Gun makers appeal to buyers' racism to sell products
courtesy tactical-expressions.com

“Not all gun lovers are racists, but there is plenty of white pride rhetoric among Second Amendment advocates, and racism is deeply embedded in the history of that particular clause. Whether they’re proudly proclaiming to be infidels (specifically, enemies of Islam), or boasting that “Blue Lives Matter,” anyone who hopes to sell such products capitalizes on Americans’ racism. Racism is an ugly extension of tribalism—one the gun industry is more than happy to cash in on.” – Liz Posner in The Gun maker’s strategy: marketing products to men’s basest instincts [via salon.com]

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96 COMMENTS

        • “All Lives Matter” makes as much rhetorical sense as “Feed All People” instead of “Feed the Needy.”

        • Evey259: ““All Lives Matter” makes as much rhetorical sense as “Feed All People” instead of “Feed the Needy.””

          That’s a false premise if I’ve ever seen one. First off, you’re using colloquial word-usage as a means of technical comparison for sustenance support for people who cannot afford food vs those who may become marginalized by cultural or societal cliques.

          All people must eat, that’s a fact. But the need for access to food is the issue there, so “feed the needy” became the catch-phrase for making food more available to those where it was a scarcity. That phrase, “feed the needy” did not imply that those who had easy access to food somehow still did not require it.

          The “Black Lives Matter” vs. “All Lives Matter” controversy was a product of the social pendulum swinging hard. Granted, some might argue that “BLM” was trying to bring the perceived value of their lives to parity of others, and there’s nothing wrong with that, however when you get a dose of the other side where people are denigrated/silenced/shamed for being white (and nothing else), one must remember to not be a hypocrite and that skin-color is simply a paint-job, so “All Lives Matter” was a bit of much-needed perspective.

      • I was tracking this pretty closely as I have friends working at 2 different “Higher Ed” institutions, effectively on each coast.

        There were HOWLS of indignation, calls of racism, denouncing statements by the school admin, bias committee investigations, rallies, op-eds, unbelievable (well not really) levels of vitriol. You’d think there were corpses hanging from lampposts.

        The photos sent to me were of large, pencil fine font, undersized on a standard piece of paper taped next to BLM and/or Tranny Lives Matter posters.

        Truly a brilliant troll. Sure flushed out/exposed the hyper-racist anti-racist crowd.

      • one of the funnier 4chan trolls in history, good job on them for starting that up

        takes me back to the project chanology days

    • I am not blue. Nor are there any blue people in my family (to my knowledge). As best as i can recall, ive never had a negative dealing with or been oppressed by a blue person. Having had little opportunities to deal with a blue person in my life, i could only assume that i would treat them no differently than i have anyone else of any given color, shade or hue…
      🤠

      • I had some blue friends once.

        Okay, they were only blue for a brief time after they decided to go skinnydipping in the Pacific Ocean… in Oregon… in March.

        Then there was the chick at the Oregon Country Fair, but I guess body paint (and nothing but body paint) doesn’t count.

  3. Talk about racism….. then sh!t on one particular race…. hypocritical much? But that what i expect to hear from salon.
    Just for your information, im not a racist. I dont judge people due to ethnicity, race, skin color, or religion.
    However i do have a problem with sheeple. You know people like the idiot who wrote this pile of crap.

  5. People who say “blue lives matter” are modern-day loyalists (Tories). Who do they think enforces laws restricting our firearms freedoms? Without cops, all the machinations of our so-called representatives would be nothing more than words on paper. We could own whatever guns we wanted. We could open businesses without all the hoop-jumping and extortionary taxation. We could stop sending our money to an organization that goes around threatening and blowing people up all over the world (unless we really wanted to). We could stop paying for licenses and registration just to exercise our right to travel. We could be free in hundreds of ways, of only people refused to join the Blue Standing Army, whose only mandate is to do the bidding of corrupt politicians. And we would also be safer than we are now, because there would be no enforcement of disarmament laws.

    • …or any other laws, for that matter. Police departments could certainly do with a bit of restructuring and demilitarizing, but to remove them completely? I’ve met far too many people to think that relying on mob justice is the right way to go.

