justices questioned whether that weapon would be useful to a citizen militia. Justice Antonin Scalia later drew on that passage in Heller, and courts have relied on it since, McIntire said.
Asked how a ruling affirming broad common use would shape the future, McIntire noted that AR-15-style rifles surged from hundreds of thousands in circulation in the mid-2000s to millions a few years later. Determining what counts as common use is complicated, he said, because ownership is high among gun owners but low as a share of the total U.S. population.
John Dingell Jr., the NRA, and a strategic pivot
McIntire’s book delves into the role of the late Representative John Dingell Jr., a Michigan Democrat, who simultaneously served on the NRA’s board while in Congress. According to McIntire, Dingell helped steer the organization from a focus on hunting and marksmanship toward aggressive political advocacy. After opposing measures following President Kennedy’s assassination and the Gun Control Act of 1968, Dingell pushed the NRA to build a formal lobbying arm, later known as the Institute for Legislative Action, to influence state and federal policy, support litigation, and fund scholarship advancing an individual-rights view.
Dingell’s dual role raised conflict-of-interest questions, McIntire said. He eventually resigned from the NRA board when Congress considered the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban. Although he voted for the broader crime bill that contained the ban, McIntire said Dingell later expressed regret and received threats as a result.
Harlon Carter’s hidden past
McIntire also examines the ascent of Harlon Carter, a former Border Patrol chief whom Dingell backed to lead the NRA’s lobbying push in the 1970s. Carter’s tough approach aligned with the group’s new direction. Years later, journalists revealed that as a teenager Carter had shot and killed a Mexican teenager in the 1930s. He was convicted of manslaughter, a ruling later overturned, and the case was dropped. McIntire said Carter had long concealed the episode, even denying he had ever killed anyone when testifying about gun laws.
Internal NRA papers and youth outreach
McIntire said documents he reviewed show NRA leaders in the early 1980s discussed cultivating children as future gun owners and advocates. According to meeting transcripts he examined, the group explored integrating shooting and marksmanship training into public school programs through state education departments. One account described a Florida district where wildlife biology led to lessons on conservation, then hunting, and eventually firearms as part of that sequence.
Marketing guns through games and masculinity
The book describes how gun makers placed branded weapons in popular video games, aided by consultants and online influencers. McIntire noted research does not show a direct causal link between playing violent games and committing violence, but cited examples where mass shooters were immersed in such media, including the Sandy Hook perpetrator. He also pointed to marketing that ties firearms to masculinity, referencing past ads promoting AR-15-style rifles as a marker of manhood.
Beyond fear-based self-defense appeals, the industry has packaged firearms as entertainment, McIntire said, with high-priced experiences offering access to powerful weapons, machine guns under supervision, flamethrowers, and large-caliber rifles, sometimes highlighted for Hollywood connections.
Personal perspective on access and risk
McIntire recounted growing up in a low-income community in the 1970s where cheap handguns were common, and he described dangerous encounters as a child, including finding a loaded revolver in a junked car and firing his father’s hunting rifle unsupervised. He said those experiences informed later reporting on accidental shootings, which his past work found were undercounted in official records. He also recalled a near-miss at home when his father, mistaking his mother for an intruder, confronted her with a gun.
McIntire, now a gun owner who has taught his children to shoot, said the mere availability of a firearm can escalate volatile situations, whether domestic disputes, substance use, or moments of despair. He emphasized that his investigative approach relies on painstaking review of documents and records to surface hidden dynamics shaping America’s gun culture and policy, a process echoed by other deep-dive reporters such as Jia Tolentino in different corners of American life.