The Great Cultural Divide

You may have heard of the Missouri car dealer who is offering customers a choice of either free gas or a gift certificate for a gun with any car. ("Nationwide delivery available!")

The NY Times published the following in their "Wheels" automotive blog:

Why Guns Over Gas?

By Richard S. Chang

This Missouri used car dealership has a different kind of promotion, offering buyers a choice between a $250 gas card or a $250 check toward the purchase of a gun.

The owner, Mark Muller, said everyone “except one guy from Canada and one old guy” has chosen the gun. And this has generated quite a bit of commotion.

But why did buyers take the gun over gas? Simply saying that “Midwesterners love their guns” doesn’t really answer the question. There must be something more psychological to the gun choice. It was a question for Freakonomics, so I sent an e-mail to Stephen J. Dubner, who co-wrote the book “Freakonomics.” He replied:

• People prefer lump-sum distributions in most cases, and the gun is more of a lump-sum (big-ticket) item than an annuity (a few fill-ups of gas).

• The gun is more tangible and therefore appealing; it won’t disappear, unlike the gas.

• Since the promotion is essentially a bonus, the item far more appealing as a bonus is the gun, since it’s an optional purchase, whereas the gas is a necessity.

So it may not be a case of the gun being so appealing, but free gas being so unappealing, especially because $250 will likely buy less and less gas as the summer goes on.

For many coffee-drinking New Yorkers, an equivalent may be the choice between $250 grocery money and an espresso machine.

The right (financially sound) choice is taking the grocery money because that’s cash you’re going to spend anyway, so you would be saving money. But I think I’d go for the espresso machine every time.

“There’s a lot of research that shows that people treat windfall profits totally differently than they treat regular income (it’s called ‘mental accounting,’ in general),” Mr. Dubner added, “so while your point makes perfect sense, we don’t always think so sensibly.”

"Simply saying that “Midwesterners love their guns” doesn’t really answer the question."
Maybe not for you, being a least coast big city elitist...
Check out some of the comments:

I figured it was because if you have a gun, you don’t have to pay for gas.
— Posted by Xavier Salisbury

'Cause everybody knows only criminals have guns.
In Noo Yawk, anyway.

You don’t have to get your wife’s permission/approval to buy gas as you might with a gun purchase. How can she say no to a “free” gun?
— Posted by Gary from

Ummm...

Duh…Scarily enuf…. I would assume the thinking goes more along these lines… (gas lines?)
Gas equals eggs, Gun equals hen!
— Posted by Brian Foster

What?

Sorry….having lived in Missouri during my undergrad years (Go MIZZOU!), I’d have to say it’s because Midwesterners Love Their Guns.
It’s no accident that Missouri’s former Congressman Harold Volkmer was the No. 1 recipient of funds from the NRA.
— Posted by M

I'm guessing that M--and where are Q, not to mention Bond,JamesBond and Moneypenny?--only spent his, her, or it's undergrad years in the Mid West...

Dubner’s reasoning is as usual, completely logical and probably spot on. That said, it doesn’t take away that the owner of the car dealership sounds like a nutcase.
— Posted by Michele Gerstel Costello

'Cause only a nutcase would think of this.
And/or only nutcases live in the Mid West.
Or anywhere not on a coast, for that matter...

Yeah, that’s great… he could have offered maybe a free ipod integration system, maybe a free feature for the car, like additional airbags, maybe a baby seat, better breaks, tires, etc.. but OF COURSE a gun makes more sense…. all I have to say is WOW… what the heck is going on!?
— Posted by Fernando

which leads into

...when the dealer says, “I’m telling them to get the semiautomatic [handgun] because it holds more rounds,” my sense is our priorities in this country are more out whack than the good folks of Freakonomics should be expected to explain.

And does it surprise you to learn that the author of that little gem signs his comment like thusly: Doug Pennington, Bradycampaign.org
— Posted by Doug Pennington
I didn't think so...
OTOH, there were these two:

It was marketing GENIUS since he never gave away a SINGLE GUN.
The whole thing was based on a GIFT CERTIFICATE to a local Gun Shop.
He got local, regional, and even national (probably internation) publicity on the cable networks and even in the NYTimes.
Brilliant.
And he got to make fun of people who don’t like guns.
— Posted by HerbM

{Emphasis added--DWD}
and

The Keltec .380 being offered is a great gun for carry, If you live in one of the 48 states where the “brady campaign to ban guns” has FAILED to stop concealed carry by citizens.
— Posted by Fiftycal

Alas, at this point the NYSlimes has not yet "approved" my 2 cents worth, which went something like "...least coast cultural elites and their billionaire 'I'm rich so I can wipe my @$$ on the Constitution mayor...'"
Think they'll run it?
Me neither...

What strikes me is the way that so many of the posters not only didn't get it, but they seemed to be totally flummoxed by the whole "giving away a gun" thing.
Look at Mr. BradyCampaignToDisarmLaw-AbidingAmericans' comments again: "our priorities in this country are ...out whack..."
When it comes to depriving law-abiding citizens of their ability to defend themselves and their loved ones, you bet someone's out of whack, but I don't think it's me, pal.
And Fernando: "all I have to say is WOW… what the heck is going on!?"
Read it slowly, maybe you can grasp the concept: Outside the hive, we like to control our own lives.
Guns are inanimate objects.
Not good, not bad, just things.
People use them.
Bad people use them for bad things, good people use them for good things.
Like putting food on the table. Or recreation.
Or defending themselves and their loved ones.
And we reject the big city hivemind's attempts to assimilate us.