(Photo illustration created with Vector Tradition photos / Shutterstock)
September 23, 2022
By Mark Chesnut
Not content with attacking gun manufacturers and lawful American gun owners through Second Amendments infringements, a dozen anti-gun U.S. senators recently sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) encouraging an attack on gunmakers’ First Amendment rights.
The gun-ban-loving senators, led by Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy of Connecticut, contend that advertising practices within the firearms industry target youth and are a significant cause of mass shootings.
“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.”
(Cropped from EQRoy photo / Shutterstock) The senators further claim that years of lies concerning armed self-defense by gun makers and Second Amendment supporters have led to increased violent crime.
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“For decades, the firearms industry has marketed firearms to consumers as a safe and proven product to protect themselves and their homes,” the senators wrote. “Consumers should be informed of all the substantial and unavoidable risks that come with firearm ownership, possession, and use, and the FTC is in the best position to make sure that the firearms industry tells them—and tells them accurately.
Of course, anti-gun politicians like Markey, Blumenthal and Murphy largely reject the assertion that firearms are used for self-defense far more often than used by criminals for nefarious purposes. According to the most recent studies, Americans use their firearms for self-defense about 1.6 million times each year with great success.
In fact, back in 2013 even the Centers for Disease Control wrote : “Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”
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Despite that, these senators want the FTC to crack down on what they deem to be false advertising of how guns can make people safer. In addition to Markey, Blumenthal and Murphy, other senators signing the FTC letter included Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois, Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Corey Booker of New Jersey, Diane Feinstein and Alex Padilla of California, Amy Klobucher of Minnesota, Kristen Gillibrand of New York, and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
This latest effort comes only a few months after some gun company executives were forced to testify before a Congressional committee on the same topic. Following those hearings, Dan Smith, president and CEO of Smith & Wesson, released a pointed statement about his company’s response to this anti-gun, anti-freedom effort.
“We will continue to work alongside law enforcement, community leaders and lawmakers who are genuinely interested in creating safe neighborhoods,” Smith wrote. “We will engage those who genuinely seek productive discussions, not a means of scoring political points. We will continue informing law-abiding citizens that they have a Constitutionally-protected right to defend themselves and their families. We will never back down in our defense of the Second Amendment.”
About the Author Freelance writer and editor Mark Chesnut is the owner/editorial director at Red Setter Communications LLC. An avid hunter, shooter and political observer, he has been covering Second Amendment issues and politics on a near-daily basis for over 20 years.
