An online group is criticizing JCPenney for a catalog that features a Dallas gay couple and their children. 

One Million Moms is asking its members to avoid shopping at the Plano, Texas-based retailer, saying it is "disturbed" that the company is "continuing down the same path of promoting sin in their advertisements." 

The catalog featuring Cooper Smith and Todd Koch, of Oak Cliff, Texas, began arriving in mailboxes last week. 

"We knew that there would be some opposition, but it's nothing that we haven't heard from people our whole lives," Smith said. "It's just part of growing up gay." 

One Million Moms is urging its members to write "refused... return to sender" on mailed JCPenney catalogs and advertising and close their store credit cards. 

"The Bible clearly states that marriage is between a man and a woman and no one, including JCPenney, can redefine it," Monica Cole, the group's director, said in a statement. 

Smith and Koch said they expected but some backlash from the catalog but also said that not everyone agrees with One Million Moms. 

Some people didn't even notice anything out of the ordinary in the catalog, Koch said. 

"I think some of the best responses that we've gotten from people are, 'What's the big deal? We didn't even realize that it was anything different until somebody made a big deal out of it,'" he said. 

In a statement to NBC 5, JCPenney said "We want to be a store for all Americans ... We're proud that our June book honors men from diverse backgrounds who all share the joy of fatherhood." 

Smith and Koch said JCPenney approached them in January. The photo shoot was held a few weeks later. 

"We're just a normal family, and they were wanting to reflect real-life families in this catalog," Smith said. 

"That photo is actually a true second of our lives, just playing and having fun with our kids and the affection and love that we have for them," he said. 

For Mother's Day, JC Penney featured a lesbian couple in an ad. 

Openly gay talk show host Ellen DeGeneres is the store's spokeswoman. One Million Moms, which the Southern Poverty Law Center deems a hate group, also launched a campaign in February asking JCPenney to drop DeGeneres as its company spokeswoman. 

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Damian Dovarganes / AP

Warehouse customers who believe that bulk shopping is smart shopping may have a point.

Every month, Parthie Orth visits the Costco Wholesale warehouse in Yonkers, N.Y., to pick up a few staples for her family. 

“I’m planning to buy a lot of food today,” Orth said. "I buy the organic chicken and the organic meat. I’m also a huge proponent of the frozen lasagna.”

While some of the items on her list may seem routine, the amount she is looking is to spend is not.

“I’m looking to spend about $1,000,” she said. “I stock up.” 

 CNBC.com: Extreme retail experiences

Warehouse clubs are not your garden variety big-box store. The three most popular warehouse chains in the United States — Costco , Wal-Mart's Sam’s Club, and BJ’s — are sparsely decorated and starkly lit; products are unceremoniously displayed on shipping pallets. Many clubs don’t take coupons and some accept only a few major credit cards: Sam’s Club accepts only Visa and Discover. Costco stores accept American Express credit cards, and Visa and MasterCard debit cards. Items are sold in limited sizes and usually come in bulk packaging. Yet despite their drawbacks, warehouse clubs are popular; the three stores combined have more than 122 million members.

Membership in these club stores does not come free; each requires you to pay before you purchase a single item. Sam’s Club charges $40 for basic membership, BJ’s $50, and Costco $55. Each of the three clubs also has a premium membership tier that costs about double and pays members a small amount of cash back based on their annual purchases. 

Customers may believe they’re paying for a chance to save money, but some experts think membership fees actually cause consumers to spend more.

“Right after you join a warehouse club, the first thing you think is, ‘How am I going to earn back that entry fee I just paid?’” said Brian Wansink, a professor of consumer behavior at Cornell University. “It creates a spending, but also a justification mentality.”

As a result, Wansink says, you’re going to spend more so that you feel like you’re saving more.

CNBC.com: Box-store weddings

“We have this basic view that buying in bulk is cheap. We clearly come home with a lot more stuff; we end up spending more because we are motivated to save money.”

That doesn’t trouble warehouse club member David Ziobro, who shops at the Edison, N.J., Costco. He said he believes his savings justify his membership fee. Even though Ziobro spent $262 on items ranging from chocolate chip cookies to grill cleaner to drill bits he picked up on impulse, he says he’s confident he’s still getting a good deal.

“Yeah, without a doubt my membership pays for itself,” Ziobro said. “I figure I save at least 10 percent to 15 percent overall.” 

