Poole: Thinking What We Are All Thinking About Gun Marketing

For many years, I did not have a gun. I did not hunt or target shoot. Where did all this manipulative marketing come from? I never saw it. I consider myself an average male who reads magazines and newspapers, yet I never once saw marketing material for me to go out and buy a gun. House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) indicated five companies made $1 billion over 10 years by selling civilians “military-style assault weapons.” What exactly is military-style? Is that like a Maryland-style crab cake? We have no assault weapons legally on the streets. That’s a made-up term to spark fear.

I purchased my first firearm after my house was broken into, with my wife and baby in bed. Over the years, I bought more, largely for self-defense. This oversight committee needs to understand that reducing jail time and penalties and allowing criminals to go free send people into gun shops. Politicians’ failed policies have driven the gun market.

— Donald Poole in Failed Policies Drive Gun Sales, Not ‘Marketing’ 

EDIT by Jeremy S. — as I read and scheduled Grace’s Quote of the Day post here I couldn’t stop myself from chiming in. Poole’s quote (the last two sentences, specifically) is one of those great truths that’s just so clearly, deeply factual that it’s painfully and intuitively obvious on its face, yet it likely hasn’t occurred to many people. Possibly one of those “why didn’t I think about that?” epiphany moments, despite being cuffed about the ears by data like the spike in firearm sales over the last two years. There was nothing whatsoever that changed in gun-related marketing from 2019 to 2020; it didn’t cause the doubling in firearm sales that we saw across those two years. Policies that allowed and fomented riots and handcuffed police officers did.

Also, RE Poole’s Maryland-style crab cake remark, a few years ago I was in Manhattan’s lower east side at a cafe and I was going to grab coffee and some sort of pastry or dessert there with a friend. The menu said “New York Style Cheesecake,” so I berated the poor waiter. “I’m in New York City, why the heck does your menu say it’s New York style cheesecake? I can get that in San Francisco. If you’re making it and serving it here, isn’t it actual New York Cheesecake?” Anyway, needless to say I didn’t order it. We got coffee style coffee and left.