Do you think Gun store owners realize they're profiting from the deaths of 20 dead children?

[NNguyenMD]

Last edited Sat Dec 29, 2012, 03:48 PM - Edit history (1)

Every story I hear about the surge of gun sales and how AR-15s are flying off the shelves just makes me sick.

If I were a gun store owner I'd feel like I was taking blood money. They're profiteering from the crazed reaction of gun nuts.

My goof, gun not gub

[spanone]

1. what's a gub?

[Brother Buzz]

3. Does this look like gub or gun?

Bank Teller #1: "Does this look like 'gub' or 'gun'?"
Bank Teller #2: "Gun. See? But what's 'abt' mean?"
Virgil Starkwell: "It's 'act'. A-C-T. Act natural. Please put fifty thousand dollars into this bag and act natural."
Bank Teller #1: "Oh, I see. This is a holdup?"

[Hoyt]

2. They don't care, just like those who buy the dang things.

Blood money is still green to the greedy, callous gun profiteers. It is disgusting.

[L0oniX]

4. Do you think GE bomb makers realize they're profiting from the deaths of ____ children?

It's not just guns being used to kill children. A rational discussion about what is killing children would be uncharacteristic on DU right now.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. Harley Davidson used to make munitions

They sold that part off some time back

[Hoyt]

9. Too bad other war profiteers and domestic gun manufacturers don't do the same.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

34. They divested to focus on their core business

For a while it was the only profit HD could count on.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

6. They are selling a lot less

The inventory for firearms, accessories, ammunition and even reloading components is at record lows due to the recent buying spree.

I just read a stat that ammunition inventory is only 10% of what it was in November. That is huge number of rounds and almost all of it unaccountable.

[Ibisa]

7. You're missing the intermediary link

I am a gun owner and competitive shooter, so let me speak to why this is happening. This is pure straight talk - I'm not trying to change your views on guns. Hopefully, you won't take it the wrong way.

Gun owners perceive, based on the President's comments during debates, based on the news media coverage bias, and the short timeline for suggesting more laws is the answer - that anti-gun organizations, anti-gun supporters, and anti-gun politicians are coming for their constitutional rights and their guns.

It is normal human reaction. If you threaten to take something away, people are just going to hoard. What happens when there is a natural disaster coming - all the store shelves become empty and the gas pumps go dry.

Please reflect on this when you blame others. It is the anti-gun effort that is selling the guns.

[Bluenorthwest]

8. How absurd. Those who sell guns are selling the guns, those who buy them are buying them.

They took part in the same sort of frenzied purchase when Obama was first elected. A gun owner I know was all frothy about 'they are going to make ammo illegal' and like many was buying up tons of it. We did make a bet that ammo would be on sale in 2010 but that brave armed raver did not pay me when ammo was still legal and available.
A spike in sales after a mass shooting is disgusting and it does define the entire gun culture as far as I'm concerned.

[Igel]

14. Not absurd.

And in keeping with a lot of the rhetoric.

The surge in sales isn't because gun owners look and say, "Ooh, he used an AR to kill a lot of kids. I gotta get me one of those so I can off a bunch of tyke and be stylin'."

That's sort of the implicature from the OP. It's not implied--there are other possible inferences. But given how it's put, that's the linguistically most salient inference. The killings are what's driven sales.

I think it's wrong. It's not the killings, first and foremost. There are two more likely alternative motivations, with some gun buyers having one of the motivations in mind and others having both. (1) Anti-gun rhetoric. If you having been thinking about buying a gun, an AR, or have a gun and want to have a supply of ammo for it or large capacity magazines, you'd better act now. (2) Self-defense. If you have been thinking about buying a gun for self defense, you're primed to think that if such acts of senseless violence are becoming a commonplace (and that has been a lot of the over-the-top rhetoric) the anti-gun rhetoric will drive you over the top if the straight facts from the news stories don't.

People never like to be responsible for the unintended consequences, and this is extreme enough that they can't even see them when they're pointed out.

(FYI: I have no guns, don't intend to buy a guy, but have shot them. My brother has a lot of guns, a former hunter who loves silhouette shooting. He bought an AR just before the Sandy Hook shootings, and is holding a pistol I guess i'm nominally in charge of. It's essentially new--it has only ever been fired once, and that was by its first owner. My father used it to commit suicide.)

[Fumesucker]

21. It is the gun owners own guilt that drives the purchases

They fear gun confiscation because they know that is the rational thing to do when children are being killed, you remove the item killing the kids. We can't get rid of every possible human threat but we damn sure could get rid of the guns that make such slaughter so easy if we really wanted to.

Gun owners know the guns *should* be confiscated so of course they fear confiscation, it's a perfectly natural guilt reaction.

