Do businesses seek profits by engaging in business practices that are harmful to America? To most progressives, the answer is an unqualified “Yes”. And it should take most readers no more than a few moments of reflection to come up with examples of these sorts of business plans in action: the Iraq war, in which the American government and country as a whole is weakened for the increased profits for arms manufactures and the petroleum industry; bankers advocating changes in banking regulations in order to sell fraudulent but highly profitable securities that spurred an economic calamity; advocating for the greater use of fossil fuels as an energy source to the determent of food and fresh water supplies. All of these examples demonstrate ways in which businesses actively pursued profits by implementing a business plan that is damaging to the American economy, to American family life, to US military strength, and to our democracy.
Today, I would like to write about a less-well recognized example of a business making a profit on practices that are hurting our nation's strength and democracy, and our neighbors and communities: gun sales.
Sales of guns and ammo for personal use is a profitable business. In 2009, US gun sales topped 14 million guns, more guns than were sold to the top 21 standing armies in the world. Of course, this is the “official” figure, and here in the US as elsewhere, there is a large underground market in gun and ammo sales, meaning this figure of 14 million guns sold surely underestimates the total number of guns sold in the US. I was not able to find a reliable estimate of the total worth of that trade. I did find out that in 2010, Smith and Wesson reported net sales of $406 million, of which $357 million came from the sale of firearms (they also sell things like 'perimeter' security). Ruger reported net sales of $255 million for the year 2010, and the most recent figure I could find for Remington was total revenues of $390 million in 2004 (I guess they don't update their web-site very often). Again, these numbers only reflect official sales, and because of the large underground market, including sales at guns shows and the illegal gun trade, under-report the total worth of the gun industry in the US.
Today, there are approximately 192 million guns owned by roughly 44 million US gun-owners, and somewhere between 35-40% of US households own at least one gun.
And of course, the gun manufacturers want to increase that trade. So they advertise their products, form consumer groups to pump up sales (the NRA is an obvious example), and lobby congress to ensure a favorable legislative climate in which to grow gun sales. As an example, in 2008, the NRA launched a $40 million advertising blitz to increase gun and ammo sales campaign, of which $15 million was used to specifically portray Pres. Obama as a threat to the right to own guns, and urge consumers therefore to go right out and buy lots of weapons before Obama made such sales illegal. Apparently the campaign worked like a charm, as gun sales in the US in 2009 were reported to increase 39% from the previous year, despite the expense of guns and ammo, the worsening economy, and tightening of consumer spending in other areas of the economy (Hence, the 14 million guns sold that year: remember all those news reports shortly after Pres. Obama was elected that talked about the widespread shortages of guns and ammo due to booming sales?). Interestingly, the supposed clamp-down on gun sales from the anti-gun Obama never materialized (those sneaky secret Muslims are like that!).
In fact, the last time the US Congress enacted any sort of restriction on gun sales was 1994, and the passage of the assault weapons ban is widely credited with helping the defeat of House democrats that year. Law-makers have learned over the years that speaking out about restricting gun and ammo sales is a quick way to end a legislative career. So Pres. Obama has never put forth any plans to enact legislation to restrict gun and ammo sales. And neither have any other legislatures. The NRA alone provides a lot of money to law-makers; $16 million in campaign contributions between 1990 and 2006, and maintains an in-house staff of five full-time lobbyists. And the NRA is only one group that lobbies for greater gun sales to Congress. The gun lobby hold such sway over our law-makers that they were able to get Congress to pass a special law in 2005 that shields gun manufacturers, importers and retailers from lawsuits brought by those who seek damages after being shot and injured by one of their lethal products. As an aside, that was the same year that congress passed a law shielding fast-food chains from lawsuits brought by people made obese from their addictively sugar- and fat-infused food.
The gun industry in America has every right to lobby their representatives, just like those of us who are not gun manufacturers. But there is no reason why they should not do so like all the rest of Americans do – at Town Hall meetings when their representative deign to hold one.
But beyond what it does for the bottom line of American gun manufacturers, is the easy availability of guns and ammo good for our citizens, our communities, and our country?
Just ask Gabrielle Giffords and the 18 others who were shot in January of this year by a madman who purchased a gun and extended ammo clip. (This paragraph gets pretty heavy with numbers and statistics, so those readers who don't like that kind of thing can skip over this.) The Center for Disease Control reports that during the years 2001 to 2009, 450,000 Americans suffered a non-fatal gunshot injury, for a crude incident rate of 17 incidents per 100,000 persons. During the years 2001-2007, 212,000 Americans suffered a fatal gunshot injury, for a crude gunshot death rate of 10.3 per 100,000 persons; 86,000 of those deaths were classified as homicide/legal interventions (crude rate of 4.23 per 100,000), 118,000 were classified as suicide (crude rate of 5.79 per 100,000), and 4,897 persons died of unintentional gunshot injuries (yes, I know the numbers don't add up correctly, and that is because the CDC classifies many different kinds of gun injuries and I only listed a few here). Guns are the most popular means of suicide in the US, and account for 51% of all completed suicides. Hand-gun homicide rates in the US are 20-25 times higher than in other stable, industrialized nations (like in Europe), though gun death rates are higher still in some developing nations and in countries marked by political or social unrest.
Gun advocates point out that crime is rampant in the US and guns are an important part of personal safety. In a study published in the American Journal of Public Health examining the years from 1987 to 1990, guns were found to be used as defense during a crime in 258,000 incidents out of 14 million crimes committed (crimes examined: rape, robbery, assault, motor vehicle theft, burglary, personal larceny, and home larceny ), representing less than two uses of a gun for defense for every 1,000 incidents of crime (0.18%). In 28% of these incidents of gun use, the victim shot the criminal; the majority of these shootings involved on-the-job police officers. And during this same period, there were 46,000 gun homicides, and in over 500,000 incidents, criminal offenders shot at their victims. So, the ratio of victims dead in crime compared to the number of victims who ward off crime using a gun still heavily favors getting killed from criminal activity. Gun advocates tell us the solution for that is more guns; which is a reasonable suggestion if you ignore the idea that increasing gun availability is just as likely to increase the number of gun homicides along with the number of crime victims successfully defending themselves with a gun.
No doubt, guns are forever bound with American culture and mythology. The hardy frontiersman who uses his flintlock to put food on the table and fight off the British oppressors is a stable American archetype. The Second Amendment to our constitution ensures that the debate over gun use in the US will go on. We all want our nation to be prosperous and a place where businesses can thrive, and gun manufacturers have a right to make and sell their products to interested buyers. And as we discuss gun sales and ownership, the arguments are often cloaked in the lofty language of constitutional rights and civil liberties. But the primary goal of the gun industry in the US is to make profits for itself first and foremost, and they are only too happy to use arguments about rights and liberties as a means to accomplish that goal. And if the goal of greater profits could be had by restricting rights and liberties, the gun industry would make that argument, as well (and they do, as anyone dying from a gun homicide is indeed deprived of their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness). Under a democratic system of government, the gun manufacturers would have no exceptional access to our law-makers nor preferential treatment under the law. Under a corporatocracy, however, they are free to buy and sell law-makers to get the laws that suit them the best, while telling us they are doing it out of their great concern for our well-being. For seeking greater profits from the sale of a product that result in death, permanent disability, personal hardship, and increased misery for Americans, their families and communities, the firearm industry provides a perfect example of corporate business plans that are harmful to Americans individually, our families, our communities, and our country as a whole.