Sierra Pettengill’s new documentary short The Rifleman, about the architect of the modern NRA is available to watch on Field of Vision, Vimeo, YouTube, and Facebook.

The Rifleman delves deep into the origins of the National Rifleman Association through astonishing archival footage spanning decades, revealing the modern organization’s roots in the backlash against the Civil Rights movement.

From the early 1950s at the US-Mexico border to the NRA in the post-Civil Rights era, The Rifleman examines the life of one man who changed the trajectory of the gun organization forever.

Formed in 1871, the National Rifle Association (NRA) was initially conceived of as a sportsman’s club. But during the civil rights protests and riots of the late 1960s, Carter stoked fear of “urban crime,” spurring white Americans to buy guns in droves in the name of “self-protection,” and the organization’s landscape shifted radically. At the NRA’s annual convention in 1977 a group of militant hardliners, linked to this new law-and-order mindset, overthrew the more moderate wing of the organization and ushered in the NRA we have today. Carter envisioned an NRA “so strong and so dedicated that no politician in America, mindful of his political career, would want to challenge our legitimate goals.”

Before becoming a leader and powerful lobbyist for the NRA, Carter was the very first head of the U.S. Border Patrol and led one of the largest deportation of Mexican immigrants in history in 1954.

Tracking Carter’s trajectory, filmmaker Sierra Pettengill meticulously reveals the xenophobic and racial attitudes that belie the NRA’s so-called “pro-Second Amendment” stance of today.

Sierra Pettengill’s work focuses on the warped narratives of the American past. Most recently, she directed the ‘Big Dan’s’ episode of the Netflix documentary series Trial by Media. Her 2017 feature-length film, the all-archival documentary The Reagan Show, premiered at the Locarno Film Festival before airing on CNN. Her 2018 all-archival short film, Graven Image, aired on POV and is held at the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, and her 2020 short Business of Thought premiered at the Sheffield Documentary Festival. In 2013 she produced the Academy Award-nominated film Cutie & the Boxer, which also won an Emmy Award for Best Documentary, and also co-directed Town Hall for PBS. She has also worked as an archival researcher for many filmmakers including Jim Jarmusch, Mathieu Amalric, and Mike Mills. She was a Sundance Institute Art of Nonfiction Fellow, a fellow at the Yaddo and MacDowell colonies, and writes frequently about film for publications including frieze and Film Comment.