Litigation, Reputation, and Vilification How Gun Activists Cannot Lose for Winning1 William Haltom Michael McCann University of Puget Sound University of Washington Prepared for presentation to the Western Political Science Association in San Francisco on 2 April 2010 as part of Panel 07.05 “Politics and Litigation” 1 Funding for this study was generously provided by the National Science Foundation, Award # 0451207.