A Major Reason Gun Sales Remain Strong

Gun Watch ^ | July 4, 2018 | Dean Weingarten

[marktwain]

Gun sales have remained strong during the Trump era. Through the end of May, 2018 is trending to be the second highest year on record. The NICS checks through May of 2018 are 97% of those of 2016. Political writers and gun industry writers, and those who are both, have speculated that politics have been the major driver of guns sales for the last decade. The latest Rassmussen poll shows evidence of a deeper reason people would fear to be disarmed. From rasmussenreports.com:

Thirty-one percent (31%) of Likely U.S. Voters say it’s likely that the United States will experience a second civil war sometime in the next five years, with 11% who say it’s Very Likely. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 59% consider a second civil war unlikely, but that includes only 29% who say it’s Not At All Likely. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Democrats (37%) are more fearful than Republicans (32%) and voters not affiliated with either major party (26%) that a second civil war is at hand.

But 59% of all voters are concerned that those opposed to President Trump’s policies will resort to violence, with 33% who are Very Concerned. This compares to 53% and 28% respectively in the spring of Obama’s second year in office. Thirty-seven percent (37%) don’t share that concern, including 16% who are Not At All Concerned.

If you are concerned that a second civil war could break out, many would not wish to be unarmed. Conversely, one could very well wish for the opposition to be disarmed.

This dynamic plays well for the soaring gun sales during the Obama administration and the strong sales during the Trump era so far. Most Constitutionalists, Second Amendment supporters, and Trump supporters (with lots of overlap) already see the opposition of Leftists, Progressives, or Socialists/Communists, take your pick of titles, as being disarmed. On the other hand the Hillary supporters now see a significant reason to be armed themselves.

The Rassmussen poll shows 37% of Democrats are fearful, while only 32% of Republicans are. The smallest number is of Independents, at 28%.

31% of the electorate is a huge number to think civil war likely or very likely. I do not count my self among that number.

But the possibility of armed conflict in the United States is a reality. A good article on the chance of a nationwide violent revolution in the United states, as 37% in a lifetime.

The math presented by BJ Cambell is persuasive. From Medium.com:

Stepping through this, the average year for colony establishment is 1678, which is 340 years ago. Two qualifying events in 340 years is a 0.5882% annual chance of nationwide violent revolution against the ruling government. Do the same math as we did above with the floodplains, in precisely the same way, and we see a 37% chance that any American of average life expectancy will experience at least one nationwide violent revolution.

The U.S. has been one of the most politically stable places on the planet. Almost everywhere else, the odds are much, much worse.

If you believe civil war is likely within five years, why wouldn't you want to own an AR-15, a pistol or two, and plenty of ammunition?

©2018 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch

[Blood of Tyrants]

BLOAT!

[Osage Orange]

I don’t...........

[wastedyears]

Patton lead the army against the Bonus Army camp.

[marktwain]

Yes he did. Eisenhower was involved, and MacArthur.

They were being good soldiers, and got rewarded for it later.

Remember, the Army in the 30’s was very small.

[from occupied ga]

most combatants on both sides knew how to shoot guns

. Not true. Most southerners knew, but the city boys from the north not so much. Supposedly the National rifle association was formed after the war (ironically in New York City) because of this lack of firearms familiarity.

[freeandfreezing]

You mean guys like the combat veterans who served in Vietnam, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria along with a few other places like Somalia? I always thought they would have a pretty good handle on what fighting was like, and how important it was to avoid it.

Also, if you want to understand what a modern civil war looks like don't read about the battle of Gettysburg.

Preventing violence should be everyone's primary goal.

[FrankR]

However, when the other guy is shooting at you, somehow standing in a circle with flowers in your hair and singing “Kumbaya” doesn’t seem appropriate at the time.

[redcatcherb412]

However, when the other guy is shooting at you, somehow standing in a circle with flowers in your hair and singing “Kumbaya” doesn’t seem appropriate at the time.

The snowflake or millennial that has never been under hostile fire other than xbox, will not know what that *snap* sound was and will freeze and crane their neck looking around while the next shot hits them in the melon. Saw it many times in the bush with FNG's that should have never graduated boot much less AIT.

