NRA’s broken brand makes guns uncool with young people

When faced with a shrinking customer base, most companies would rethink their product line and look for innovations that would attract new consumers.

The National Rifle Association, gun-makers’ primary advocate, instead has broken its brand of responsible gun ownership, reinforced the perception that guns are for killing people, and as result, alienated an entire generation.

No matter how you interpret the Second Amendment, there is no debating that guns are becoming more unpopular, presenting a major challenge to the industry. Gun-makers are struggling to stay afloat with plummeting revenues and little or no profits.

The AR-15 is the rare success because it is the Barbie doll of rifles, with countless accessories and accoutrements. Gunmakers cannot afford to lose it, which is why the NRA will fight any attempt to limit its distribution.

The problem is only 30 percent of American adults own firearms. The percentage of

households with guns has dropped from 51 percent in the late 1970s to only 31 percent, according to the NORC research center at the University of Chicago.

While manufacturers see a spike in gun and ammunition sales every time a rumor swirls about new gun control legislation, it’s usually the same people adding to their arsenals, not an expansion of the customer base. That’s why every school shooting is a sales boon for the gun industry.

As someone who has owned and enjoyed rifles and revolvers over the years, I can attest that shooting sports are fun, and hunting is an important tradition.

Unfortunately, that’s no longer how the NRA markets gun ownership, and it’s turning

young people off.

To get a taste of the NRA’s new brand, visit its online television channel, where perpetually angry spokeswoman Dana Loesch spews vitriol that stops just short of incitement to violence against liberals, foreigners and gun control advocates.

“The only way we can save our country and our freedom is to fight this violence of lies with a clenched fist of truth,” Loesch says after denigrating news organizations, Hollywood stars and President Donald Trump’s critics.

To save the nation, patriots needs weapons and the NRA, Loesch says.

“We are witnesses to the most ruthless attacks on a president, and the people who voted for him, and the free system that allowed it to happen,” she says in another ad. “The ultimate insult is that they think we’ll let them get away with it.”

In the NRA’s worldview, debate and dissent are treason. Gun owners need to vote Republican and arm themselves in case Democrats ever come for their guns. Violent resistance is not off the table.

The NRA has forsaken the old wholesome image of a father teaching his son about our heritage and instead engages in pure demagoguery. If you don’t support the NRA agenda 100 percent, you are a threat to American democracy. And the NRA’s agenda is more guns in more places to generate more profits for gun-makers.

While this rhetoric may appeal to the white, Southern, conservative men who own most of the guns in America, it’s a turnoff to the majority of Americans under 40 who are none of those things. Younger people are far more likely to empathize with the 150,000 people who have personally experienced school shootings since 1999.

Sixty-three percent of Americans want a ban on semiautomatic weapons, according to a Suffolk University poll released Monday. Victims of gun violence are demanding an end to the madness.

Gun-makers should learn from oil and gas. Major oil companies market themselves today as advocates for cleaner energy. They no longer deny that humans are changing the climate, and while many may question the oil companies’ sincerity, they have become advocates for change.

Young people know the gun industry’s offer to arm teachers and harden schools would simply increase their profits. And students know how school boards refuse to raise taxes to improve instruction, so they don’t trust them to raise millions to fortify schools.

Gun advocates must accept that violence has two essential elements, the human and the weapon. Eliminating everyday massacres requires action on both parts of the equation.

The only long-term strategy for American gun-makers is to stop selling fear and begin marketing shooting as a sport and an American tradition. They must offer safer products and encourage reasonable, enforceable rules governing who can buy what weapons and when.

Smart gun companies will demand that the NRA drop its campaign of promoting division among Americans and stop hinting at civil war. True patriots want a safer, more united nation where a dystopian future exists solely in the realm of science fiction.