America and Its Love for Rifles and Handguns

Present Arms!

In America, every industry comes out of a crisis in its own way. The auto industry started building smaller cars. Gun manufacturers have invested in larger calibers and younger users. You have to catch them young.

A pink iPhone lies on top of a pink travel case and is picked up by Lissa, who has pink nails and speaks softly into the receiver with lips covered with bright pink lipstick. Next to her is a pink .38, which meshes very well with Lissa and everything around her. The idea to produce a popular firearm in a not-so-popular color was conceived in 2008. Charter Arms, which employs Lissa C. McCarthy as a manager, started to lose revenue rapidly and needed a product to get back on its feet. The traditional advertising scheme of playing on fears of danger was not enough anymore. Potential clients were more threatened by unemployment than an attack on their persons. People started to count every dollar, and even the $450 needed for the purchase of the .38 became indispensable. The company understood that they couldn’t make the same mistake that Ford made, which was to make their cars available in all colors, as long as that color was black.

The pink handgun tapped into a new and promising pool of clients: women who fiercely defend their independence. Lissa isn’t afraid either, because aside from the pink .38, she has in her arsenal two semi-automatic pistols. Thanks to them, she can fire 48 times without having to reload. The two semi-automatics are, unfortunately, not pink, but that might be possible soon, since other companies have been catching onto the trend. This is why Lissa told us not to call her the Pink Lady, because that name had been copyrighted by a different company. For two years running, Lissa’s company sold on average 250 pink revolvers. That is quite high for a factory employing 23 people.

LadySmith 38, All-Steel

It is a myth that every American carries around a firearm. Out of 310 million Americans, only 80 million do so. However, for every gun owner, there are exactly 3.1 guns. The data shows that there are over 280 million guns scattered throughout American households. But these are just estimates, because Americans have owned guns since forever, and statistics only reach back to the ‘60s. Thanks to these numbers, it is also possible to see when the industry was doing well and when it experienced a scare.

The number of guns being sold fell drastically on the wave of the 2008 crisis. When 4 million guns are sold annually, the industry is happy, but when only 3.5 million are sold, panic begins. Gun sales are like war: There are casualties in the form of layoffs among personnel and among manufacturers in the form of bankruptcies. However, when people are faced with a dire situation, they often come up with new and innovative ideas to reverse the trends. It suddenly occurred to people that the gun does not have to be black, or that the .50 sniper rifle — which can blow holes the size of tennis balls — does not have to be restricted only to professionals. It is always worth it to reexamine the best and trusted products.

It is no surprise that the cast of “Dirty Harry” made an appearance at the Las Vegas-based SHOT Show in January. The .44 Magnum is coming back in style and in a new edition, the Judge 3” Magnum, which is a crossover between a pistol and a shotgun, capable of shooting 3” shotshells. If anyone had any doubt as to the potency of this gun, the manufacturer recorded a demonstration video, with watermelons taking the center stage. The explosions caused by the Magnum are filmed in slow motion. One can see how the shell cracks and the pulp flies in all directions.

Susan Carrincher, 53, with steel gray-colored hair, prefers a smaller but reliable caliber, the .38. Her nails are not painted and are cut short, so they don’t break during reloading. She speaks in a no-nonsense way about the revolver, much like an instructor, which she is. The ideal gun should be small enough to fit in a purse pocket. However, the caliber cannot be too small. If you hit an assailant with a small-caliber gun, it will incense him further, and that is not the point. A large-caliber gun is also bad, because of the recoil, and that makes it less accurate. The gun must be always ready to fire. The .38 is ideal, because you can even fire it without taking it out of your purse, enabling a quick response. Susan knows what she is talking about, having shot over 25,000 rounds in various situations. Not bad for a woman who only learned to shoot 19 years ago.

Susan experienced a traumatic event that left a deep scar on her psyche and changed her life. In 1992, she came back from dinner on the town, parked her sports car in the garage and closed the door. What happened next was covered by various TV stations and can be read in the brochures or on the website of Shooting for Women Alliance, of which Susan is a founding member. Her ex-boyfriend held her against her will for over five hours, alternately torturing and threatening her. From that point on, Susan entrusted her life to the all-steel LadySmith 38.

She founded a group that encourages women to arm themselves. She tells men all the time, “If you love your wife, arm her, and we’ll teach her how to shoot.”* Her first meeting with potential students usually involves a summary of her harrowing experience. She ends with an alternate ending, in which she does have a gun. In that situation, would the student hesitate to pull the trigger? “It is better to be tried by 12 than be carried by six” is Susan’s motto. Her organization received an invitation to the SHOT Show. No advertising campaign can convince a potential client like Susan can. Thanks to her, thousands of women have armed themselves, and that number keeps growing. Susan is a woman on a mission, and not even cancer can hold her down. God Bless Susan.

The Unalterable Second Amendment

“Do cars kill people?” asks Jeffrey E. Folloder rhetorically, “Then why do we not ban cars, if we ban the sale of machine guns to law-abiding Americans?”* Jeffrey is from Texas and believes that he has a right to a machine gun. That right is protected by the Constitution. Not machine guns exactly, but the right to bear arms. And if machine guns are arms, then what is the problem?

