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

[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.)