NRA apology to Open Carry shows that the NRA is a gun marketing group, not a rights lobby [View all]

[phantom power]

The NRA needs to be understood not as a lobby for gun owners, but as a lobby for gun sellers. Their job, above all other things, is to protect the profits of the gun industry. That means that they can’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, which is pandering to and provoking this highly insecure masculinity that drives gun sales. Unsurprisingly, then, the NRA has apologized for this blog post and has changed position entirely.

“It shouldn’t have happened,” NRA Institute for Legislative Action director Chris Cox said on theCam and Co. radio show. “I’ve had a discussion with the staffer who wrote that piece, and expressed his personal opinion. Our job is not to criticize the lawful behavior of fellow gun owners.”

To understand why they did this, you have to understand the marketing pressures on the gun industry. I wrote a piece about this for Alternet, but to summarize: The normal, responsible gun owner who enjoys sport shooting but keeps their gun locked away responsibly and knows you don’t need a mini-arsenal to enjoy guns is a dying breed. However, the development of the paranoid, highly insecure right winger who feels this pressing needs to “prove” the manliness he is secretly worried he doesn’t have is? Now that’s a gold mine. That guy will buy gun after gun after gun, hoping that if he drowns himself in scary-looking weapons, those secret insecurities will be kept at bay.

If the NRA really was a gun rights lobby whose interest was in protecting responsible gun owners, then the “leave your guns at home, son” stance is the correct one. If they are a gun industry lobby interested in stoking the belief that your can regain your manhood by waving a bunch of AR-15s at suburban moms having lunch with their kids at McDonalds, then kissing the ass of the idiots at Open Carry Texas is the best way to go about it. The NRA isn’t interested in promoting the interests of responsible gun owners. They’re interested in selling guns. The nuts who wouldn’t know responsibility if it bit them on the ass are the people who are buying guns right now. The NRA is like any marketing group: They are interested in provoking insecurity so they can sell you a product that supposedly fixes it. They’re no more going to tell gun owners to cut it out with the embarrassing gun displays than Ferrari is going to encourage drivers to obey the speed limit and consider the value of driving a more sensible vehicle like a Volkswagen instead.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/04/nra-apology-to-open-carry-shows-that-the-nra-is-a-gun-marketing-group-not-a-rights-lobby/