Tim Dickinson has a pretty hilarious piece out at Rolling Stone trying to explain why gun sales are skyrocketing… at the same time he declares the industry to be dying. He thinks that because traditional hunting rifle sales are down that the gun industry is doomed… then goes on to spend several paragraphs talking about the boom in sales for “assault” weapons (which are hunting rifles) and handguns. And yes the rest of the article is equally silly.
Let’s take a look:
Much of the industry’s recent success is linked to politics – in particular, to the gun-buying public’s anxiety about the first black man in the White House.
It is obvious Tim doesn’t know many Republicans, or US citizens for that matter. This reads to me like some rich kid trying to explain the experience of someone who lives in the projects… or to be more precise, like a leftist who never leaves his bubble trying to explain what people who love liberty think. He doesn’t know anyone like that and they are his political enemies so he defames them with whatever the meme of the day happens to be. And he doesn’t bother to offer any evidence to back up his assertion… because there is not any.
Trade magazines used to fret that the “Barack Boom” would be a short-term spike in revenues. Instead, the Obama presidency appears to have catalyzed durable growth.
Ok, which is it? Is the gun industry on the way out as you claimed earlier in the article or is it experiencing durable growth? I know Obama makes a habit of contradicting himself several times in every speech, often even in the same sentence, but that doesn’t mean it is something to aspire to.
Then he describes how the gun industry is attempting to expand into new markets… something that apparently is just unheard of in his circles.
Marketing powerful guns to women as the only surefire protection against sexual and violent predators.
He says this as if it is a bad thing instead of an obvious truth. I doubt the marketers would claim a gun is surefire protection but it is hard to argue it is not the very best protection one can have. It is certainly better than a rape whistle or a phone call to the cops. Maybe he would prefer his wife waive a copy of the article he just wrote at any would be assailant? Who knows, he never says what the best protection is against someone who attacks a woman. That is because he would have to say it is a gun.
Then he goes on to mock people who have read history books and understand economics.
there’s another dedicated breed of buyer who is stockpiling weapons out of true fear of social collapse driven by dark forces outside of their control – whether it’s a superstorm, rampant inflation or an out-of-control government
Yes, none of these things have ever happened Tim. No need to be worried. We are in the best of hands. Keynesianism has never lead to rampant inflation, governments have never gone broke, tyrants have never been elected or seized power by other means, natural disasters do not occur. It must be nice to live in the world you live in Tim. Too bad it is not the real one. On that I think we can all agree.
And then after telling us how paranoid the right must be to feel persecuted he goes on to describe what the left is doing.
investor activism by the California teacher’s pension fund spurred the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management to exit the gun business.
From Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel is calling in chits from the world of finance, pressuring the CEOs of Bank of America and TD Bank – which extend credit to gunmakers – to use financial leverage to demand companies like Smith & Wesson and Ruger back an assault-weapons ban and universal background checks.
Minneapolis’ mayor, R.T. Rybak, announced in January that he’s in talks with mayors of about 60 cities to withhold police firearm and ammunition purchases from gunmakers that lobby against gun control.
In other words, after saying that we are not oppressed and our rights to bear arms are not under siege he goes on to describe how elected officials are acting outside their authority and using strong arm tactics to deny us our 2nd Amendment rights. I count the teacher’s pension in here as well since the government forces everyone to pay their salaries and it is not clear who administers their pension fund. In short the government uses force to make you pay the teachers and then uses some of that same money to lobby against your civil and human right to bear arms and provide for you own defense. But then I guess we are just being paranoid if we feel under assault.
Tim, you need not wonder why people feel threatened and are arming themselves. You need only read what you just wrote.