The American arms race, sponsored by our old friends the NRA.

Courtesy of Versus News:  

The NRA and its gun-absolutist cohorts have set up a domestic arms race: They promote laws that make it easy for criminals to get guns and then use the threat of armed criminals to persuade law-abiding citizens into buying guns for self-defense—to complete the cycle, these groups then use law-abiding citizens’ fear of not being able to defend themselves in order to convince them to support the very deregulation which made the problem in the first place. 

This constantly escalating domestic arms race leads to huge profits for the people who make the guns but results in the USA being flooded with dangerous weapons. The gun manufacturers make money regardless of whether the person buying a gun is an offense-minded criminal or a defense-minded law-abiding citizen. In fact, the economic interests of gun manufacturers lie with both types of people purchasing their product and adding to their profits. 

By creating increased demand for their goods on both sides of the law and blocking any attempts to prevent criminals from buying weapons—the NRA even fights to let accused terrorists buy guns—the gun industry ensures that there is always somebody looking to buy a gun. 

If one is to disregard morality and simple human decency in pursuit of profits, this business strategy is extremely effective and well-designed—they have maximized the number of people who are buying guns without having to admit to the fact that they are promoting the problem which people are all afraid of. 

This situation is analogous to an arms manufacturer selling weapons to both a peaceful democracy and an autocracy with a history of aggression (ex. South and North Korea, respectively). In order to increase their business, this arms manufacturer could sell weapons to the autocracy under the table, then go to the democracy and point out that their violent neighbor is getting enough weapons to be a threat. Because of this threat, the democracy would be compelled to buy weapons in order to balance the threat of their law-less neighbor.

This is precisely what the NRA is doing. Precisely!

They absolutely LOVE IT when there is a mass shooting. It scares people, and the NRA is right there to tell them that in order to feel safe all they need is a warm gun. (The only thing that stops a bad man with a gun, is a good guy with bigger gun.)

This of course encourages MORE gun purchases, and eventually more guns in the hands of criminals and crazy people. So of course it is not long before another horrific shooting takes place, and the cycle continues.

I am not sure if we are going to see any movement on the gun control front any time soon. But I still hold out hope that as the country moves further and further away from the conservative mindset that the support for the NRA will also dry up, and perhaps then we can do something permanent about reducing the number of guns on the street and the ease with which people who have no business owning one gain access to them.