Independence Day is one of my favorite holidays. It's a day to celebrate being American, to celebrate the rights we have that so many others throughout the world are denied, such as the right to keep and bear arms. So it's not shocking that gun companies use patriotism on their posts for July 4th.
And the Violence Policy Coalition thinks that's bad.
No, seriously.
A couple of days ago, via their Campaign for Gun Industry Accountability, the VPC sent out a blast regarding what the gun companies posted on Independence Day.
In their marketing efforts, especially for assault weapons, the firearms industry frequently presents guns as the physical embodiment of freedom and those who possess them as modern-day militiamen.
The images below offer examples from this year of gun manufacturer Instagram posts exploiting the 4th of July, while this link presents a slide show of past marketing efforts.
You can go and look for yourself if you want, but it's guns in front of flags with some reference to freedom.
I know, such a terrible thing to post on Independence Day.
I get that this is unprecedented, that no other industry would use patriotism to try and sell a product or anything. I mean, it's not like a car company would do such a terrible thing.
Oh, wait...
Yeah, it's kind of my favorite car commercial ever. That's just plain badass.
And yeah, if memory serves me, that came out around Independence Day.
See, the problem here isn't that the gun companies did something other industries wouldn't do. It's that they did anything at all.
The only way the VPC wouldn't lose their minds is if the gun companies actually lied about their products and talked about how they were dangerous and no one should own one, and that only terrible people would consider buying one.
Since that's never going to happen, they're just going to keep griping because they do the same things everyone else would at least consider doing. Especially when their target market also happens to be full of pretty patriotic people. We might not like our government at times, but we love our country and would die to defend it. Many of us have previously put our butts on the line to do so and would do it again if needed.
Playing to that isn't vile, it's smart.
But the Violence Policy Center and groups like them can't see it that way.
Yet what we can see is that they're completely unhinged. They didn't attack Chevy for their Challenger commercial despite cars killing more people than guns ever could. They said nothing. No one said anything except how awesome that commercial was. That's because that's an American thing, and it's a great way to market a product to an American audience.
It's stupid to run that at in England, of course, because they're still a little salty about us kicking their ass, but here? That plays well.
As do the ads from companies like Barrett and Smith & Wesson.
They're American companies selling to an American audience. Why wouldn't they use patriotism?
Or is it the presence of patriotism that's the real issue here?
The right to keep and bear arms is an American tradition. We uphold it, even if the rest of the world ignores it. It's not perfect here, but it's better than literally anywhere else in the world. Patriotism is also, apparently, pretty unique to America. Most parts of the world seem to view nationalism as some kind of bad thing, that loving your country is weird.
And that patriotism means we're not ready to be like any global community. We don't want it, and the fact that we have guns means you can't make us.
God bless America, baby.
