It’s not about the profits

There have been many news and blog posts on a multitude of sites discussing various aspects of the American gun debate. These article appear after every mass shooting (and even after some of the minor ones) and that certainly includes the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida last week.

Many of these articles include the idea that the NRA is wielding its campaign of no gun restrictions to boost the profits of the gun manufacturers. If the article’s author doesn’t mention it commenters usually will.

But I don’t think that’s true. I think it something else, something deeper and more pervasive: racism.

First bit of evidence: There is a National Tracing Center in West Virginia. When a cop anywhere in America wants to run a trace on a gun to discover its owner the request comes here. They do about 370,000 traces a year. When a gun is sold a record of the sale comes here. The center receives about 2 million sales records a month.

Two million new records a month. 370,000 requests to access those records each year. This is an operation that has Big Data at its core. Except…

Computer databases are banned. Yeah, really.

In 1986, thanks to the NRA, Congress passed a law saying there cannot be a searchable database of America’s gun owners. The NRA’s reason: It would be a tool to confiscate guns. Government evildoers are going to attack any day. You don’t give the enemy an inventory of your weapons.

It’s like a library without a card catalog (remember those?). At least the National Tracing Center has microfilm…

This goes way beyond maintaining profits for gun makers. This is a situation where a product is used to kill someone and the owners of that product do all they can to make sure the perpetrator cannot be caught.

Second bit of evidence: Back in 2016 Danny Glover was at a Martin Luther King event and, apparently in response to a question, said:

The Second Amendment comes from the right to protect themselves from slave revolts, and from uprisings by Native Americans. So, a revolt from people who were stolen from their land, or revolt from people whose land was stolen from, that’s what the genesis of the Second Amendment is.

The same idea had been proposed by Mother Jones back in 2008. Well regulated militias refers to state militias that were used to suppress slave revolts.

In this blog I’ve talked a lot about ranking, or a societal hierarchy – male over female, white over black, Christian over non, straight over gay, rich over poor. The list goes on. This is a strong force in America. People define themselves by their place in the hierarchy and are willing to use violence and even killing to maintain their place or move up in the ranking – and prevent those people from moving up.

The fastest and most thorough way to enforce or challenge the hierarchy is with a gun. Many a black man has received his first gun with the thought you ain’t gonna mess with me no more. Many a white man buys a gun for protection – to make sure his place in societal ranking is not challenged.

So the reason why the National Tracing Center can’t have a computer, why so many are fearful of the government taking their guns, why Democrats are demonized is to make sure those whose place in the hierarchy feels threatened can keep a tool to enforce their superiority. Putting up with mass shootings in schools and night clubs is a small price to pay for the ability to keep that enforcement.

And those deaths may not be seen as a price at all. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos writes about Dana Loesch, spokesperson for the NRA, who recently gave what many see is a vile speech.

Because it’s only following a shooting that the NRA can prove its real worth to its real supporters. It’s only in the face of horrid tragedy, complete with dead children and agonized families, that the NRA does its real job—creating talking points, deflecting the conversation, putting the blame anywhere but where it belongs. And their real clients, the people they really care about, are extremely grateful. Because they love mass shootings, too.
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It’s that without the NRA to protect your guns, all those gun grabbers would take them away.

The NRA doesn’t just want people afraid. They want people afraid for their guns.
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The NRA gets to prove its worth in two ways: It builds up the fear that someone is coming to snatch away guns, and it makes sure that reasonable conversations about sensible changes to gun laws can’t happen.

Why might people be afraid for their guns? Because guns are so important in enforcing societal ranking. And people care so much about their rank they’re willing to kill.

It isn’t about the profits (though they’re sweet). It’s about keeping the ability to enforce societal ranking.