The Rifleman, courtesy of Sierra Pettengill and Field of Vision
Watch our release of documentary short ‘The Rifleman,’ which examines how NRA head Harlon Carter fused gun rights, immigration enforcement, and white supremacy. Then read an interview with filmmaker Sierra Pettengill and historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.
In my new documentary,
The Rifleman, I use archival footage to tell the story of Harlon Carter (1913–1991), who led the National Rifle Association (NRA) from 1977 until 1985, during a period when it transformed from principally a sporting organization into a radical right political bloc. When he was seventeen, Carter, who grew up in the Texas borderlands, was convicted of murdering a thirteen-year-old, Ramón Casiano, after Casiano was supposedly seen on the Carters’ property. This kind of white nationalist violence would be a prominent feature of the rest of Carter’s life. After his murder conviction was vacated by the Texas Court of Appeals, Carter would join the U.S. Border Patrol, eventually becoming its head. In that role, he ran Operation Wetback (1954), which made a spectacle of deporting undocumented Mexican farm workers.