While the gun industry — through its main lobbying group, the National Rifle Association — rails against “social justice warriors,” Democrats and teenage survivors of mass shootings, it is starting to appear that the industry may have a more serious enemy, one that cannot be defeated through political demagoguery: The free market. There are intriguing signs suggesting that it’s getting harder than ever to successfully market gun sales. That, in turn, could threaten the finances of the NRA, which relies heavily on contributions from firearms manufacturers.

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This article was originally published at Salon

“NRA gets a lot of funding from the gun industry, and following Trump’s election, there’s actual data that shows what they’ve called the ‘Trump slump,'” said Timothy Johnson, a research fellow from Media Matters who focuses on covering the gun industry. “A lot of these gun makers are financially struggling.”

This “Trump slump” — which includes gun stores reporting difficulty moving merchandise and one major manufacturer, Remington, filing for bankruptcy — is a direct result of the way guns are increasingly marketed as a way to show off one’s right-wing credentials. There was a spike in gun sales in November 2012, after Barack Obama was elected to a second term, apparently because conservatives felt angry and disempowered, and loaded up on guns to make themselves feel better. By the same token, gun sales seem to decline when conservatives are feeling less insecure, and therefore less likely to spend money on guns to soothe that insecurity.

Gun sales were down 8.4 percent in 2017, and signs suggest it may be worse this year. Black Friday sales are usually big for gun sellers, as there are lots of Thanksgiving-themed promotions and guns are a popular gift item in red-state America. This year, however, there was a 10 percent decline in gun sales over last year’s Black Friday, despite heavy discounts being offered by the most popular retailers.

While there’s no way to know how much money the gun industry spends on the NRA, all signs suggest that the industry is a major source of the group’s income for the NRA. As Johnson reported for the Progressive in June, the gun industry funnels money to the NRA both through corporation donations and, increasingly, through advertising in NRA magazines, websites and on the group’s online TV network.