All US firearm manufacturers put together have less than the annual sales of Netflix.

[TheWraith]

I thought this was an interesting stat which puts a context on the belief a lot of people have that US laws are manipulated for the benefit of the firearms industry.

All US firearms manufacturers, put together, constitute about $1.2 billion per year in sales as of 2002.

http://futureofchildren.org/futureofchildren/publications/journals/article/index.xml?journalid=42&articleid=165§ionid=1058

Netflix, one company which streams and rents DVDs, has annual revenue of $1.67 billion as of 2009.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix

Both of these have probably increased since these figures, which were the last I could find, but it gives you the idea. In contrast, the oil industry is in the hundreds of billions, Walmart alone is $422 billion, the tobacco industry is in the tens of billions.

Objectively speaking, when it comes to lobbying, the firearms industry has less ability to manipulate the laws for their benefit than does Netflix. The rest of the support for reasonable and non-restrictive firearms laws comes from voters.

[rusty charly]

1. Remind me of DVD-related murders.

[wtmusic]

2. DVDs don't kill, the people who watch them do.

Especially when they have easily-available handguns. :)

[eqfan592]

11. Way to completely miss the point. nt

[rusty charly]

30. Oh, I got "the point", or lack of it, actually.

[Webster Green]

3. This seems like apples and oranges to me.

Why would comparing these two things indicate anything meaningful? :shrug:

[TheWraith]

5. For the reason I said?

People believe that firearms manufacturers manipulate the laws for their benefit. In reality, their sales, and their influence, are microscopic compared to true "big business."

[Taverner]

4. Guns are tools

Same as machetes, scythes, knives and many other things anyone can buy without a license

Most of the killings in Rwanda were made by machetes

Most of the killings in "Democratic Kampuchea" were made by rifles, not using bullets, but as a tool of blunt force trauma

Guns do make it easier to kill, but by that logic computers make it even easier

And no one is trying to ban computers, well no one except the Theocracy of Bhutan

[wtmusic]

8. Availability

Every Hutu who had an AK-47 didn't bother with the machete.

Trying to grok how computers make it easier to kill than guns...help? :shrug:

[Taverner]

13. Predator Drones eom

[wtmusic]

14. Predator drones are fairly tightly controlled

Somewhere between drones and machetes, there's a space for guns.

[wtmusic]

6. According to Wayne LaPierre, the firearms industry has greater ability to manipulate laws.

"The guys with the guns make the rules."

Sounds reasonable to me. :crazy:

[spin]

12. To be totally honest, I dislike Wayne LaPierre as much as I do Paul Helmke ...

who is the President of the Brady Campaign and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

They both turn my stomach and I am an NRA member.

I support the NRA because they do a lot of good for the shooting sports. I buy my yearly membership and throw all the propaganda from the NRA-ILA in the trash can.

[HankyDubs]

16. to be totally honest

you just paid $arah Palin's speaking fee.

[PavePusher]

18. Nope. The basic NRA membership fee can not be used for political purposes. n/t

[spin]

22. Exactly. If that wasn't true, I would not be a member. (n/t)

[rusty charly]

32. The NRA's Carve Out

Yesterday, lead negotiators on the DISCLOSE Act announced a special carve-out that would allow the NRA—one of the nation’s largest and wealthiest political actors—to avoid election spending disclosure even while accepting corporate money. The carve-out is clearly intended only for the NRA – it appears that only a couple of other groups may meet the criteria. This is bad for democracy and bad for progressives—it provides added ammunition to perhaps the most potent conservative force in American politics.

More important, it creates a huge potential loophole for funneling corporate money into politics without disclosure. NRA will become a magnet for up to $87 million of new corporate funds to funnel into the system through its coffers.

http://www.progressivefuture.org/blog/nra-shoots-loophole-through-campaign-finance-proposal

[PavePusher]

43. That money would be going through the NRA-ILA, not the portion of the org....

that is the premiere safety and skills training, and competition governing body group in the nation, if not the world.

Please, focus your arguments.

For the record, I believe that every penny of political donations, individual as well as group/corporate, should be publically listed for the entire world to see. No limits on how much, just publish the names and amounts so we can see who's buying whom. I think this is called "transparancy".... And yeah, it should apply to the NRA too.