Warehouse customers who believe that bulk shopping is smart shopping may have a point. According to a Consumers' Checkbook survey published by the not-for-profit Center for the Study of Services, BJ’s prices were on average 29 percent lower, Costco’s 30 percent lower, and Sam’s 33 percent lower than the largest supermarket chains.

The survey found that a family that spends $150 a week at a conventional supermarket could save $2,270 a year when shopping at BJ’s, $2,344 a year when shopping at Costco, and $2,571 when shopping at Sam’s Club. 

The money saved at warehouses comes at the expense of selection and convenience.  Warehouse clubs carry a relatively small array of items in a limited range of sizes. The Consumers' Checkbook survey found that warehouse club shoppers would only be able to find about half of the products they buy at their regular supermarket. BJ’s carries roughly 7,200 individual items, Sam’s club about 4,900 items, and Costco around 4,000.

CNBC.com: Cheap eats keep them coming back

When compared to the average supermarket, which carries about 50,000 items, and the average Wal-Mart, which carries about 100,000, warehouse club members are at a disadvantage in terms of selection. Because of this, the survey noted, consumers would still need to supplement their trip to a warehouse club with a trip to a supermarket.

Orth knows that pitfall of warehouse clubs firsthand. While she ended up spending $550, slightly more than half of what she expected, she still needs to make another shopping trip.

“Even though I spent over $500, I probably will have to go to the grocery store tomorrow,” Orth said. “My mother-in-law always says that the frustrating thing about going to Costco is that you can spend hundreds of dollars, but you still come home with nothing to eat for dinner.”

CNBC's Carl Quintanilla and the Street Signs team discuss Costco's business model, ahead of CNBC's "The Costco Craze" documentary.

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This article, "Does it pay to be a warehouse club member?," first appeared on CNBC.com.

Cindeka Nealy / for msnbc.com

Tommy "Hoss Fly" Atchison" looks for a gun to show, while Ray Scott checks out a revolver this week at Tommy "Hoss Fly" Atchison Guns & Trades Inc. in Midland, Texas.

“Stand Your Ground” laws, which have come under fire as a possible factor in the Florida shooting death of an unarmed black teenager, may be having another impact, too — helping fuel a surge in gun sales. 

Gun buyers swamped retailers nationwide last year, prompting a record 16.4 million instant criminal background checks of potential owners, up 14.2 percent from 2010, according to FBI figures. While some buyers may not have followed through with gun purchases or may have been denied, others bought more than one, so background checks are considered a good proxy for sales in the industry.

On Wednesday, gun maker Sturm, Ruger & Co. announced the company was forced to temporarily suspend its acceptance of any new firearms orders due to a barrage of wholesale orders — more than 1 million in 2012 alone. Last year the company shipped a total of 1.1 million firearms. This massive push "exceeds our capacity to rapidly fulfill these orders," the Connecticut company said in a news release, adding that it expects to resume normal operations by the end of May.

While "no true stats" exist reflecting actual U.S. gun purchases, Ginger Colbrun, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms pointed to a report the agency published last year citing a significant spike in gun manufacturing. According to the report, 5.5 million firearms were manufactured in 2009 (the most recent year for which such figures are available) — 1 million more  than in 2008, and the highest number since at least 1986. A rise was seen in all four primary categories: pistols, revolvers, rifles and shotguns.

Cindeka Nealy / for msnbc.com

A Taurus .38 Special revolver

"There’s a reason: Because they’re selling. They aren’t just sitting on the shelf if they’re being manufactured," Colbrun said.

Relaxed gun laws are likely a factor behind the boom in sales, although not the only reason and perhaps not the primary one, industry experts say.

Many point to fears stoked by gun-rights advocates that President Barack Obama, if elected to a second term, will push legislation to rein in gun ownership. 

Wayne LaPierre, chief executive officer of the powerful National Rifle Association, told a meeting of conservatives last month that the president’s gun strategy is “crystal clear,” saying that Obama wants to “get re-elected and, with no more elections to worry about, get busy dismantling and destroying our firearms’ freedom, erase the Second Amendment.”

Jim Barrett, an analyst at CL King & Associates, an independent investment research firm who tracks the gun industry, said both the Obama factor and gun laws are at play. 

“You have conceal-carry laws being enacted by more and more states. That tends to spark an immediate jump in gun ownership in those states,” he said. 

“And the fact that Obama may get re-elected makes gun owners nervous,” Barrett added. 

