Promoting Gun Control After Tragedies Leads to More Arms Being Sold

We saw it again in March with a record number of background checks initiated with the National Instant Check System (NICS), which demonstrates once again that ardent gun control efforts actually pushes more Americans to exercise their right to own firearms.

In a recent statement the Second Amendment Foundation noted that, “according to raw data from the FBI, last month saw a record 2,767,699 background checks initiated with the system, which is up 334,607 over the number of checks for March 2017, and up 244,434 NICS initiations in March 2016. While the raw data shows the number of NICS checks initiated, the FBI notes in its monthly reports, it does not reflect the actual number of firearms sold for that time period.”

The anti-gun movement is the single biggest marketing force for the gun industry.

Weighing in on the issue, SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb said the spike is “significant” because of the “anti-gun emotional tidal wave” following the tragic incident at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February that was quickly “used by the gun prohibition lobby to promote gun control.”

“There is only one reason gun sales may have hit a new record high last month,” Gottlieb said, “and that’s the attack on Second Amendment rights that has reached a fever pitch. Even before the victims were identified, the anti-gun lobby was hard at work demonizing gun rights and young adult firearm owners at a level we’ve never witnessed before.”

Gottlieb argues that there is nothing new about this phenomenon, and that gun control activists have yet to figure out that with each new alarmist campaign, they compel more Americans to buy more arms.  The anti-gun movement is the single biggest marketing force for the gun industry.

“The question now is whether student David Hogg and his gun ban buddies in the media finally learn that calls for more new gun control laws only increase gun sales,” Gottlieb wondered. “When you blame people for crimes they didn’t commit and attack their rights, they will defend those rights by exercising them.”  That is pretty simple logic.

So in addition to increasing gun sales — something the anti-gun lobby opposes — it does not even address why these terrible events are happening.  That is a terrible opportunity cost.  Every minute we focus on guns is leading to their proliferation, while not addressing the cause of these terrible events.

The focus on guns reminds us a very important fact, that seems largely ignored by the media and the gun control advocates — the thing these mass murderers have in common are not the choice of weapon. We have seen trucks, explosions, and other weapons in spree killing cases.

What is interesting is the significant number of people in these events that suffer from mental health issues and take medicines with dire warnings that their uses can “lead to suicidal thoughts” or “violence.”  In fact, mental health specialist Dr. Linda Lagemann, has told my audience that in the vast majority of these cases, the perpetrators are on these type of drugs and their use should be reexamined. The journalists have failed to understand, saying that these mass killers were not being treated for suicidal or homicidal tendencies, thus such cannot be the cause.  What Lagemann and many others argue is that, it is true they were not in treatment for those kind of issues, but became violent as a result of the medications.  Thus the focus should be on the causes, not the weapon.

The focus on guns reminds us of a very important fact, that seems largely ignored by the media and the gun control advocates — the thing these mass murderers have in common are not the choice of weapon.

Meanwhile, Lt. Col. David Grossman, who is a best selling author and leading authority on killology, has told my audience about how the rise of extremely realistic violent video games since the 1990s has created whole generations that are now very used to the idea of killing.  Think about the rise of these games and the growth in this type of violence.  Evidence indicates there is a direct link between the rise of these games and these horrible events (particularly by young people in schools).

So we hear calls about “doing something,” focusing mainly on weapons insults those who have been killed or injured, because it does not focus on the cause. And, ironically, contributes to more gun sales. In addition, such a focus emboldens future perpetrators, because if access to guns are curtailed, their choice of weapons would simply change. Yet, those law abiding citizens who would stop them could be prohibited from the means to do so.  Which is why we are seeing such an explosion in gun sales now.

The answer is clear, we need to protect our kids by focusing on the cause, not the weapon.