A firestorm erupted after photos of the spread in the magazine's March edition began circulating on social media, inviting scorn from parents of children killed in the Parkland mass shooting as well as Democratic lawmakers.
Some, including Swalwell, called for legal consequences against the NRA for its "Target Practice" headline, while other gun-rights supporters insisted that critics were reading too much into the words.
Representative Dan Crenshaw, R, was among those who pushed back against critics, specifically Swalwell, who he suggested had stirred up fake outrage.
"How can you claim this?" he said in response to the California congressman. "Are you deliberately lying or did you just not read it? The article is about legislation targeting gun owners, not the NRA targeting Democrats. If your goal is to ensure that 'outrage culture' is alive and well, continuing to divide us, congrats."
Jennifer Baker, a spokeswoman for the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action, called the controversy "manufactured" in a statement to the Washington Post. She noted that the NRA-ILA ran a different photo and headline in the online version of the article, titled, "What Lurks Behind 'Universal' Background Checks," and that the ILA's executive director, Cox, did not approve the headline and photo in American Rifleman. It will not be used going forward, she said.
"The column was clearly focused on the gun-control legislation moving through Congress and the fact that law-abiding gun owners are being targeted by anti-gun politicians," Baker said. "Anyone who bothers to read the column knows the assertion that the column is calling for violence is ridiculous."
American Rifleman is the NRA's official publication, with more than two million print and online readers, according to its media kit.
The backlash began after Jennifer Bendery, a politics reporter at HuffPost, tweeted images of the spread, and it accelerated after parents of teenagers killed in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland condemned the image as well, equating it to domestic terrorism.
"Who are you trying to intimidate @NRA?" wrote Manuel Oliver, who lost his son, Joaquin Oliver, in the shooting. "By now, you should know that we don't give a [expletive] about your efforts to terrorise a nation. This 'nazi style' propaganda only shows your low power over society."
Fred Guttenberg, who lost his daughter Jaime in the Parkland massacre, called on NRA members to renounce their membership over the spread.
"Magazine covers and titles are highly thought out," he wrote on Twitter. "People get paid a lot of money on decisions like this. The decision in NRA magazine to have an article titled Target Practice next to photo of Pelosi and Giffords is intentional. This is incitement of violence and not OK!"
He continued: "For those who have ever challenged my assertion that the current NRA leadership uses terror tactics, look no further."
The controversy comes amid heightened sensitivity towards perceived threats made against lawmakers, journalists and other public figures in recent months.
On Friday, longtime Republican operative Roger Stone was forced to apologise in federal court, the day after he posted an image of Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is overseeing his obstruction of justice case, with what appeared to be crosshairs visible just over her shoulder.
A Coast Guard lieutenant was arrested on February 15 and later accused by prosecutors of plotting a terrorist attack after an arsenal of guns and a hit list targeting politicians and journalists and bombmaking materials were found in his possession.
And last year, a man whose white van featured images of Democrats with targets on their faces was arrested after sending pipe bombs to prominent lawmakers and to CNN.
"This is only slightly more sophisticated than what Roger Stone did last week," John Iadarola, a liberal pundit and online talk show host, said of the American Rifleman spread on Sunday.
Senator Cory Booker, D, who is running for president, and Congressman Seth Moulton, D, were also among the lawmakers to condemn the spread.
Pelosi has not chimed in, but her daughter Christine Pelosi called the NRA's magazine spread "criminal" yesterday.
"We must condemn the NRA's intentional, outrageous criminal incitement," she wrote on Twitter. "We cannot allow this hate speech to stop common sense gun violence prevention such as #HR8."
A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced House Resolution 8, or the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019, on January 8, the anniversary of the day Giffords, then a Democratic congresswoman, was shot in the head in Tucson, Arizona, at an event for her constituents. The gunman fatally shot six others.
The bill would require universal background checks on all gun sales and most gun transfers, including among private sellers.