By the way, didn't that proposal get defeated... a year ago?

[HankyDubs]

53. WRONG!!!

$arah Palin and Glenn Beck, to choose a couple examples, were speakers at the NRA's national shindig, this was not a direct political contribution.

Cash is fungible. The NRA-ILA is just a fig leaf. Every penny you give to the NRA pushes the right wing agenda.

[PavePusher]

55. Hmmm, you do not seem to have cited anything to contradict my statement.

Did you confuse this with being an evidence-free zone?

[gejohnston]

37. What, are you saying that the NRA doesn't deserve the best stand up

comedy around? Besides, the more real gun and outdoors types see her, the more they figure out that she is no Mrs. John Muir or Phoebe Anne Moses. That disaster of a TV show did a good job of that too. There is something about having daddy chamber each round (while she hits nothing) on a canned hunt that screams poser.

[spin]

38. It's a close race between the NRA-ILA and the Brady Campaign ...

for who provides the best humor.

Sarah Palin impresses me as someone who needs to learn how to shoot or at the minimum personally learns the value of sighting her own rifle in before attempting to hunt.

Hunting game with a rifle you are basically unfamiliar with and have not taken the time to learn how it shoots for you is foolish and irresponsible. The object is to kill humanely and quickly and that requires practice beforehand.

I would never go hunting with a weapon that I personally wasn't totally confident in.

[RaleighNCDUer]

24. And by paying for your yearly membership you are purchasing

all the propaganda that you throw in the trash.

Makes sense to me.

[PavePusher]

44. Not really. But don't let facts get in your way.... n/t

[RSillsbee]

50. I thought it was paying for The American Rifleman

and that cool hat

[GreenStormCloud]

47. Political power grows from the barrel of a gun. - Chairman Mao N/T

[DissedByBush]

59. It's not the industry that has influence, it's the people

Gun rights is truly a grass-roots movement.

Even the money of the NRA comes mainly from the people.

It's not a well corporate-backed lobby as most of them are.

[dipsydoodle]

7. The 2002 figure

sounds impossibly low assuming you mean the entire MIC.

[TheWraith]

28. No, I don't mean the entire military industrial complex. I mean firearms manufacturers.

The people who make the guns you find at the gun store.

[Hawkowl]

9. Walmart IS the largest gun store

http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/the-10-largest-gun-stores-in-the-usa-555682.html#axzz1PNbv0kHB

Be that as it may, your point is not well made.

Netflix makes more money than gun manufacturers, therefore gun manufacturers have no influence over legislation? You should provide data about how much per industry is spent on campaign donations and PAC donations. But that data is secretive and illusive.

[TheWraith]

My point is that people imagine one tiny industry as having all this power.

When in reality, there are single companies which dwarf that entire industry, which still don't have a fraction of the power people attribute to firearms manufacturers.

[benEzra]

39. It's not manufacturers (via NSSF and SAAMI) who Congress listens to.

It's gun owners (a very small percentage of whom happen belong to the NRA). Because (1) there are like 80 million of us, (2) we tend to feel strongly about the issue and weight it somewhat heavily when deciding who to support, and (3) we vote at higher rates than the general population.

I'll bet if Congress decided to ban all non-G-rated movies, and 50 or 80 million moviegoers decided to vote that year on First Amendment issues, there'd be second thoughts in Congress about that also. But it wouldn't be Netflix's doing, it'd be the voters'.

[rusty charly]

10. ?

"...when it comes to lobbying, the firearms industry has less ability to manipulate the laws for their benefit than does Netflix."

There's absolutely nothing "objective" about this. Is Netflix manipulating laws for their benefit? Because "objectively speaking", subjectively speaking and first person, pluperfectly speaking, the gun lobby most certainly has, does, is and will.

