At the end of the Glick Peace Walk in downtown Indianapolis, a Christian youth group bearing a "Honk for Traditional Marriage" sign stood beneath a railroad trellis adorned with a banner advertising the convention inside — thousands of conventiongoers visiting around 600 different exhibits occupying the 400,000 square feet of floor space.

As I entered the midway, a child handed me a flyer for the 3MR fire control system, which claimed to reduce split time and allow for the fastest reset possible on a gun like the one Lanza used to mow down my neighbors' kids. "Has the 3MR changed the way I approach my livelihood? Who wants to know?" it read.

I passed wild boar earrings to game cookbooks, antique Italian firearms to headlamps for hunting hogs. The biggest exhibits were those of gunsmiths like Remington, Ruger, and Beretta. There was an abundance of what the industry calls tactical weaponry, or "black guns," something of a misnomer now that they come in pink and other colors marketed to women and kids.

At the Beretta stand, prominence was given to its new line of ARX 160 assault rifles, modeled after the ones it supplies the Italian army. My own preferred field weapon is a Beretta 12-gauge over-and-under shotgun made in the village of Gardone val Trompia, just outside of Brescia.

Nobody matches Beretta's long-term perspective on the gun business: It's been making weapons for half a millennium. At its headquarters, which I visited last year, it proudly displays a 1526 bill of sale for 185 arquebus barrels to the Arsenal of Venice for 296 ducats. General manager Carlo Ferlito called the spike in tactical arms sales a fad reflecting two basic fears: the possibility that President Obama would enact gun control legislation, and the other, economic.

"When Americans feel under pressure … they tend to want to protect themselves," Ferlito told me. The thinking, he said, is, "Once the policemen do not have money to protect me anymore, because the economic crisis reduced the amount that can be spent on security, I have to protect myself and so I buy something to protect my home and my children." Though Ferlito did not expect the torrid growth in black gun sales to be sustainable, he predicted the category would remain robust in the United States.

Heading further into the hall, I encountered a succession of gun-world celebrities. People queued at the Sportsman Channel's booth to meet R. Lee Ermey, who played Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket. Bass Pro Shops presented Theresa Vail, an expert M16 marksman and the first Miss America contestant to openly display tattoos in the swimsuit competition.

I swapped feral pig stories with a salesman from Lightfield Ammunition, which sells Boar Buster shells. Lightfield also sells Zombie Blaster ammo, "intended for close encounter combat with a Zombie (or several when the apocalypse happens)." Teens lined up at the Bushmaster stand to take selfies with a massive gun that looked like it belonged on a Humvee in Afghanistan.

In many ways, it felt like just another trade show, apart from the occasional snarky asides from fellow conferees ("Obama's done more for gun sales than anybody"), the monumental stand broadcasting the collected speeches of LaPierre, and the acres of guns. Friends whose only knowledge of the NRA is derived from LaPierre’s televised tirades warned me to be careful, as if I were a black man heading to a Klan rally. In reality, fellow attendees were welcoming and, for the record, not entirely white.

Rather, the most distinctive element was a general sense of impending doom, a pervading belief that America is swiftly going down the tubes. This sentiment was particularly evident at the 5th Annual Freedom First Financial Seminar, one of the many sessions taking place off the main exhibition carnival.

Tim Fisher, the director of planned giving for the NRA, kicked off the session. He was having a busy morning; across the street his office was running a seminar on "Creating a Constitutionally Centered Estate Plan." Fisher injected a financial variation of the NRA worldview about trusting government: "You may not have a plan for your assets when you die, but you can bet they has one for you." With that, he thanked the audience and left some flyers that explained how to include the NRA in your last will and testament.

Fisher handed off to Shad Ketcher, a Minnesotan wealth manager who first joined the NRA at 12 with $20 he made from detasseling corn. Ketcher opened a briefcase full of fake money: "Our paper dollars are getting worth less and less." That fearsome preamble began a lecture on the need to include commodities and precious metals alongside traditional investments like stocks, bonds, and cash.

Ketcher talked about rising market volatility and the increased correlation of asset classes. He laid out a rational argument for diversification, ending on a note that aligns nicely with the overall sense of impending doom permeating the convention. Gold, he notes, is an "insurance policy to protect against inflation or disaster."

And that nicely set up featured speaker and session sponsor Mike Fuljenz of Universal Coin & Bullion. He kicked off with a giveaway. The person with the birthday closest to his son's, Sept. 5, would receive a prize. A few hands went up — Sept. 18, Sept. 25. I raised mine — Sept. 6. Fuljenz handed me a baggie with five squares of gold.

He then presented a thesis that gold coins will hold their worth better than other assets. This, he said, may surprise people, given "a bias against gold" in the media. It was a well-argued sales pitch, hewing nicely to the pervasive NRA message that America is going to hell in a handbasket. According to Mike's "Personal Gold Guide," the precious metal offers "protection against a declining dollar" and "a geo-political crisis hedge."

After the seminar, I examined my bag of gold. Each square represented a gram of 24-karat gold worth some $40, for a total value of over $200. Handouts like this are a big feature of the NRA. Nearly every convention stand has an enticing raffle coaxing people to hand over their email addresses. There are free guns, ammo, and trips. All year, NRA members receive promotions and discounts on goods and services. A recent sampling from my inbox includes: life insurance, a wine club, a Visa card, and two protection plans against identity theft.

At the convention, these promotions came to life. The NRA Cigar Club table offered 12-month memberships for $400, promising five premium hand-rolled smokes a month from the finest cigar makers in the world. The NRA Wine Club allows members to "defend basic freedoms with every wine shipment and wine order." On their own, these invitations can feel like spam. Taken as a whole, they communicate a message of belonging to a special cohort of aggrieved citizens who understand something the rest of us do not.

As I walked the floor, I had an urge to ask some of the people I met the questions that I suspect my friends in Newtown who lost their children would want answered. Where do they draw the line on gun regulation? What limits would be acceptable? But I held my tongue. It wasn’t just that I was attending as a member, rather than as a journalist or advocate. It didn’t feel like an environment where genuine debate would be welcome. Come to think of it, that’s worked pretty well up until now.