A group of 12 Democratic lawmakers this week called on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate the gun industry for “unfair and deceptive advertising practices.”
The 12 senators wrote a letter to FTC Chairperson Lina Khan arguing that gun makers and sellers target children and teenagers in their ads and continually fail to warn consumers about the inherent danger of firearms.
“The industry regularly and routinely makes false and misleading representations about firearm safety and unfairly exploits children and teenagers through unfair and deceptive marketing practices, including targeting teenagers, particularly young men, with advertising for military-style weapons,” the senators wrote.
“Time and again, these practices have had deadly consequences,” they continued.
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The group also pointed to anti-gun petitions that claim “firearm possession, ownership, and use render consumers substantially less safe and substantially more at risk of injury and death with limited, if any, protective benefit.”
They wrote:
The rare instances in which a gun owner successfully uses a firearm for self-defense are far outweighed by the vastly higher number of injuries and deaths for the owners, family members, and other cohabitants. In fact, research indicates that for each instance in which a firearm in the home is used successfully in self-defense, there are 11 attempted or completed firearm suicides, seven criminal assaults or homicides involving a firearm, and four unintentional shootings.
The letter, which you can read below, was signed by U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Edward J. Markey (D-MA), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Jack Reed (D-RI).
GunsAmerica reached out to Alan Gottlieb, the founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, for comment.
“Who the FTC should be going after is Democrat Senators and other politicians who make and run false statements and ads about gun owners and the Second Amendment,” he said via email.
“Talking about unfair and deceptive acts and practices these gun prohibition politicians are the real danger to freedom in our country,” he added.
The claim that firearm ownership by responsible Americans is a net negative with no protective benefit is a bald-faced lie.
Even the CDC has acknowledged that instances of defensive gun use (DGU) by law-abiding citizens in this country are at least as common, but probably more common than instances where criminals use firearms in the commission of a crime.
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Just on the metric of DGUs alone there is a clear-cut benefit, and that’s to say nothing of the benefits of other 2A-related activities like hunting and competitive shooting which help to put food on the table and bring families, friends and communities together.
Finally, the 2A is a safeguard against tyranny. It is the amendment that secures and protects all the rest. As it’s been said, an armed man is a citizen, an unarmed man is a subject.
Mr. Gottlieb’s correct, the FTC should recognize that the “these gun prohibition politicians are the real danger to freedom in our country.” Yes, they are indeed the ones who need to be investigated.
Deceptive advertising?? What do politicians do all the time? If what they do isn’t deceptive it must be just plain lying.
Politicians make false miss-leading advertisements more than any company. They spend billion’s doing it too. They only say or maybe do what they think will help themselves to stay in their cushy job rather than what is best for the state or country.
I recall that the Ct. Senator was a ‘Featured Speaker’ at some National Convention of….wait for it….COMMUNISTS. Explains everything I need to know.
Here in Michigan , we have a Dummycrat Congressional candidate who’s blaming “gun violence” on expanded CPL permits to law-abiding citizens 🙄
Didn’t read the article once I realized it was about guns, thought it was about Blummingberry when it said unfair and deceptive advertising.
Every other commercial for cop show on regular free TV has at least 3 guns or more in it, glorifying the use of guns. Do these morons count that as advertising?
Blumenthal should be the last person on earth to complain about deceptive practices. His phony “combat hero” claims should bar him from showing his face in public…if he had even a modicum of shame.
Where is all this advertising from the gun industry? I rarely see an ad for firearms outside of firearm focused media, like magazines or tv. And usually that is for Henry.
Do the violent video games count as advertising? Or movies that glorify gun use?
“Do the violent video games count as advertising? Or movies that glorify gun use?”
NO
“ Do the video games count as advertising? “
Possibly to intellectuals like yourself , playing
them all day long in Mommy & Daddy’s basement .
What an absurd question .
They spend so much time demonizing the gun industry and its enthusiasts, yet so little time going after the real culprits in all of this, the criminal and the crazy. How about a federal law that says 3 convictions of a violent crime is a federal offense and carries capital punishment? It would clean out the prisons real quick.
WAKE UP READERS. There is no winning a war that is prosecuted by a Communist Regime determined to enslave and kill those citizens who refuse to submit to Communist Tyranny. There is nothing left for Americans. No free and fair elections. No independant media. No Co-Equal branches of government. No Constitutional limitations on government. No liberties as enshrined by the Constitution. No freedoms, no privacy, no right to bear arms, no right to children, and no right to religion.
So Americans should protect themselves from total Communist order and stockpile the goods and arms necessary to give their families a head start to defy communist rule. Hunger is terrible. Communist torture far worse. Its up to you