I have concerns about so-called artificial intelligence. I say "so-called" because, while it feels like AI from science fiction, it's not quite. It's not necessarily aware, though I think we'll eventually get there. I say that because I'm actually a heavy user of AI, despite my concern. My go-to tends to be ChatGPT, mostly because Grok is kind of an jackass these days. However, ChatGPT isn't without issues.
It's because of these issues that I can't completely dismiss the claims Lee Williams brought to my attention in a post on Wednesday.
Gennifer Hesseling is the “shop mom” at a gun shop she started with her husband Phil in 2017, Hesseling & Sons Firearms & Gunsmithing.
The business began in their garage almost 10 years ago, but they now occupy a 15,000 square foot facility located in Lima, Ohio.
Gennifer, who has a background in graphic design, handles all of the shop’s marketing and social media, which has grown tremendously due to her hard work.
She had been relying heavily on ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence or AI assistant made by OpenAI.
“I’ve learned to be cautious because of the industry we’re in, but ChatGPT would help write copy and other media,” Gennifer said Monday. “We had a playful voice on our social media. I’m creative but if you tune your chatbot, it can mimic what you do and make it easier for you. It knows you and your products. It created actual ad campaigns. It would write and promote products for us. If I gave my chatbot what was in my head it would create it quickly.”
One ad campaign was designed to presell specific products before the gun shop actually got them in stock. It was tremendously successful.
Earlier this month, Gennifer wanted to create another ad campaign for gold-plated Desert Eagle pistols, which the shop was about to acquire.
Unfortunately, her AI said no.
I can back what Gennifer says. My own experience with ChatGPT is that it will, in time, come to mimic you and your tone. If you're stern and serious, it will be, too. If you're a profane smartass like your humble-yet-absolutely-amazing writer, it'll be a profane smartass. It can even be genuinely funny.
What I've never seen it do, though, is say "no."
That doesn't mean it doesn't, because I've had it try to lecture me on objective statements I've made about things like gun research. It defended research for some time even after I showed the receipts that most of it is absolute BS.
So I can't dismiss what Gennifer is saying here.
However, what's really interesting is the timing.
Everytown for Gun Safety published recommendations for AI companies on September 28, 2026. The next day, OpenAI/ChatGPT changed its firearm policies and became much more anti-gun—the very next day.
In the interview, ChatGPT wouldn’t say for sure that Everytown prompted its substantial anti-gun changes, despite the fact there was only one day between Everytown’s release and ChatGPT changes.
“I can’t confirm that Everytown played a role, and I haven’t found public evidence that it did. Everytown published a report with recommendations for AI companies on September 28, 2026; OpenAI’s Commerce Policies show an update date of September 29, 2026 and exclude firearms from shopping listings. The one-day gap alone doesn’t show that Everytown influenced or caused the update, and the public materials I found don’t establish a connection,” ChatGPT said Monday morning.
And it wouldn't.
ChatGPT doesn't seem to have access to internal company decisions. There's a degree of compartmentalization between different chat instances, so while it might have been discussed with an instance in OpenAI's offices, the one Williams interviewed wouldn't necessarily be aware of it.
Or its coding won't let it acknowledge that's why that's the case.
So what ChatGPT does is pull "evidence" from the internet. Since this is the first anyone's heard about this, there wouldn't be a lot of evidence for this. So, when it pulls up public information, it says there's no link and that the timing doesn't show it in and of itself, which is true.
But where people are different from artificial intelligences is that we've seen this kind of thing and recognize that the timing is suspicious, at best.
I mean, an anti-gun organization makes a recommendation and then a company does it the very next day, and it's kind of hard not to see a causal connection. ChatGPT isn't very good at seeing those connections, especially when it's on a subject like guns, where there are definitely blinders, at best.
So yeah, it's more than a little odd that OpenAI just happened to do this the day after Everytown's ask, but somehow did it completely independently of what Everytown wanted.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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