key reason behind the impact of this narrative is the power of Hollywood, the main proliferator of the classical Western narrative. Once this narrative had been solidified in American culture, it became somewhat inescapable. Certain parts of society could not be swayed from the representation of the gun present in these narratives, despite a wealth of evidence exposing the myth. As a result, films such as Unforgiven and The Gunfighter remain as challenges to the dominant narrative surrounding guns, rather than instigating a new wide-spread representation of guns in Western narratives. The steadfast nature of the classical Western narrative’s representation of the gun has led to its adoption and utilization in a multi-faceted conservative movement, at the hands of the NRA. Bibliography Briggs, William, How America Got Its Guns: A History of the Gun Violence Crisis (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2017) Campbell, Donald J., America’s Gun Wars: a Cultural History of Gun Control in the United States (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2019) Courtwright, David T., ‘The Cowboy Subculture’, in Guns in America: A Historical Reader , ed. by Jan E. Dizard, Robert Merrill Muth and Stephen P. Andrews Jr., (New York: New York University Press, 1999), pp. 86-104 Jennings, John, The Cowboy Legend: Owen Whister’s Virginian and the Canadian-American Ranching Frontier (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2015) Jordan, Phillip D., ‘The Pistol Packin’ Cowboy’, in The Cowboy: Six Shooters, Songs and Sex , ed. by Charles W. Harris and Buck Rainey (Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976), pp. 57-85 Kupfer, Joseph H., ‘The Seductive and Subversive Meta-Narrative of Unforgiven ’, Journal of Film and Video , 60.3 (2008), 103-114 Larson, Erik, Lethal Passage: The Story of a Gun (New York: Vintage Book, 1995) Library of Congress, United States: Gun Ownership and the Supreme Court , <https://www.loc.gov/law/help/usconlaw/second- amendment.php#:~:text=The%20Second%20Amendment%2C%20one%20of,se lf%2Devident%2C%20and%20has%20given> [accessed 7 December 2020]
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