[slackmaster]

15. You know, rusty charly, a simple Google search for the terms netflix and congress could save you...

...from posting something foolish.

http://www.thepdcorp.com/netflix-lobbies-congress-but-why/

http://www.thewrap.com/media/column-post/netflix-ceo-urges-congress-not-overturn-net-neutrality-rules-26257

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Netflix-Pushes-Congress-On-Data-Caps-Last-Mile-Fees-113594

http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_%28A_to_Z%29/Stocks_N/threadview?m=tm&bn=22401&tid=363132&mid=363132&tof=3&off=1

[rusty charly]

25. You know, slack, reading what you link to could save you

from posting something foolish:

"The company only registered last November and in their two quarterly reports filed since then have spent only $160,000 on lobbying."

[slackmaster]

26. You seem to believe that the only way to measure influence is in dollars spent officially lobbying

:rofl:

[rusty charly]

29. Uh. THAT WAS THE BASIS OF THIS ENTIRE THREAD/ORIGINAL POST.

You really DON'T read, do you? You just laugh like an idiot rolling around on the floor.

[TheWraith]

31. No, actually it wasn't. If it were, I'd have posted lobbying dollars.

Lobbying aside, Congress takes bigger business more seriously. Why? Because they represent more money, which translates to more economic activity. It's not all about the lobbyists, although they do represent a problem.

But if Netflix spends $1 million out of their $1.7 billion on lobbying, and Papa Don's Pizza spends $1.5 million out of $5 million in revenue on lobbying, do you think they're going to automatically treat Papa Don's Pizza as more important?

[rusty charly]

33. And Congress COMPLETELY IGNORES The NRA. Poor struggling dears.

Yeah. Right.

[slackmaster]

36. I can see that you aren't willing or able to engage in a thoughtful, polite discussion here

Welcome to my list.

[rusty charly]

40. When there's something thoughtful being address, yes.

This, however...

(Love the idea of "guns" being wed to "politeness", though. Thanks for THAT laugh of the evening...)

[TheWraith]

49. As I said, the reason we have relatively unrestrictive gun laws is the voters.

The NRA is one part of that, with about 4 million members out of the 80-100 million gun owners in the US.

[slackmaster]

35. Actually, the basis of the thread was revenue

Not expenditures on any particular thing.

Being a large corporation gives Netflix a lot of influence all by itself.

[rusty charly]

42. The basis of the post was money.

But, now you're parsing to save yourself.

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[lawodevolution]

34. Should those "others" (gun owners) have a tattoo or patch on the sleeve to identify us

Should we have separate fountains and should we sit in the back of the bus so you "good" non gun owners don't have to be near us?

[rusty charly]

41. Gun freak as "victim"!

Hysterical! Don't think the people in the images you conjure thought of the guys with the guns as on their side, but when it comes to the NRA, normal rules do not apply.

"Behind the scenes, federal agents in charge of stopping gun trafficking to Mexico have quietly advanced a plan to help stem the smuggling of high-powered AK-47s and AR-15s to the bloody drug war south of the border. The controversial proposal by officials at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives calls for a measure strongly opposed by the National Rifle Association: requiring gun dealers to report multiple sales of rifles and shotguns to ATF. The gun issue is so incendiary and fear of the NRA so great that the ATF plan languished for months at the Justice Department, according to some senior law enforcement officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity but would not provide details. The NRA got wind of the idea last month and warned its 4 million members in a "grassroots alert" that the administration might try to go around Congress to get such a plan enacted as an executive order or rule.

An ATF spokesman declined to comment about the matter. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. declined to be interviewed. Matt Miller, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said "the administration continues to support common-sense measures to stem gun violence." In the past few days, the plan has quietly gained traction at Justice. But sources told The Post they fear that if the plan becomes public, the NRA will marshal its forces to kill it.

Such is the power of the NRA. With annual revenue of about $250 million, the group has for four decades been the strongest force shaping the nation's gun laws."

http://tinyurl.com/2dos3mb

[Straw Man]

51. If you get to call me a "gun freak," ...

... do I get to call you a "control freak"?

Much has happened since that article that you're quoting. Perhaps you've heard of it.

When some gun shop owners in southwestern states voluntarily informed the ATF of suspicious potential buyers, the ATF told them to proceed with the sales.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/10/earlyshow/main20070475.shtml

The results are being investigated by Congress. Castigating the evil gun dealers and the NRA for this situation is some heavily hypocritical horseshit. Or perhaps you just didn't know.