Conceal-carry permits are now allowed in 49 states (Illinois and Washington D.C. do not have conceal-carry laws), and “Stand Your Ground” laws are on the books in 21 states. In Florida, police have cited the state’s seven-year-old “Stand your Ground” law in deciding not to charge George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain who shot and killed Trayvon Martin, 17, last month. The law says citizens do not have to retreat before using deadly force against attackers. The Justice Department and FBI now are investigating the killing, and a state grand jury is being convened.

Correlating state laws and gun sales is difficult, but in Utah and Texas — two states that have "Stand Your Ground" laws" — pre-purchase background checks rose by 84.5 percent and 19.3 percent respectively in 2011.  In California and New York — two states that do not have "Stand Your Ground" laws — background checks rose by 10.9 and 12.6 percent respectively, according to the FBI.  

Asked this week whether a loosening of gun-owner rights, including “Stand Your Ground” laws, might have contributed to rising gun sales, NRA spokeswoman Stephanie Samford said: “People are really just putting a premium on personal safety. … We’ve noticed that due to the economic downturn, prisoners are being furloughed, police officers are being laid off. And despite all their good intentions, police can’t always be there the exact second a crime occurs.” 

In Florida, criminal background checks — a federally mandated step retailers must take before selling a weapon to a potential buyer — rose by 13 percent from 2010 to 2011, FBI stats show. In fact, the pace of such background checks increased last year in every state except Kentucky. 

Nationally, the last time the annual background-check rate jumped as dramatically came in 2009, when Obama took office. 

“We know that Obama is certainly not a pro-gun president, and that has caused people to go out and purchase more firearms,” Samford said. 

The NRA website lists a timeline of what it calls "Obama's Anti-Gun Agenda," including a proposed budget for next year that "cuts in half" funding for the a federal program that allows pilots to carry handguns in the cockpit.  The NRA also says Obama "wants to kill" a law that would ban government agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from producing "anti-gun propaganda."

But Obama has also been criticized for supposedly failing to crack down on gun proliferation. Last summer, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., led an investigation into an ATF gun-tracking operation and said the Obama administration has been less stringent than the Bush in  gun-law enforcement. In 2009 Obama drew criticism from the left for signing a bill that allowed gun owners to carry concealed weapons into national parks. 

Politics aside, many of the new firearms buyers are women, said NRA spokeswoman Samford. That trend has helped pumped sales at stores like Tommy Hoss Fly Atchison Guns & Trades, Inc. in Midland, Texas. 

“I was selling a few (guns) a week not long ago. Now, I’m selling a few a day,” says owner Tommy “Hoss Fly” Atchison, who earned his nickname during a 35-year rodeo clown career.

According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, gun-store owners have reported a 73 percent increase in female customers in recent years, and the number of women buying guns for specifically for personal defense has climbed by more than 83 percent. 

In West Texas, where men are flocking to jobs in the local oil fields, more women are home alone at night, Atchison said, are consequently home alone at night — a trend that's leading some of those women to visit his store.  

“Women are buying guns because they feel the need for more protection,” Atchison said. “There’s also a lot more mischief and criminal activities” around town, leading to the desire among some local women to feel safer. 

At Atchison’s store, the calibers most popular among female buyers are 9 mms, .380s and .38s. Those guns produce somewhat smaller recoils, can fit snugly into smaller hands, and “are more concealable,” he added. 

For another unknown slice of buyers, a sense of bleak fatalism may be at play, several gun owners suggested. Look no deeper than “Doomsday Preppers,” a program on the National Geographic Channel that explores the lives of ordinary Americans who are preparing for the end of the world as we know it. The website promoting the program offers a glimpse of two young men aiming rifles in a desert landscape. 

Or could it be that some gun newbies are worried about solar flares or listening to the ancient Mayans? The Mayans planned to reset their long count calendar on Dec. 21, 2012, a date that some now see is the possible end of the world. 

“I'm not convinced it's fully Obama,” said John Schulte, a Minneapolis resident who teaches people how to obtain gun-carry permits. “There are a couple other things like the end of the Mayan calendar, and the sun changing its 11-year cycle … which means more solar storms that could knock out our satellites, electrical grid, and more. I think you will find more people becoming ‘Preppers’ as well as gun owners.” 

Which simply shows that when you ask people why their fellow Americans are gobbling up guns, their theories can -- in a click -- turn from dark pessimism to bright light.