It is an easy and logical conclusion to reach — which gun manufacturers would love to as easily put into practice. However, this is not possible for historical reasons. The American public was convinced to ban the sale of automatic weapons by Al Capone and his friends.

Jeffrey Folloder is unswayed, and the group he directs, the National Firearms Act Trade and Collectors Association, is very influential. Even though in all states, the purchase of an automatic firearm is accompanied with a restrictive and expensive permit, in most states it is easy to buy a semi-automatic weapon. A semi-automatic M16 differs from an automatic version only by the lack of continuous firing. Shooting 30 rounds in bursts takes longer, but it makes it more accurate. Which is worse — the lack of accuracy or lack of rights — is debatable. Jeffery knows that it is the infringement upon gun rights.

Let’s take the idea that would let a sheriff influence the process of giving out gun permits. Under current law, one can go to a store, pick out a gun and fill out a form. The retailer checks with the FBI whether you have an arrest record. Under optimal conditions, the process can take as little as 30 minutes. Why fix something that isn’t broken and additionally require the second opinion of the sheriff, Jeffrey wonders? The myth that a sheriff knows better if someone should be allowed to have a gun or not is bogus. The same goes for limiting the caliber available to people.

If there were limitations on caliber, then it would be impossible to buy something that was the apple of Jeff’s eye at the SHOT Show. Across from his booth was the exhibit set up by Sabre, which brought their new product, the LSR 50. This is a .50 sniper rifle, and in Poland it was available only to the GROM Special Forces. Guns of such caliber are mounted on Polish tanks for use against aircraft. The bullet itself has a length of 14 cm. According to Sabre, the LSR 50 is perfect for the individual citizen as well. One can use it for hunting, but for big game only, since small- and medium-sized animals could just be torn apart. It is much better to use the gun for marksmanship training. The company has prepared an attractive offer for potential clients, with prices starting at $6,000.

The Terrible Consequences of the Internet

Electronic games have dealt gun manufacturers the biggest blow, followed closely by the Internet. Douglas Painter from the National Shooting Sports Foundation is downright terrified at the effects of electronics on American teens. Computers rob childhood away from children and destroy family bonds. The image of a father and son going hunting together at dusk is a distant memory, Doug laments. Sitting at a computer not only damages a child’s back or eyes, but his or her morals as well. Virtual killing is unnatural, void of any competition or respect, such as the one shown by a hunter to his catch. A generation gap has been creeping into the hunting world. Doug recalls that store shelves are being filled with unsold rifles.

Doug’s organization is not laying down its arms, however. Only in 2010, the NSSF gave $20 million toward programs encouraging child participation in hunting and shooting events. Their flagship initiative is Families Afield. Its mission is two-fold. On one hand, it encourages parents to take their children hunting. On the other hand, it confronts state authorities, pressuring them to lift restrictions on child participation in such events. As a result, 30 states have decided to create special licenses for children, who hunt under adult supervision. The NSSF has surmised that the optimal time to take a child hunting would be around the age of 10. Bill Brassard, the NSSF spokesperson, argues that the older the child is, the greater the chances of involvement in other sports or computer games. One can start taking children much earlier than at 10 years, with 5-year-olds being allowed to do so.

The industry has not hesitated to jump on the bandwagon. Many companies make baby clothing in hunting colors, so the parents and children can take to the lifestyle. Another highly vaunted product is a line of cameras used to observe animals. Matt Davis from Arkansas is convinced that it is a very good product, which he has tested on his 5-year-old son. The motion-sensitive camera is set up on a tree and illuminates any animal with diodes, which are designed not to scare the prey. The recording is saved on a memory card, which can then be uploaded onto a computer. Matt says that his child loves watching the recordings and has learned a great deal about the habits of various creatures. In time, Matt plans on teaching his son how to kill those animals. There are 500,000 registered hunters in Arkansas and about 2 million in all of the United States, as compared to 100,000 in Poland. Maintaining a positive image is not hard. Hunting is promoted on TV. The characters of such programs as “Duck Commander,” which teach how to hunt fowl, were much more popular at SHOT Show than Steven Seagal, who teaches how to kill people in B-rated movies.

The hunting community has also created an initiative to feed the poor. Everyone who hunts solely for sport is encouraged to give the meat to the poor. Mike, 55, hunts for both pleasure and sport. However, he vows to never shoot anything that he wouldn’t eat himself, unless that “thing” was trying to shoot at him. He has plenty to shoot from, because, as he says, he has one wife and 10 guns. Mike came to the SHOT Show not looking for a second wife or an 11th rifle.

Mike is bothered by a different problem. The whole situation with Korea does not suit him at all. If nuclear war breaks out, then rifles will be useless, as ammunition factories will be gone as well. And people will become especially nasty, because that’s what hunger does. He knows a lot about that, because even though he is a simple farmer, his father often recounted the old days when all of America was starving. That’s why Mike will leave this year’s SHOT Show with a bow. Oh yeah!

*Editor’s Note: These quotes, accurately translated, could not be verified.