      • False dichotomy. I never said anything about mobs. I just observed that allowing a single agency a monopoly on the use of force to enforce the sociopathic decrees of politicians has been an absolute disaster. That you assume the only alternative is “mob justice” is a testament to how well we’ve been convinced that we need our oppressors.

    • By your argument this would also include members of our armed forces.

      And as a country we do “really want to threaten and blow people up”, we have for a good chunk of the 240 plus years that we’ve existed as a country.

      • And as a result we are trillions of dollars in debt, have a huge backlog of veterans who died for nothing in foreign lands (sad but true), and we still believe we need to spend more on war than the next dozen countries combined (all of which seem to be doing just fine without all the empire-building). Oh, and the military is exempt from all the disarmament laws we little people must abide by. This is not freedom, safety, justice, or prosperity.

      • Anarchy just means that there is general agreement that it’s wrong to hurt people or take their stuff. You wouldn’t think that’d be a hard conclusion to reach, but historically, we have always wanted someone to be “in charge,” someone who magically has “extra rights” to violate these simple rules of morality “for the common good,” as if that makes any sense.

    • “And we would also be safer than we are now”…

      The history of this country, and specifically the American West, would disagree with you. You don’t have to look back to colonial times, really only about 150 years in this country to find large areas that were completely without law.
      In those places, people came together and elected Sherriff’s, Constables, and other members of law enforcement. They weren’t that concerned about the individual cattle thief and murderer. They had well armed vigilante groups for that. They created formal offices, and raised funding for them by taxing themselves, in order to combat the large and powerful gangs of criminals that arose in the otherwise lawless areas.
      Because the philosophy that we will all be safer when there is no longer formal law enforcement just doesn’t match the reality of history. Not ancient history, but the fairly modern history of our nation. If your philosophy doesn’t match reality, reality isn’t’ wrong.

      • Your views of the Old West aren’t exactly correct. Can you actually name even ONE of these criminal gangs that you allege early settlers hired men to deal with? I doubt it. Beware, movies like “Magnificent Seven” don’t count! Movies aren’t real.
        They DID enact laws and hire men to enforce them, but it was more out of laziness than need. They DID, indeed, have vigilantes, and it was these groups of citizens who dealt with situations when the few Government employees around proved insufficient. LEOs were mostly for the singles or pairs of outlaws that were not worth getting an entire mob together to deal with. But when their LEOs proved incapable, THAT is when the citizen groups took over. Every large criminal gang problem was solved by direct citizen action. Whenever LE proven incapable of dealing with a situation, the citizens then banded together to solve it. Read the history of the real West, not what has been on TV and the silver screen. They call Hollywood, “the land of make believe” for a reason.

        • My views of the Old West are precisely correct and the result of decades of research, study, and patronage of historical societies. Off the top of my head, ones everyone should know, are the various gangs of Confederate Bushwackers, like the Ingram Partisans, of course the Dalton Gang and the James-Younger Gang, and here in Texas we had the Sam Bass gang and the Burrow Gang.
          Your account is literally exactly the opposite of what happened. When the posse couldn’t handle a problem, they created a more formal institution that could.

        • JWTAYLOR;
          You stated: “that were completely without law. In those places, people came together and elected Sherriff’s, Constables, and other members of law enforcement. ”
          People came together(to combat lawlessness) bares no resemblance to the Sam Bass gang. A place with State-paid Rangers also bares no similarities to being “completely without law”. Bass robbed trains, so naturally groups like the Texas Rangers and Federal soldiers got involved. Probably the Pinkertons and other private security as well. Hardly “without law”! These private railroad employees went wherever, and did whatever, their employers told them to. THAT is similar to being “without law”! Or perhaps it is “the law of the jungle”. In any case, it bares no similarities to citizens hiring local LE.
          The same applies to all ‘raiders’ from the civil war. Wars have always bred deserters and malcontents who split off to prey upon the citizenry. But those ‘outlaws’ were paid by governments in the first place. These situations were first CREATED by “the law”, and only later stopped by them as well.
          I was referencing groups of bandits that arose on their own(not funded by an organized government), and preyed upon citizens, not corporations(who did not have the resources to hire the Pinkertons). THESE types have typically been ignored by governments as not their problem. Here in Montana, our history is replete with groups like these, and we didn’t have Texas Rangers or other State LE. Our State level LE began with the automobile. And in the history of groups like these, the perps were put down by direct citizen action, like in the Henry Plummer affair. Its worth noting that Plummer WAS a local official. This happened often then, the ‘official’ law breakers,and still happens today(the Clinton crime family, the rampant pedophilia in government and Hollywood, etc.).
          In most cases here, it was as stated in “Vigilantes of Montana” by Thomas J. Dimsdale:
          “If the offender is a moneyed man, as well as a popular citizen, the trial is only a farce—grave and prolonged, it is true, but capable of only one termination—a verdict of acquittal.”
          Always it has been thus. Very difficult it was(impossible, really), to ever find a King guilty of anything, from Ancient Greece on through to today.
          You must excuse the tardiness of this reply. If whoever is in charge there could manage to fix the problem of the comment notifications(that haven’t worked for years), we wouldn’t all have to just stumble upon any responses. That creates many such delays and, I’m sure, many oversights also.

