A new NPR "Fresh Air" interview with host Terry Gross features New York Times reporter Mike McIntire discussing his book "Ricochet," which examines how America's gun industry and the National Rifle Association have worked to broaden interpretations of the Second Amendment even as legislative efforts to regulate firearms have stalled or been rolled back. The book argues this is not an accident but the result of deliberate strategy, and the conversation matters because it offers insight into the cultural and political forces shaping the ongoing US debate over gun rights versus gun control.

McIntire contends that gun companies and the NRA have pursued a multi-pronged approach: pushing expansive legal readings of the right to bear arms, actively socialising children into gun culture from a young age, and marketing firearm ownership as tied to a particular brand of masculinity. The interview frames these efforts as running in parallel with a broader weakening of gun regulations across the country, suggesting the industry's cultural and legal influence has grown even as formal restrictions have loosened.