How the NRA sells guns in America today
The surge in NRA memberships and gun sales had nothing to do with Barack Obama’s anti-gun policies. It was all due to the NRA’s inherent racism. Allegedly . . .
Since the 1990s, the NRA has been enormously successful at stoking white Americans’ fears about their darker-skinned fellow citizens while simultaneously cultivating paranoia about left-wing politicians seeking to take away their guns. Barack Obama’s presidency was a watershed event in this dynamic.
During his eight years in office, the NRA’s membership grew from three million to five million. The organization’s combined political spending during election cycles increased from about $6 million in 1998 to nearly $60 million in 2016. According to the Pew Research Center, the percentage of gun owners who cite “protection” as their top reason for owning a gun grew from 26 percent in 1999 to 67 percent in 2017.
During roughly the same period, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, firearms manufacturers increased their annual output of handguns more than fourfold, from 1.3 million to 5.6 million. Firearms imports also surged, from about 900,000 guns in 1999 to over five million in 2016.
What these figures reveal, perhaps not surprisingly, is that the fortunes of the firearms industry are deeply intertwined with the political activism of the NRA.
Big banks take a stand against the gun industry
In other words, they’re picking a side in a political fight, making sure to alienate a significant percentage of their customers who value the right to keep and bear arms . . .
It’s too early to say for sure, but it could be that the free market will wind up doing what Congress refuses to do: tighten access to firearms and stand up to companies that make and sell assault-style weapons.
Bank of America announced last week that it will no longer finance companies that make the kinds of combat-style semiautomatic rifles that have been used to such deadly effect in mass shootings. Last month, Citigroup Inc. announced that it would prohibit clients using its financial services and credit cards from selling firearms to customers who have not passed a background check, or who are younger than 21, even when neither of those things are required by law. It also now refuses to do business with clients who sell bump stocks — the device the Las Vegas sniper used to convert his semiautomatic rifles into ersatz machine guns — and high-capacity magazines. Those banking sector moves followed policy changes among some major retailers, such as Walmart and Dick’s Sporting Goods, to end sales of some guns in their stores and tighten restrictions on sales of others.
Germany’s Sig Sauer accused of illegally sending weapons to Colombia
Germans are usually quite good and crossing t’s and dotting i’s . . .
German weapons manufacturer Sig Sauer has been accused of illegally exporting tens of thousands of pistols to Colombia. Authorities have charged managers with violating Germany’s foreign trade regulations.
The public prosecutor’s office in Kiel, northern Germany, on Thursday confirmed it had charged five managers of arms producer Sig Sauer for delivering guns to Colombia without authorization.
The case relates to over 36,000 pistols, manufactured by the company in the Baltic coast town of Eckernförde, that ended up in the hands of Colombian police via a subsidiary in the United States, a spokesman for the prosecutor said.
NBC’s Taken tries to convince viewers that gun-free zones are fine, that criminals will obey them
Good luck with that . . .
NBC seems to have given out orders to its TV shows to include some anti-gun/pro-gun control mention in them. In this episode of Taken, the show tries to briefly and subtly convey to viewers that gun-free zones work because the criminals won’t disobey the bans. Does anyone seriously think that a group of paid, professional killers couldn’t find some way to get a gun into a hospital? The guard who scans people coming into the hospital doesn’t even scan the lady’s back with his metal detector wand.
There is no discussion that 98% of the mass public shootings in the US since 1950 have occurred in gun-free zones — places where general citizens are banned from having guns.
Lawmakers advance bill to bar manufacture of ‘ghost guns’
New Jersey isn’t going to sit back and let California occupy the far left fringe of the anti-gun movement all by itself . . .
New Jersey lawmakers advanced a measure to prohibit the purchase of firearms parts used to make untraceable weapons, or so-called ghost guns.
The Democrat-led Senate law and public safety committee approved the measure on Monday. The panel is also considering a half-dozen gun-controlled measures that have cleared the Democrat-controlled Assembly.
Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy has said he generally supports measures aimed at tightening the state’s already-strict gun laws.
Woman Calls Police Over Man Wearing Pro-Gun T-Shirt At Park
His openly carried pistol may have had something to do with her hysterical reaction, too . . .
Approximately 30 minutes after the kids began playing, a man approached him with his wife and daughter in tow, Johnston said.
He said the man told him that a woman was “fuming” over the message on Johnston’s shirt, as well as the fact that he was armed.
“I thanked him for letting me know, and continued playing with my kids,” Johnson said.
A short while later, another man and his family approached Johnston, and asked to read his shirt, he said.
Johnston showed him his shirt, at which point the man warned him that his father-in-law had just been harassed by woman in the parking lot, and that she was contacting police regarding Johnson’s attire.
I would love for guns to be sold at Wal-Mart for $5. pic.twitter.com/n4i1vQxxMO
— EducatédHillbilly™ (@RobProvince) April 16, 2018