The biggest factor affecting demand for guns and ammo is fear, and more fear is generated when it is easier, not harder, for criminals and those deemed unfit to own weapons due to serious mental illness to get guns.
Additional fear-driven increased gun sales are generated when the NRA promotes the false assertion that universal background checks will absolutely lead to the government creating a list of guns and owners to enable the government to take away law-abiding people’s guns. Better buy more guns and ammo now, when you can without background checks or records of transactions or you will be up the creek without a Bushmaster.
And of course, if the government is coming to take away your guns then you need assault weapons and high capacity magazines and thousands of bullets, which are meant to kill as many people as possible because only those, highly profitable, killing tools have a chance of preventing the government from taking your guns away. A shotgun, hunting rifle or 10 clip magazine just won’t do to keep the law from seizing your weapons. (Not to mention those guns and small magazines are not as profitable to make and sell.)
Plus, if criminals are armed with these types of high capacity deadly weapons (because it is so easy for them to get them with no universal background checks), so must those afraid someone will try to kill them using such a weapon. This is nothing short of an NRA-encouraged arms race between citizens, the government and criminals. Frankly, my guess is that unless you walk around all the time with really good head-to-toe body armor, it’s who shoots first that wins against an assault weapon not who has the biggest capacity, fastest shooting gun.
Now…even with elected (not to be confused with responsible) officials talking about using “second amendment remedies” to impose their views on others and threatening other elected officials, even people who are not afraid of the government or criminals and who realize there is a greater chance of injury from a gun in a home with a gun than when there is no gun in the home — even sane, level-headed people — might start to think they need to arm themselves only to protect themselves from the “second amendment remedies” folks that seem to think having bigger gun means they are in charge.
The NRA seems to want to make sure that everyone is afraid enough of something so that we all buy guns, lots of guns. And don’t forget the ammo.
