Rising gun sales have less to do with self defense and fear of terrorism, and more to do with male insecurities.

Courtesy of Quartz: 

As Harry Brod, a sociologist and a founding figure in the field of men’s studies, explains to Quartz, “We’re talking about masculinity in a period of rising feminism and changing gender roles.” Women are leaning in. Hillary Clinton might be our next president. The patriarchy is far from finished, but men on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum especially are feeling threatened. 

Idealizing a physical masculinity can help negate this feeling. Gun marketers know this and so they appeal to male self-image to sell their weapons. In ads that ran in 2012, for instance, Bushmaster Firearms promised that if you buy their semi-automatic weapons, you can “consider your man card reissued.” 

This might also explain why gun sales spike less after a shooting than after calls for stricter control: For men who look to guns to validate their sense of masculinity, the prospect of restrictions imposed by an external authority is disempowering and emasculating.

Aha! We've been saying this for years now!

No wonder Hillary Clinton scares these conservative white men so much. She makes them feel insecure and as if being a man is no longer the shortcut to power and control that it once signified.

And the evidence is certainly mounting that the more emasculated a man feels the more desperate he is to find a metallic penis extender to replace his own rapidly deflating member.

So from now one when you see assholes like this...

...just nod knowingly and go on with your day.