Forbes contributor Elizabeth MacBride spent six months specializing in the firearms industry, investigating and then summing up what she learned.
Takeaway: The most important influencing factor towards positive coverage of shooters, gun owners, and firearms is a consistent, open dialogue that showcases safe and skillful use, humanizes firearm users, and is inviting to everyone. Much more than political rhetoric, turning positive usage into a story and then consistently telling people about it is the best path forward.
Often, the problem is that negligent and criminal misuse is more sensational and easier to report. This is not the media’s fault as it falls inline with human nature. Skilled firearm users are rare compared to casual gun owners and not vocal enough to maintain a consistent voice.
I started covering the business of guns in part because the decline of high-quality print journalism in the past two decades means nuance is being lost. I believe nuance is crucial to sustain a pluralistic society, here and abroad. That’s part of the reason I covered the Middle East for three years; we all suffer from many Americans’ inability to see that region without prejudice.
And business, which tends to be a reasonably neutral and thankfully numbers-based lens through which to write, is a good platform for exploring topics on which there are many points of view.
Here are some of the things I’ve learned in my first six months.
1. Most of the gun community is open to fair-minded coverage.
2. The world of gun businesses is far more nuanced than I imagined, and in different ways that I imagined.
3. Marketing, politics and business are almost inseparable.
4. There are no good numbers.
5. It’s a business with a declining customer base.
6. Many more people like guns than I realized.
7. The West is different. Gun owners and gun businesses out West see guns as tools, one element of a practical, inherently nuanced way of existing in the world.
8. Violence marketing is more powerful than we realize.
9. There is no such thing as a gun. The technology has evolved faster than the language, so much so that we have reverted to broader words
Firearm User Network 
hsoi
Jul 11, 2018 @ 17:33:05
I’m curious about her “point #5”. Because it’s based upon people reporting ownership — but in today’s day and age, could there be people who own a gun but are unwilling to report they do?
I know a fair number of of… shall we say… atypical gun owners (e.g. are Democrat/liberal; a member of a group that by today’s identity politics is not supposed to embrace firearms). They own, they train, but they keep it pretty hush-hush because again, today’s political climate of intolerance of those who don’t toe the identity line.
So are things actually declining? Or only the perception?
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John M. Buol Jr.
Jul 11, 2018 @ 18:23:16
Some great points, as usual.
The article elaborates,
“5. It’s a business with a declining customer base.
In 1980, 50.3% of American men and 10.1% of women reported personal firearm ownership. In 2014, it was 35.1% for men and 11.7% for women . Gun sales, however, are up. That means a smaller number of Americans owns a greater number of guns.”
She’s defining the decline as a percentage of the current population not total numbers.
In 1980, the US population was 226.5 million and 50.3% of that is 113.6
2018 U.S. population is 326.7 million and 35.1% is 114.6 million.
As you point out, survey data is only as reliable as the people answering, recording, and reporting the data….
https://firearmusernetwork.com/do-as-they-do-not-as-they-say/
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hsoi
Jul 12, 2018 @ 09:25:44
Ah, I skimmed the article too quickly and missed that point as well — not an apples-to-apples comparison at all.
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