[Blue Jays]

"...Civil War II..."

---

CWII is not a concern to me. Our republic is sufficiently strong that we likely don’t need to panic for the immediate future.

What is disconcerting is the likelihood of random, pop-up, leftwinger violence that can leave innocents just as dead as full-scale war. For example, my home is in a lily-white town surrounded by other lily-white towns. Successful and peaceful residents populate all of them.

The virtue-signaling leftwinger church (a quarter-mile away) got the big idea they should sponsor a Black Lives Matter march even though none of their parishioners are black and there have never been reports of police brutality in town. Probably because a “crime wave” around here would be people jaywalking. Or maybe cutting the tags off a sofa that say they shouldn’t be removed...

Anyway, this moronic church managed to import busloads of angry black people and self-hating leftwingers to our little hamlet. I am talking multiple hundreds of chanting, riled-up, people who do not live here...all milling around and looking for any excuse to fight/riot. All it would take is one garbage can going through a storefront window or one car being set on fire to energize the mob. The tension was t-h-i-c-k that day.

So who wants to be that innocent and unarmed person a quarter-mile away when that thuggish mob goes completely feral? That safe full of firearms (that many people around here possess) was a tremendous source of comfort and resolve. Protesters can chant, they can wave signs, yet the moment cars start getting flipped onto their roofs or people start tossing rocks and bottles...the game changes. That is my assessment of what I think could typically occur on a local basis when leftwingers don’t get their way.

[dsc]

“Preventing violence should be everyone’s primary goal.”

At the cost of liberty? Can’t agree with that.

[21twelve]

Preventing violence is one of the reasons why I have firearms.

[Joe Brower]

Heh. The knot on cueball's forehead is a nice touch. $B-D

[litehaus]

” Doesn’t everyone have a smartphone? “

“Doesn’t everyone have an unimplanted tracking device on themselves”

[NorthMountain]

Preventing violence should be everyone's primary goal.

The primary means of preventing violence is being prepared to deal out defensive or retaliatory violence in overwhelming quantity.

Plan accordingly.

[freeandfreezing]

At the cost of liberty? Can’t agree with that.

That's not what I said either. But adopting tactics and strategies that preserve everyone's liberty with the minimum amount of violence, and hopefully none at all should be everyone's goal.

I hope you don't think that encouraging violence in the pursuit of liberty when other options exist is a good idea.

[1Old Pro]

The country is one that was founded on personal responsibility and gun ownership. It’s a small investment for the few times one might need to utilize it. It’s cheap insurance and given the crazed violence of the Left and the drugs flowing over our open borders and the gangs we allow in and the mental illness we apparently don’t recognize people are smart to protect themselves.

[HeadOn]

“I’m too slow to run away and too old to take a beating.”

An friend who’s passed away now lied about his age to get into the Navy in WWII. He always used to say, “Never pick a fight with an old man. If he can’t whip you, he’ll just kill you.”

[dsc]

“Preventing violence is one of the reasons why I have firearms.”

Never thought about that question. I guess the reason I have them, other than hunting, is that I’ve had a lot of violence forced on me, and I don’t intend ever to be in a “fair fight” again.

[dsc]

“But adopting tactics and strategies that preserve everyone’s liberty with the minimum amount of violence, and hopefully none at all should be everyone’s goal.”

That would be ideal. However, what people are really, really good at, better than anything, is getting things wrong. For instance, we could have ended slavery without a civil war, and we should have jumped on Hitler in the thirties.

“I hope you don’t think that encouraging violence in the pursuit of liberty when other options exist is a good idea.”

The trick lies in knowing whether other options actually exist. Neville Chamberlain was wrong, and Winston Churchill was right, but everybody went with Chamberlain until it was too late to avoid WWII.

Because the forces of evil have imported many pigdog murder-muzzies into our country, and we have been too pusillanimous to expel them, many of us, and our children and grandchildren, will be murdered at their hands.

Don’t believe it? Hide and watch.

“...all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” We don’t act too early; we have a tendency to wait until violence is forced upon us, and it costs us many lives.

[Chode]

as stooopid as it is unattractive