Bill Briggs is a frequent contributor to msnbc.com and author of “The Third Miracle.”

Mitt Romney's campaign is probably wishing at this point that political statements were as easy to erase as the gray doodles on an Etch A Sketch, but the toy's century-old manufacturer is enjoying the unexpected publicity. As the candidate's campaign went into damage control mode after a top advisor's remark yesterday, executives at Ohio Art Company were thrilled at the sudden surge of interest in the iconic toy.

"This is the first time I've seen Etch A Sketch go viral so quickly," said Martin Killgallon, senior vice president of marketing and product development. 

The Killgallons — Martin's father Larry is the company's president — are a majority owner in Ohio Arts, and the family history with the company dates to 1955. Both father and son say it's still too early to tell if the Etch A Sketches being waved around at rallies by supporters of Romney's competitors will translate into a sales boom. 

One buyer told the company this morning that it sold roughly double the number of average units yesterday, Larry Killgallon said, but spring is a historically slow time for toy sales.

He said he'd be happy if Etch A Sketch's moment in the election cycle spotlight gets people to pay a little more attention to politics. "We hope it gets people's awareness up so they go out and vote in November."

Even if the Romney campaign's gaffe doesn't lead to a sales spike, Martin Killgallon said Ohio Arts is more than just Etch A Sketch. Founded in 1908, the company's roots are in metal lithography and packaging, and the production of things like popcorn tins and shaving cream cans still account for around 40 percent of the company's sales. 

The company has a handful of toy brands, but Etch A Sketch is the biggest seller — 150 million units sold since its debut in 1960 — as well as the most well-known. In recent years, the company has expanded on the classic Etch a Sketch with branded editions tied into the product's association with the "Toy Story" movies, a smaller "pocket" edition that is now the biggest seller in terms of units sold, and iPhone and iPad apps. 

Larry Killgallon said Etch A Sketch is responsible for about 35 percent of Ohio Art's toy revenue. The company's second-biggest seller is a line of tiny plastic building blocks called Nanoblocks. "That brand is growing very rapidly through Toys 'R Us and specialty toy shops," he said.

Going low-tech may seem counter intuitive, but one industry analyst said there's still room for toys that don't involve a screen or batteries.

"While technology is certainly prevalent in our lives, and our children’s lives, it does not mean that tech-less toys cannot succeed," Anita Frazier, analyst at the NPD Group, said via email. Even though it's old-school, Frazier said Etch A Sketch "has a lot going for it. It’s simple and intuitive for kids to use [and] it has the nostalgia factor going for it with parents."

There's a silver lining for Mitt Romney with every Etch A Sketch his opponents purchase, though: A big seller is Toys 'R Us, which was bought out in 2005 by an investor consortium including Romney's own Bain Capital. 

Anna Staab gets her ticket at Walmart for a $199 Xbox with Kinect and a $50 gift certificate.

By Eve Tahmincioglu

Extended Black Friday hours may have angered those store employees who had to work before their turkey dinners were digested, but many shoppers were happy with this year's earlier store opening times because they found fewer raucous crowds and shorter lines as a result.

“This was the absolute calmest Black Friday I have ever experienced,” said Nathan Luna, 24, who began his shopping trek at 12:08 a.m. this morning and headed to Best Buy in Wheaton, Md.

While things may have been more relaxed, projections for the number of consumers heading out on the biggest shopping day of the year are up.

According to data compiled for the National Retail Federation by BIGresearch, up to 152 million people plan to shop over the Black Friday weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday), that's higher than the 138 million people who planned to do so last year. According to the survey, 74 million people say they will definitely hit the stores and another 77 million are waiting to see if the bargains are worth braving the cold and the crowds.

Overall, electronics and clothing were among the biggest scores for many consumers, especially video game players and high-end fashions. And many shoppers said they found the sales items they wanted, unlike past Black Fridays that offered slim pickings; and lots of sales people to help them navigate the stores.

Here are some first-hand accounts of the day and deals from Black Friday aficionados:

“The crowds were very well-behaved,” said Brad Williams, 39, an analyst for Duke University who headed out at 9:15 p.m. last night with his wife Wendy. “The line at Target, as I said, was enormous, but my wife said that the people there were jovial and pretty Zen about the wait. No pushing or shoving whatsoever.”

The couple has two young kids, but grandparents take the kids after Thanksgiving dinner to their house so Brad and his wife can shop unfettered.

