Americans aren’t any crazier or any meaner than people anywhere else on the planet. So why do we have so many more firearms-related deaths per capita than any other country in the world? The obvious answer is that we have so many more guns than any other country. Firearms are simply more available. Not only are guns easier to get, they are less controlled by law, and most importantly, they are cheaper here (considering the relative affluence of the population) than anywhere else. And if guns are more available, it is inevitable they will be used more frequently. This has nothing to do with psychology, history, culture or ideology. Its all about economics.

Consider this: firearms are practically indestructible. The are not easily damaged or worn out during normal usage. They are sturdy, even if abused and ill-maintained, they have a long life; if properly taken care of they can last indefinitely. Regardless of whether you keep a firearm for self-defense, crime, the farm, sport or some wacko Minuteman superhero fantasy of defending the nation from roving thugs, political tyrants or foreign invaders; all you really need is one. And for the most part, you can only use one at a time. Yet, there are more guns in America than there are people. They are as ubiquitous as automobiles. Although it can be argued that for over a century the gun has achieved the pinnacle of technical development, every year the market is flooded with new models, each increasingly more specialized for a particular application, or a particular customer, or otherwise optimized for an ever-expanding and increasingly specific market niche. There is an infinity of manufacturers, both foreign and domestic. Once everyone has a gun, or several, then you need to convince them to need another, or many. From a useful tool, the gun evolved into a hobby, a collector’s item, an obsession. And, relatively speaking, they are cheap. Although you can spend enormous amounts of money for a luxury weapon that is essentially equivalent to the cheapest model, brand-new quality firearms from reputable manufacturers can be acquired for what you might spend on a modest household appliance. There is a huge discount used market available, or you can borrow or inherit or steal one. They are everywhere.

This phenomenal abundance and variety is due to marketing magic. Faced with a product which could easily saturate its market (due to its durability and limited use) the firearms industry has done a magnificent job of increasing demand, using a variety of methods designed to play on American fears and fantasies. An enormous infrastructure of manufacturers, dealers, smiths, sellers, journalists, critics and publishing houses has emerged to service this trade. The industry has organized itself politically and now lobbies effectively, converting the power of its market to real political action that guarantees no government regulation or control, or even public outrage, will ever threaten this trade. Neither will the carnage it has unleashed on our society. The gun is not the only, or the first industry to do this.

Consider the automobile. Consider how we now cavalierly accept the slaughter on the highways, the plundering of our resources, the pollution of our atmosphere, the rebuilding of our cities, the enormous cost of maintaining and providing for the machinery and infrastructure that allows us to “drive down to the corner for a pack of smokes”. In either case, its an example of the Law of Supply and Demand: if a service, commodity or product is profitable enough, Demand can be manipulated to justify increasing the Supply. And eventually, Supply and Demand can be tuned to converge at the point where Profit is maximized.