Gun makers, I hear, see very profitable jumps in gun sales every time there’s a big mass shooting. Suppose for the sake of argument that a gun maker decided to cause these shootings directly, by secretly hiring people to commit them. They’d invest in the shooter, and enjoy profits as a result.
Would this work as a business model, assuming they were able to keep it secret? Would the jump in sales more than pay for what it costs to get somebody to do this? Would the tragedy of the commons prevent it (namely, that only one gun maker fronts the investment but all of them reap the benefits, therefore nobody would want to be the one that fronts the investment)? Is there not enough profit in the buying surges?
One time I tried to figure out whether killing their customers was a viable business model for cigarette companies. Somehow I came up with the figure that they made $4000 profit for each customer killed (and I remember nothing of how I came up with this). Now I’m wondering a similar thing about the gun industry.
This isn’t actually true. There was a dramatically huge spike in gun sales after Sandy Hook, and a few less dramatic spikes after several other mass shootings. However, there have been a lot of other mass shootings that didn’t result in a spike in gun sales, such as the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting and the 2009 Fort Hood shooting.
I also don’t think it’s a direct cause and effect. It’s not the mass shootings that trigger the gun sales, it’s the push for more strict gun laws that trigger them. Any push for stricter gun laws usually results in increased gun sales. Obama and Biden have done more to increase gun sales than all of the Republicans combined. Obama’s election caused more of a spike in gun sales than the 2016 Orlando shootings. Obama’s anti-gun stance also caused gun sales in general to increase from about half a million guns per month to over a million guns per month during his entire presidency.
A more reliable, and completely legal method to increase gun sales is to do what @Elmer_J.Fudd suggested, help a strong anti-gun Democrat get elected. Gun and ammo sales will soar.
An alternate solution would be to fund some sort of pandemic. Maybe bribe some lab workers to “accidentally” release something from one of the research labs that has the nasty stuff in it. Gun sales (and violence in general) have increased dramatically during Covid.
Human beings in general seem to be really bad at keeping secrets, so I personally would expect all of these plans to backfire spectacularly.
Should have elaborated on this. I was thinking people who were despondent over not being able to support their families, who imagined “they would be better off without me”.
A better use of their money is to funnel it to the most radical politicians who will call for complete banning of firearms, drive up sales, then funnel more to fund other politicians who will vote against any legislation.
Gun rights actually expanded under Obama. It doesn’t require an anti-gun Democrat; the entire party has been demonized, so the election of any democrat is likely to improve gun sales.
Isn’t that a misnomer though? Obama wanted more gun control measures but by the time he tried to implement them he already had both Congress and the Senate against him.