First of all, Yes! Although I suspect it’s unintended, we agree. The point is to reduce the number of guns in order to reduce the number of gun deaths and gun-related violence. Just like, if we invested more in public transportation there would be fewer car deaths. But you’re confusing number and rate. There is a strong correlation between the rate (per 1000) of gun ownership and the rate (per 1000) of gun violence and death.
Also, the NRA gets the vast majority of its funding from gun manufacturers, not its membership.
By pushing for permitless carry, the NRA shows that it’s pretty much dropped the concern about “feeling safe” and really just want everyone to be able to own a gun. That serves the interests of their primary backers, the gun industry. But it’s easy to see that guns make people less safe, not more: in states with lax gun laws and high rates of gun ownership, more crimes are committed using guns and there are more gun deaths and gun-related injuries.
That other field is called political economics, and it was much of what economics was about (Adam Smith, David Ricardo, J.S. Mill) until the late 19th century. Remember that Adam Smith was a professor of moral philosophy. It was W. Stanley Jevons in the 1890s who proposed stripping the “political” part out of the name of the field and taking moral questions out of economic thinking. Now, political economics is mostly taught in political science and sociology.
First of all, Yes! Although I suspect it’s unintended, we agree. The point is to reduce the number of guns in order to reduce the number of gun deaths and gun-related violence. Just like, if we invested more in public transportation there would be fewer car deaths. But you’re confusing number and rate. There is a strong correlation between the rate (per 1000) of gun ownership and the rate (per 1000) of gun violence and death.
Also, the NRA gets the vast majority of its funding from gun manufacturers, not its membership.