I met a guy I’ll diplomatically describe as a sub-genius, once. OK, I’ve met such guys several times; more than I can count, actually. But this one was in the gun business, so I’d made the mistake of cutting him some slack. If you’re a gun person, I figure you’ve resisted or overcome about a ton of societal pressure, not to mention outright lies, and arrived at your own conclusions. That generally requires some intellectual fortitude.

It wasn’t long into the conversation, though, that this guy stated that marketing people in the gun industry were morons who didn’t know what they were doing. His audience consisted of me--at that time the managing editor of an NRA magazine—and our host, the head of marketing for what was no doubt the world’s most successful handgun manufacturer. I shot a quick glance at my fellow industry veteran and caught his barely perceptible wince.

Turns out the other gentleman was recently arrived in the firearms industry from the computer business. He was now running his own firearm-marketing firm and had wrangled an invite to this industry event, a fact I could tell our host was now regretting. I resisted the urge to light up the guy like a Fourth of July night sky; after all, it wasn’t my event. However, had I done so, I would have pointed out some realities that had somehow escaped him to that point.

I’ve long said that if you plucked a businessman from a typical industry and placed him in the gun industry, he or she wouldn't last for a year. Why? Because the gun industry doesn’t function like any other business. In fact, it’s often—say it with me—counter-intuitive.

Now, to hear him tell it, he had just torn up the computer business (which begged the question of why he’d left). However, using his apparent lack of self-awareness as I measure, I gave the guy six months. In fact, Iooking down I wouldn’t have been surprised to see “L” and “R” written on his shoes. In any event, contrasting his experience in the computer business as the starting point, I’d have asked the following.

Do you—or anyone you know—regularly use a Commodore 64 computer?

No? Why not? I’ll tell you why not. It’s ancient technology, in computer terms. New computers have about an 18-month lifespan on “the cutting edge.” Guns? Obsolescence comes at a glacial pace. If you go afield with a 120-year-old Mauser bolt-action, it’s not too far from being “state-of-the-art.” Oh, it may lack a Picatinny rail or a fiberglass/Kevlar stock, but those aren’t really necessary. The heart of the rifle, the barreled action, is essentially the same as what rolls out of current production. A colleague of mine has, as a home-protection gun, an M1911. Not even an M1911A1, but an early model that’s about a century old. Computers are bought and replaced so quickly, today’s younger purchasers don’t even know what the “Save” icon is supposed to be, having never seen a floppy disk. Bolt-action rifles, pump-action shotguns and single-action semi-automatic pistols are all well over 100 years old. Hell, even America’s Rifle, the AR-15, is in its sixth decade of production. How do you keep selling new versions of something when the old version is virtually as good and almost never wears out?