[Ibisa]

37. What make you say that?

I haven't a single bit of guilt and I have not seen it in any of my fellow gun owners. Only frustration that we are being attacked for the actions of one mentally unstable person. One in millions does not a trend make.

[Robb]

10. Embarrassing post.

[stklurker]

23. Embarrassing Post..?

Embarrassing for whom? its spot on. That you dont like it is besides the fact.. its accurate

[Zoeisright]

28. It's embarrassing to any person who is over the age of 2.

God, I am so sick of immature gun humpers whining about their little Precious. I wish there was some way to just corral all of you in one place so the rest of us can live in sanity and peace.

[stklurker]

32. right...

Immature... like saying that anyone who might have another plausible opinion must be a child under 2 and then mumble some incoherence about 'Precious'... I guess I need to ask how old you are....

[Yo_Mama]

12. I think you're right n/t

[yewberry]

13. Let me present the other side.

I am not a gun owner. I don't fully understand gun enthusiasm but I am not demonizing either.

The current pro-regulation conversation is a direct result of the recent shootings and of the gun-rights advocates responding with nothing more than the same old 'cold, dead hands' response. We are also responding normally. Guns threaten our lives and our children's lives, so the natural response is to try to minimize the threat. The response from gun-rights advocates has been nothing but defensive and offensive, implying that their rights are more important than anyone else's. I actually had someone right here on DU tell me that the Newtown massacre was an inevitable result of our gun laws, but that is the price of our freedom.

Please understand that the message guns-rights advocates are getting across is that your right to your hobby trumps the rights of children to live.

[Zoeisright]

27. Oh, call the waaaaaaahhhhmulance!

Grow the fuck up.

[bongbong]

29. LOL

> coming for their constitutional rights

What a laugh. The 2nd Amendment is about state militias. It has nothing to do with laissez-faire gun ownership, especially by fear-filled yahoos who hate Obama.

[neverforget]

36. The NRA says that shit and none of that has happened. Obama had 4 years to

get gun control through Congress and you know what? No gun control bill was signed but he did EXPAND gun rights.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/2010-midterms-political-price-economic-pain/story?id=12041739#.UN85T3fNmSp

[slackmaster]

11. Probably no more than car dealers realize they're profiting by assisting future drunk drivers

I doubt that they think about it or really feel responsible for the actions of other people.

Every person who buys a gun from a gun store is given a background check. I think dealers see that as an inconvenience, but it does somewhat shield them from moral responsibility. They can't knowingly provide a weapon to a person who is prohibited from owning it.

[Initech]

17. Argh I'm getting really sick of this analogy.Car =/= gun. Period.

[stklurker]

24. analogy

Agreed... and likewise anyone who owns a gun =/= a crazy gun nut who supports killing of innocent people... like many have said, DU is not prepared for a rational discussion, and judging from the reaction in DU.. which is FAR left of the general public, its not going to happen unless we pick reasonable, small steps to start controlling guns and accessories for guns. There is an Everest of guns in America, and you dont conquer Everest in a day.. it takes a lot of preparation and you do it a base camp at a time, slowly edging up..with lots of planning and strategy, sometimes you have to even back up a step so you can get it right as you go up the next time.. and no matter what it takes time and the right support.

[JI7]

15. They don't care, if they did they would Stop as that one PAwn Shop owner did

even though it would hurt his business.

[Tx4obama]

16. Pawn shop owner stops selling guns, article link below

Here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022086557

[alcibiades_mystery]

18. They know damn well

Every gun store owner in Indiana sells to straw purchasers who hand shit over to the drug gangs on the South and West sides of Chicago. They know damn well what they're doing. Don't think there's not a little bit of white guy glee at it, either. They know.

[dkf]

19. Actually they are profiting from fear of the government.

Which isn't good either.

[ellisonz]

20. Yes, and they don't care.

[jmg257]

22. Of course, They will deny any culpability, and shout out "get yours while you can".

[Zax2me]

25. Uh, no - they are profiting from gun control advocates.

Why?
Because the customers tell them.
They say they are afraid of impending gun legislation.
You can spin around to the recent tragedy but that spins away from the truth and into something ugly yourself.

[Squinch]

26. Yes, I do think gun store owners realize they are profiting from the deaths of 20 children.

They just don't care.

[BillyJack]

30. Dont cry for vicsims. n/t

[RomneyLies]

31. They realize it.

They simply don't give a shit.

[Iggo]

33. They know it for a fact.

They just don't give a fuck.

[Care Acutely]

35. They know. Absolutely. They're just sick bastards who care more about money

and guns than they do people.

[lunatica]

38. They're probably buying guns to protect themselves from gun owners gone crazy

Why would they buy guns to protect themselves from people who don't own guns?

This is exactly what LaPierre wants and has been talking about. Happy him!