If, as we so often hear on this forum, the vast majority of the public is in favor of more gun control, why isn't there a lobbying organization with corresponding clout? By all accounts, it should be a Godzilla that would crush the NRA.

[rusty charly]

61. Poor Darrell Issa

"Yesterday, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman and NRA sweetheart Darrell Issa (R-CA) held a hearing aimed at pushing the ongoing GOP-led congressional investigation into the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) deadly “gunrunner” scandal. Yet, when asked about what allowed the ill-fated project to be implemented, Issa’s own witness — ATF agent Peter Forcelli — ended up pointing to the structural deficiencies that the NRA-backed GOP has fought to keep in place.

In one instance, Forcelli argued in favor of tougher gun laws:

REP. CAROLYN MALONEY (D): District court judges view these prosecutions as mere paper violations. Have you heard this criticism before?
FORCELLI: I have and I agree with it. I think that perhaps a mandatory minimum one year sentence might deter an individual from buying a gun. Some people view this as no more consequential than doing 65 in a 55."

http://tinyurl.com/3hhq58z

[Straw Man]

62. Who said anything about Issa? Dodge and deflect...

But as long as we're going there: Forcelli argued in favor of tougher gun laws as a defense for failing to enforce the ones that exist? Pretty weak, don't you think?

[lawodevolution]

54. Members of the KKK don't feel that their racist views are bad either and can also

post up inflammatory information about an entire race of people and can justify segregation.

Anti gun people often propose and push for laws trying to segregate themselves from the law abiding gun owning population. The fact is I am a law abiding gun owner and member of the gun culture and you do not have to fear me or ban me from entering the same places where you go.

[damntexdem]

20. But very few people have been shot by Netflix movies.

;-)

[gejohnston]

23. according to Tipper Gore and some others

some Netflix movies and video games inspires children to go on killing rampages.

[rusty charly]

27. That is a COMPLETE misrepresentation.

http://gatorgamers.wordpress.com/2011/03/08/a-rant-from-the-tipper-gore-of-video-games/

[ileus]

21. Another reason to get off our duffs and take the family out to the range.

After that friends and co-workers pretty soon the guns would be flying off the shelves and gun makers would start hiring...

[lawodevolution]

57. guns are flying off the shelves

and I take my co-workers, colleges, friends, family to the range. and it has resulted in gun purchases.

[applegrove]

45. When was the last time a movie accidentally killed somebody? Of course gun manufacturers

want to grow their market. That is what the concealed carry meme, and fantasies about stopping a crime single handedly, is all about. $$$$$$$$$$$$$

[gejohnston]

46. I think you have the cart before the horse

Sensationalism that passes for "news" push crime stories, cable channels like Tru TV about crime stories plants seeds that crime is rampant even when it is going down. That led to the push to liberalize CCW laws everywhere including being more like Vermont. The US companies reacted because the market for small pistols were very small. The few that did sometimes did not have the greatest reputation. If you wanted a quality one, you had to buy European, which was the main market for such guns.
In short, the companies reacted to demand.

[GreenStormCloud]

48. So applegrove's world violent crime doesn't exist?

In your world senior citizens aren't mugged and robbed?

I carry a gun for personal protection, NOT because I want to play cop.

[onehandle]

52. The NRA and gun groups are constantly bragging about their 'power.'

They sit with lawmakers and write the laws.

Kraft makes more money than Netflix and gun manufacturers do combined.

But neither Netflix nor Kraft write the gun laws.

Powerful or powerless? Which is it?

[lawodevolution]

56. The NRA is powerful but there isn't enough money in selling guns for it to result in corruption

The NRA doesn't care about gun sales because there is not enough money there, they only care about the right to own firearms. The NRA is still more powerful than the most powerful anti-gun group by about 50 or 100 times.

Why do you think Netflix or Kraft would write gun laws? They do not have anything to do with guns.

[benEzra]

58. Gun owners have a lot of political power, but not because of money,

and not because of the (very small) gun industry. Nor because of the NRA's existence, if you get down to it.

I've mentioned this before, but owners have political power because there are so many of us (circa 80 million at last count), we tend to be more connected than average, and we vote at higher than average rates. That is a very potent combination.