      • “Can you actually name even ONE of these criminal gangs that you allege early settlers hired men to deal with? I doubt it.”

        Looks like he managed to name oh, five or six of ’em…

        *snicker* 🙂

        • Are you not aware of the difficulties with the comment notifications? Not all have the time to stay on any one page for hours and hours you know…

  7. Racism IS pervasive in the gun industry, and so obvious! A quick review of some websites:

    DPMS: “Designed II Dominate”
    Remington: Black Friday Rebates
    Ruger: “Arms Makers for Responsible Citizens” – Clearly indicating all non-whites are irresponsible!
    Springfield Armory: “Defend Your Legacy” –Target audience -> Homer Stokes, Richard Spencer et al.
    Winchester: “Livin’ The Life” – Obviously appropriated from Tupac’s belly tattoo.

    • I’m just another ignorant southerner , but here “black Friday” is the shopping day after Thanksgiving. Not a race.

    • Wow! Just imagined and all white AR. I don’t want one. Am I a racist?

      Meanwhile what was missing was this. Honoring. Blue Lives Matter is honoring the men and women in Blue whose service to our society is sometimes with their lives.
      Black Lives Matter is saying that after 300 some years of bad treatment could “we” just say, “Hey sometimes the cops are bad actors or represent the pols.” These bad actors should be held accountable like everyone.

      If that’s hard to admit perhaps a belief is present that all black inner city residents are immoral savages. They need to be treated this way.
      As a teen it became quite evident that some police officers were out to get teenagers. Driving while teen.:) Were all cops bad actors? Nope! Were some abusing their power? Oh yeah!

      So honor and respect go both ways.
      Are some gun owners spousal abusers? Are all?

    • I’m okay with some Magpul FDE colored accent pieces on a black rifle. Magpul stealth gray components are nice subtle accent color too.

      An all FDE AR is too much. An all white AR would not be my cup of tea either.

  10. You know the left has no argument when they start flashing the race card. Here’s a shocker, the people you could describe could be the most racist pieces of shit on the planet, so long as they aren’t actively out to hurt anybody else, I don’t give a shit. Oh, and FYI, it’s not possible to be racist against muslims, by definition.

    • Considering it’s not a racial or ethnic designator, specifically. The same could be said about Jews too though. Being Jewish isn’t a racial attribute, being a semite is though.

      • Except that in English “Jew” is both a race and a religion. You can thank the Democrats and their national socialist buddies circa 1930s for that one.

        • The English have been famously anti-Semitic (meaning anti-Jew) for centuries. Remember Shakespeare’s Shylock? Periodically back then the English would expel all the Jews from England. And then there was the fiasco of how the British treated the Jews at the time of the creation of the State of Israel.

        • You haven’t actually read The Merchant of Venice, have you? At the time, it was one of the most pro-jewish writings in existence. Here’s the most relevant line. Read it in the context of the time it was written.

