will protect all of us from the scary black socialist president when he declares martial law and disbands the Congress and the SCOTUS.

Two reasons for that: there are bonafide collectors who buy historically interesting firearms and there are people who are easily manipulated by the gun industry. Fear sells guns. Fear that guns will be banned, fear that the apacolypse is near, fear that someone will harm them (with a gun).

The other marketing ploy is a blantant appeal to enhanced masculinity. The "consider your man card renewed" ad and images of soldiers in combat with the military style rifle superimposed over it insinuate that if you buy one of these you become more virile. That works too. They may as well say that you should have a gun with you all the time, you know, so you can be ready when the moment is right. I expect to see an ad with two bathtubs siloetted against a sunset with the occupants holding AR15s.

from the women, gays, blacks and hispanics. Change is terrifying to these folks. Especially the ones who have an arsenal in their garage. I am not someone who thinks all guns should go away, I have friends who hunt and my Dad was a farmer who used it to protect the livestock. I just think the people who are armed to the teeth are so full of fear it would not take much for them to pull the trigger.

I tell her that very very few snakes are poisonous and even then they are more scared of you than you are of them. She comes back with, if that's the case that makes them all the more dangerous cause anything that scared can lash out at any time!

Fear, rational or not, is a strong motivation and the industry exploits it most expertly.

and the right to own a gun. I just don't agree with the public carry of guns (CCW or OC) and believe that they should be kept secure until they are needed for practice or hunting.

All guns are "legal" when they are first sold to a dealer, but lack of accountability and responsibility after the first sale places guns into the hands of criminals and those who can't legally obtain a gun. Second Amendment absolutists will never agree to any type of gun control legislation because: Freedum, My Rights, and Liberty.

The right-wing gun lobby and its marketing arm, the NRA, make the USA the gun idiocracy capital of the world.

Thanks a lot. Now I have to carry that mental image around with me all day...