Bushmaster Gun Company Forced to Pull Tasteless Ad

A portion of Bushmaster's tasteless online promotion. (The company has since pulled it.)

A portion of Bushmaster’s tasteless online promotion. (The company has since pulled it.)

Bushmaster, the company that makes the machine gun Adam Lanza used in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre December 14, 2012, was forced to pull a shockingly bad ad campaign from its website that taunted men about their masculinity and portrayed them as not masculine unless they owned a gun. Bushmaster’s site quizzed men about whether they ate tofu, knew how to change a tire or had ever watched figure skating “on purpose.” If men passed the “quiz,” they would get awarded a “Man Card” that entitled them to “leave the seat up without shame.” A “Man Card” could be revoked if a man was a “coward,” a “cry baby” or found himself on a “short leash.” One part of the site said “Colin F. avoids eye contact with tough-looking 5th graders. MAN CARD REVOKED.” The ad also made it clear that a man could reclaim his manhood by buying a Bushmaster assault rifle,  like the one Adam Lanza allegedly used at Newtown.

Source: Buzzfeed, December 17, 2012

  2 comments for “Bushmaster Gun Company Forced to Pull Tasteless Ad

  1. Anne–Nice piece above overall,but you aren’t contributing any useful information to the discussion about guns when you use the words “machine gun” as you did in your piece above. Lanza used an assault rifle which is correct as you used the term in the last sentence. There is a big difference between a machine gun & an assault rifle as to how quickly rounds can be delivered to the firing chamber, the magazine capacity, and especially the rate at which rounds can be delivered through the barrel.

    I have an offer for you. I would like you to accompany me to Jerry’s Outdoor Sports where Jerry, as Western Colorado’s prime merchant of death, has the finest line of assault rifles just waiting to be bought and used in schools, malls and movie theaters. The purpose of this visit is to educate you about guns in general and specifically about assault rifles.

    You may contact me via email to set up a day and time for the visit to Jerry’s.

    Sveto Djokic

    • Hi Sveto,
      Nice offer, and I might take you up on it, but there doesn’t seem to be much difference in deadliness between a fully automatic weapon and a semi-automatic weapon. You can easily turn a semi-auto Bushmaster into a fully automatic weapon, too. Take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0BgLk1i9yY&feature=youtu.be
      Given this, the claim that a semi automatic weapon is altogether different than a fully automatic weapon is a distinction without a difference, when you are talking about live bodies in front of it.

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