"The crowds seemed to be bigger this year at Target and Kohl's, but smaller elsewhere," Williams added. "I think that has to do with when we arrived. We were in the teeth of the initial rush at those two places, but by the time we got to Crabtree, about 3 a.m., that had subsided and the second rush, when non-crazy people are getting up, hadn't yet begun."

Brad Williams

Orderly crowds at the Tanger Outlets in Mebane, N.C.

The deals overall were good, he said, but his “best bargains” were “a pair of Lucky Brand jeans for my wife, which were $18 (original outlet price was $69.50, they were on clearance for $30, and 40 percent off that), and a Brooks Brothers sports shirt, which was $29.90.”

Wendy Novicenskie

Brad Williams shows off his Black Friday loot.

Anna Staab, 51, Metamora, Il., hit the stores around 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving and found lots of merchandise available at Walmart and Menards, a regional department store chain. “After seeing plenty of merchandise left at Walmart at this hour we wondered if it had something to do with the economy or if people were just avoiding it due to the earlier hours,” she surmised.

Staab, a retired Post Master who has seven kids living with her, some foster, some adopted and some biological, said she needed to be out early to get the big bargains and ended up with quite a few.

Her biggest complaint was where Walmart placed the sales items.

“Big box items, i.e. trampoline, ping pong table, power ride on toys, were all at the back of the store. Customers had to fight the crowds with the huge boxes,” she explained. “They need a better system for those.”

Nathan Luna

Nathan Luna grabbed an iPad for $454.

And Staab didn't like that many retailers staggered sales throughout the night.

"Certain things went on sale at 10 p.m. Thursday, then midnight, then 8 a.m.," she noted.

Besides a few annoyances, she was able to get the one thing she really wanted. She's most proud of the Xbox with Kinect she got at Walmart for $199 and a $50 Walmart card included, about half the price it was last year.

The iPad 2 was the only thing Nathan Luna was looking for.

He arrived at the Best Buy in Wheaton, Md., at 12:20 a.m. and found the parking log jammed and a line of more than 700 people.

“Less-experienced Black Friday shoppers would have probably turned around in horror, but I pressed on,” said Luna, a TV photographer who has been Black Friday shopping since he was a kid when he shopped with his mom and grandmother.

Nathan Luna

Lines formed at the Best Buy in Wheaton, Md., and police were on hand to keep things moving smoothly.

Despite the crowds, he said, a group of police officers helped shuffle shoppers into the store and the line within 20 minutes after the store opened.

Nathan Luna

There were big crowds at the Best Buy in Wheaton, Md., but lines moved quickly, according to one shopper.

“I was greeted by a wall of Dynex 32-inch TVs and thousands of people jamming up the aisles,” he described. “I asked the greeter where the iPads were, and he directed me to the back of the store. I had to bump a few elbows to get back there, but when I did, I noticed something new.”

Instead of a line snaking around the entire store, he said, there were check-out lines scattered throughout the store near key items.

“When I got in the iPad line, I literally had eleven people in front of me,” he said, adding that it took about a half hour to check out, compared to the hours it has taken during past Black Fridays.

He eventually got his iPad for $454.

Erin Mellini was happy she paid $10 for VIP parking through Livingsocial for the Rockaway Townsquare Mall in Rockaway, N.J., because she ended up with a prime parking spot.

“The VIP parking was nice and close, and it gave me peace of mind my car was in good hands because the mall security was in charge of it,” she said.

Erin Mellini

Erin Mellini with the hard drive for $30 she was able to snag.

Mellini, 25, a zookeeper and educator from Randolph, N.J., found the mall relatively quiet when she got there at 5 am.

“The stores were not really picked clean,” she added, but “any deep discount item, which you needed a ticket for, was gone.

For example a $199, 42-inch HDTV from Best Buy was gone, but I got an external Toshiba hard drive that I was intending to buy and didn’t have to deal with the mad rush at midnight. I got it for $30 which is a very good price.”

The best deal, she noted, was a $40 WiFi streaming media player from Walmart.

“I was happiest to get that, which was a door-buster deal,” she explained, adding that most of the stores had a great supply of advertised merchandise.

Mellini acknowledged that she and her friend Erica, who joined her on the shopping excursion, didn’t have the same "adrenaline rush" they had on previous Black Fridays because the crowds seemed to be so spread out given the extended hours.

“We still had a great time and intend to maybe go out at midnight next year if that is going to become the norm for stores,” she added.

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