Since the Republican invention of the southern strategy in 1968, the conservatives ran political campaigns and then governed based on four principles: fear, hate, ignorance, and greed. Those four principles guide all the conservative media and gin up those who listen to it, and guide the invention of new laws, allow corporate welfare, and influence who is imprisoned and who is not. These four marketing principles have seeped into the very being of far too many. And, now, the conservatives have no way to turn it back. No way to turn it off. And, I have to assume that they don’t want to do so, because it has worked so well for them…but, certainly, not for the rest of us.
Those are also the four principles guiding the purchase and use of guns in this country. Fear and hate of people of color and fear of government and the use of ignorance in the promotion of fear and hate…that’s the foundation for buying guns as well as the modus operandi for conservatives in all that they do. And, then add greed, the baseline for capitalism as we know it… profit for the gun industry and money for the NRA and the politicians who support the entire concept. The second amendment is just window dressing to allow the four marketing strategies of conservatives to continue in order to sell guns and anything else that they want to use to prosper by. More below.
Guns are the world’s second most profitable product, after “illegal” drugs as the first. The National Rifle Association is a marketing ploy for gun makers. They have to have someone touting the second amendment in order to have cover to sell guns … any kind of guns…in order to make money. We all know that watching a commercial to purchase guns to kill all those people of color or to defend yourself against the government that is going to do you in just won’t fly. So…bring in the second amendment and the NRA and wave the flag and under that cover sell lots and lots of guns.
The conservatives fall in line … obtaining money from the NRA for their own campaigns and political jobs. Promoting fear and hate of minorities and government is the staple of conservative propaganda and fits right in with the purchase of guns…one has to protect one’s self from those inner city dark-skinned people and from that government that is going to take you away to …who-knows where and then do who-knows what with you.
So … the guns become plentiful and the gun lobby is happy and the conservatives are eager to take the money and run. And the democrats fall in line for some money and votes for themselves as well.
And, then, all this craziness touches someone who no longer has a grip on reality. And the guns are easy to obtain because the guns are everywhere because of fear and hate and ignorance and greed. And, the result is…death, destruction, and harm beyond comprehension. We punish the innocent for our own lack of fortitude and will to place the world back into reality and not let it reside within some imagined, selfishly-designed, marketing ploy.
I am so tired of guns and I am so tired of the strategies that put guns in the hands of whoever wants them. I know guns. My father used one to put a bullet through his head. Hunters used guns to fill my horse with buckshot, to shoot cows, to zing bullets past my head while I walked through the woods on our farm. I know guns.