There was something Bartcop used to say. I'm about to totally mangle it in misremembering, I expect. [View all]

[Robb]

The gist of it was, if a company makes a shit-ton of money because of doing something wrong, only an idiot would expect them to put any effort into fixing the "problem."

It struck me today, in the midst of everything else, gun maker Smith & Wesson reported Q4 revenues were up 38% over the same period last year -- basically how their sales were through the roof, like most gunmakers', because of the fear of gun enthusiasts that, after the Sandy Hook school shootings, there might be some legislation in the pike that would reduce their access to guns.

And I remembered, as it were, my Bartcop. He helped me find DU all those many moons ago.

We've all been made aware the majority of the NRA's funding comes from the gun manufacturers. That only makes sense. They're out to make a buck.

But the real money isn't made just when the NRA boosters are doing their thing for them at trade shows and expos. The real money the gun manufacturers collect comes when the fear is high -- not the fear you might expect, of someone coming to take away their lives, or their jewelry -- but the fear someone's going to take their guns. When shootings make the news in big ways, it happens every time -- the gun folks run out and stock up in the aftermath.

Everyone knows this. But here's the part that makes it important.

Even the worst business forecaster in the world could recognize it is hardly in the gun manufacturers' interests to support laws that could actually reduce the occurrence of such events. To the contrary, it would make the most sense -- from the business perspective -- to do everything possible to ensure such horrific events become as regular as possible.

This is why, amusingly, we hear so much from gun folks about how Proposed Law X "won't prevent another Columbine." Because it probably won't; it's Unproposed Law Y, the one that will never see the light of day, the one that reduces the number of guns out there and cuts into the gunmakers' profits, that actually might prevent another Sandy Hook.

But that law, we will be told over and over, "will never happen in gun-lovin' America."

The argument is framed with two choices: the ineffective vs. the impossible. That is the work the NRA does on behalf of the gun manufacturers.

And that is the false choice we must address if we ever wish to move forward and actually stop the killing.