"Assault weapon" owners alone outnumber people on the Brady Campaign mailing list by more than 400:1, and owners of over-10-round guns outnumber Brady Campaign subscribers about 800:1. There's also the fact that the shooting sports are a very participatory and often social activity that draw tens of millions of participants annually, whereas anti-gun activism is not.

[krispos42]

60. That doesn't seem right.

Conventional wisdom puts the amount of new guns sold a year in the US at about 13 million or so. There are about 16 million NICS check a year, so that's a reasonable guesstimate.

Let's assume that in 2002 they sold about 10 million new guns.


Now, in 2002 they made $1.2 billion. Do the math, and you get an average new gun price of $120 per gun.


I bought a cheap little Phoenix Arms .22 pistol in 2003 for $116, and that's about the cheapest new handgun you can get.


Considering a new polymer handgun generally goes for between $400 and $800, a new basic deer rifle runs in the $700 range, and a new basic pump-action shotgun in the $400 range, this seems to be a bit low.

[Atypical Liberal]

63. So what?

I'm an NRA member, but this comparison doesn't mean much to me.

All it says is that Netflix can win influence in Congress about on the same level as the firearms industry. And they probably do.

[rusty charly]

64. Watch NRA heads explode:

Al Qaeda spokesman urges terrorists to buy lots of guns at gun shows:

http://tinyurl.com/3vse8qw

[Name removed]

65. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[gejohnston]

67. before the tread got deleted

I pointed out that the Al Qaeda had no idea what he is talking about. You can not buy automatic weapons at gun shows or anyplace else without a several months long background check. That has been federal law since the 1930s. Websites like Crooks and Liars, which is the left leaning version of Free Republic, chose to take it at face value without researching what the laws are. Professional left talking heads like Rachel Maddow and even Thom Hartmann knew better but instead of debunking it, they chose ideological purity over truth. At gun shows all federal and state laws must be obeyed.

You dragged out another James O'Keefe style video from MAIG. If the ACORN smear taught anything, it was that edited videos could be made to reflect anything and should never be taken at face value. The difference is this:
The video is fake or the MAIG flunkies either committed or were accessories to a federal crime.

[rusty charly]

68. Except:

"You can not buy automatic weapons at gun shows or anyplace else without a several months long background check."

This is demonstrably false.

[X_Digger]

70. Feel free to demonstrate it.

The 1934 National Firearms Act set out the process; the registry was closed to new civilian transferrables in 1986's McClure-Volkmer act.

[gejohnston]

71. not legally and prove it.

Automatic weapons used in crimes are more common in Europe than here.
Do you know what automatic weapons mean? It means fucking machine guns. Do you know what the AQ guy was talking about? He was talking about fucking machine guns. The MAIG video was either fake or evidence of a felony. Period. If you know someone who is violating the National Firearms Act of 1934, you should report them to the ATF.

Now demonstrate to me how you can buy a machine gun at a gun show without the cops who hang out at gun shows from noticing.

[Abin Sur]

66. A distinct difference between firearems and DVDs

Firearms are durable. A DVD manufactured 5 years ago (Superman Returns, just for instance) that sold for $26.98 now sells on Amazon for $.01 plus shipping.

In contrast, a S&W .357 magnum that sold for $800 in 2006 now sells for...$800.

This makes the impact of gun ownership as a whole much more powerful, given that there are hundreds of millions of privately owned firearms in the United States.

[rusty charly]

69. Senate Bill 17

"Senate Bill 17 would allow concealed-carry permit-holders to take guns into bars, restaurants and stadiums that serve alcohol, unless those venues post prohibitions. It also includes an expungement process so that past violators of sections of the law related to possession of firearms in vehicles could have their criminal records wiped clean, or, in the words of the law, "permanently irretrievable."

The procedure is unusual as part of new legislation, most of which sets law going forward, not backward. Officials in Attorney General Mike DeWine's office said a reach-back provision is rare in Ohio law."

http://tinyurl.com/3l7mg2n

[gejohnston]

72. already covered in another thread but

since you said that congress repealed the National Firearms Act of 1934, I am on my way to Wal Mart to pick up a new PP-2000