"This decline of the firearms sportsman, a central figure of American folklore, has been a slow process over many years. That decline also does a lot to explain why the NRA has become increasingly politically rabid, and not just about gun rights. Their video network, NRA TV, puts out an enormous amount of content that has little or nothing to do with guns, but is about stoking right-wing resentments over immigration, feminism and liberalism in general.
This shift suggests that the NRA, and the gun industry in general, is trying to double down on the idea that guns are markers of identity totems of loyalty to the right-wing tribe precisely because there's no way the industry can stay afloat through straightforward, benign marketing to sportsmen. Johnson pointed out that Cameron Gray, a producer who posted and then deleted a tweet saying he and other employees were laid off, was "one of the only guys who is more lighthearted" on the network. Johnson suggested that the network is "going further and further with the extreme rhetoric" in an effort to stir its right-wing audiences into rage and fear against liberals, in hopes that they will channel those emotions into buying more guns.
But as Johnson suggests, the NRA may have "put themselves in a corner" with this strategy. There's only so many guns one can sell by convincing angry conservatives that stockpiling expensive, high-powered weapons is a way to stick it to the libs. Indeed, a great deal of the revenue decline is because the NRA is simply losing members, and therefore membership dues.
So the customer base for guns is shrinking, and the effort to squeeze more gun sales out of the existing customer base with right-wing hysterics is starting to wear thin. The gun industry may soon find itself in the same boat as the tobacco industry was a couple of decades ago, hit by the twin forces of increasing public support for regulation and declining public interest in its products. What was once a behemoth that seemed impossible to defeat is starting to show signs of weakness, beaten down as much by the invisible hand of the free market as by political opposition." Amanda Marcotte
This shift suggests that the NRA, and the gun industry in general, is trying to double down on the idea that guns are markers of identity totems of loyalty to the right-wing tribe precisely because there's no way the industry can stay afloat through straightforward, benign marketing to sportsmen. Johnson pointed out that Cameron Gray, a producer who posted and then deleted a tweet saying he and other employees were laid off, was "one of the only guys who is more lighthearted" on the network. Johnson suggested that the network is "going further and further with the extreme rhetoric" in an effort to stir its right-wing audiences into rage and fear against liberals, in hopes that they will channel those emotions into buying more guns.
But as Johnson suggests, the NRA may have "put themselves in a corner" with this strategy. There's only so many guns one can sell by convincing angry conservatives that stockpiling expensive, high-powered weapons is a way to stick it to the libs. Indeed, a great deal of the revenue decline is because the NRA is simply losing members, and therefore membership dues.
So the customer base for guns is shrinking, and the effort to squeeze more gun sales out of the existing customer base with right-wing hysterics is starting to wear thin. The gun industry may soon find itself in the same boat as the tobacco industry was a couple of decades ago, hit by the twin forces of increasing public support for regulation and declining public interest in its products. What was once a behemoth that seemed impossible to defeat is starting to show signs of weakness, beaten down as much by the invisible hand of the free market as by political opposition." Amanda Marcotte
Waco1947
