By Michael Bryan
Consider for a moment what you would want as a manufacturer and merchant of firearms: to sell lots and lots of guns, as many as you can, to anyone who can pay for them. That’s simply what every business wants. I claim that, at base, all the behavior of “gun rights” activists reduces to this basic business drive. Oh, they may claim more high-minded motives, but to the people who actually bankroll that activism, this is all that matters.
So, how does one effectively stimulate gun sales? Ads are not generally effective, nor frequently accepted, except in certain niche markets. How to reach the widest audience most effectively? Fear. Fear motivates most gun sales: fear of others different than you; fear that someone else will bring a gun to bear on you; fear that someone will hurt or kill you; fear that the government will come and take away your guns. Do your best to scare the shit out of everyone, and many of them will buy a gun. Do you recognize the tactics and rhetoric of the gun lobby among all these fears?
More guns, more easily available is also a wonderful motivator of gun sales. Paranoia over all the guns out there in the hands of bad guys is also a great sales motivator. The gun industry actually sells a product that stimulates its own sales once a critical mass of guns is in the hands of the public. And, boy, have we reached critical mass in America. The more there are, the more there will be; Americans are in an arms race with ourselves. You might think that nearly a gun for every American man, woman, and child would be enough guns, but the wheels of industry must turn, so we must have more guns. So scaring the crap out of their best customers, and encouraging their paranoia, is best business practice for the gun makers and merchants.
Obama is coming for your guns! Mexicans are coming to rape your women! A black man is coming to take your property and kill you! Be afraid! The more fear is abroad, the better are sales. But no one seriously wants or expects to take away law-abiding folks guns – we just want to limit the market to non-crazy, non-homicidal, non-wife-beating, non-terrorist, non-felon folks who don’t want that gun in order to go hunting strangers or intimate partners. That’s not too much to ask, is it? Well, if you are a gun maker or merchant it sure is too much; they want the biggest possible market with the least transactional friction possible – thus, as little regulation of gun sales as possible. No high ideals, just commerce.
The grand irony is that all the gun violence resulting from guns in the wrong hands makes normal people long for safety. That desire for safety make us more amenable to more police, and more heavily armed police, and more abrogations of civil liberties to keep tabs on all those dangerous folks with guns. Thus the police state that 2nd Amendment folks say they wish to guard against is brought ever closer to fruition by the gun merchants’ own business model.
We need to regulate gun sales from a standpoint of public health, safety, and security, and not from the paranoid and mercenary viewpoint of the gun merchants hiding behind the window dressing of 2nd Amendment maximalism. Otherwise, this spiral of death will keep grinding up our citizens and our children. We need leaders who will cut through the nonsense and speak the truth about the gun industry and advocate for common-sense gun regulations. Don’t vote for leaders who don’t speak out on this topic; they are in fear of the gun merchants’ lobbying, and they aren’t really leaders.
Oh noes! NRA has troubles!
Whatever will poor million dollar a year man Wayne La Pierre do?
Or convicted felon Oliver North?
Or that sweet, kind, caring Dan Loesch?
https://splinternews.com/nra-claims-its-in-grave-financial-trouble-could-soon-b-1828086900
Maybe they should have spent that 30 million Putin gave them on some job training.
The way to motivate a “conservative” is to tell them they’re in danger.
The way to motivate a “liberal” is to tell them someone else is in danger.
Businesses want to sell their products to anyone who can pay for them. Do you really believe that?
That’s an absurd and unsupportable sweeping generalization. So every pharmacist is dying to sell opiods to kids and gunstore employees want to sell guns to terrorists and armed robbers? Really?
Yes, that is the basis of macroeconomic theory, John. Moral concerns are a matter of individual conscience, which is why you use a pharmacist (who has ethical obligations and consciences) and gun store employees (who have individual consciences), and not corporations, who have no such concerns. In fact, I would go as far as to say that any pangs of conscience those humans who run firearms corporations might have are nicely soothed by their annual bonuses and stock options.
Doctor Policeman Senator John Kavanagh PhD likes to rearrange context, and then feign outrage.
If a pharmacist or gun store owner can’t or won’t sell opioids or guns to a 13 year old, they find them on the black market.
Because if there’s a need, someone will fill it.
Big Pharma and the NRA both know their products are misused and openly stop any attempt at regulation.
So John should know, if he had thought it through, would be yes, yes they do want to sell opioids and guns to kids, as evidenced by their extensive lobbying efforts in Washington D.C.
Now that I’ve thought about it, I actually like your use of a pharmacist. Why can’t we have it so that an expert, like a doctor, has to prescribe a gun for you before you go get one? That would be an excellent solution. Thank you, John, for that excellent suggestion. If anyone asks, I’ll be sure to let them know that Senator John Kavanaugh gave me the idea 🙂
Patient: Doctor, can I have a prescription for opioids?
Doctor: No, you do not have a medical condition requiring opioids.
Patient: Can I have a prescription for a gun?
Doctor: Why do you need a gun?
Patient: So I can rob a drug store and get some opioids.
There’s a reason it’s called the LAW of supply and demand.
Like a tv in every room, now that’s living the good life.
Well said!