          SHYLOCK
          I’ll use it for fish bait. You can’t eat human flesh, but if it feeds nothing else, it’ll feed my revenge. He’s insulted me and cost me half a million ducats. He’s laughed at my losses, made fun of my earnings, humiliated my race, thwarted my deals, turned my friends against me, riled up my enemies—and why? Because I’m a Jew. Doesn’t a Jew have eyes? Doesn’t a Jew have hands, bodily organs, a human shape, five senses, feelings, and passions? Doesn’t a Jew eat the same food, get hurt with the same weapons, get sick with the same diseases, get healed by the same medicine, and warm up in summer and cool off in winter just like a Christian? If you prick us with a pin, don’t we bleed? If you tickle us, don’t we laugh? If you poison us, don’t we die? And if you treat us badly, won’t we try to get revenge? If we’re like you in everything else, we’ll resemble you in that respect. If a Jew offends a Christian, what’s the Christian’s kind and gentle reaction? Revenge. If a Christian offends a Jew, what punishment will he come up with if he follows the Christian example? Of course, the same thing—revenge! I’ll treat you as badly as you Christians taught me to—and you’ll be lucky if I don’t outdo my teachers.

  12. Why do so many people seem to think that the only options are non-voluntary government rule, or “mob rule?” How about self government, self responsibility and non-aggression? Oh, and self defense when some people want to “rule” you to your detriment.

    The police have never assisted me with any of those last options. In fact, they seem rather dedicated to preventing self rule, critical thinking or, in many cases, even self defense.

    • The issue, though, is less about the police as an organization and more about the laws they’re enforcing. If laws focused more on justice for clearly wrong acts (e.g. laws against murder/stealing/etc. and proscribing punishments for such), rather than focusing on trying to maybe prevent some possibilities of someone doing something wrong in one particular way (unless that person first jumps through the right hoops), I think things would work a lot smoother without having to resort to anarchy.

      • Figure out how to make that happen, JJ48, and we can talk about it. In the meantime, each individual (or family/guardian) is responsible for their own safety. Self defense, and rational choices, makes a lot more sense than calling the “cops” to come take a report…

        • Well, now you’re just plain talking about two separate things. If someone were to break into my apartment, yes, I have a responsibility to do what I can against him. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t report it afterwards, and if he survived the encounter, I would expect the police to at least attempt to track him down and try to bring him to justice.

          Similarly, if I knew there was trouble incoming (for instance, someone with violent intent beating down my door, or something), I would also call the police. Not because I think they would arrive to stop the guy (still my responsibility to do what I can), but because at least that way someone knows about the incident in case I don’t survive the encounter.

          In short, what I’m saying is that a structured justice system and personal responsibility do not have to be mutually exclusive.

          • Of course they don’t have to be mutually exclusive… except that they ARE now, most of the time. “Structured” is relative… who does the structuring, and for what purpose?

            The missing link is individual self ownership and voluntary association/cooperation. We don’t get to opt out of the corrupt, monopoly of force INjustice system now in place. And many of us become victims of it every day. How many people have been killed – or watch their loved ones killed – by “cops,” simply because they called them for help? Or some person calls and sets them up for a “swat?”

            Who owns your life?

        • I’m not really sure why you seem so antagonistic towards my hypothetical ideal when your counter seems to simply be a DIFFERENT hypothetical ideal. Or do you have a practical application that I’m simply missing?

          As to your last question, as a Christian, God owns my life, and He has seen fit to place me under the authority of the American government (as a consequence of having been born here). Having learned a bit about the sort of world Peter and Paul lived in under Rome, it’s hard to complain too much about a system wherein I can at least have some say, rather than simply being subject to it.

          I have no illusions that a perfect society will ever be formed short of God creating a new heaven and a new earth (Rev. 21), but I suppose we should do our best in the time we’re allotted here. Sometimes, I wonder if part of the problem could be too many people trying to opt-out rather than opting-in and trying to help fix things.

          • ” Or do you have a practical application that I’m simply missing?”

            Pragmatism is the art of ignoring the obvious, imposing something else that is more comfortable. Freedom is often uncomfortable. Utopia is not an option.

            I am an agnostic. The creator put life on earth, and gave each individual authority over that life. It is in our best interest to cooperate and help each other as much as we can, but nothing absolves us of individual responsibility. And if some folks can’t grasp that for themselves, I only have a problem when those others insist on imposing their views and lives on mine.

            Opting out, freedom of choice, individual liberty. That’s what is missing.

            The desire/compulsion to control the lives of other people is the ROOT of all evil. We recognize this in Hillary Clinton’s desire/compulsion to control us… but ignore it all too often in so many others. Why is that, do you suppose?

  13. Not Even Fake News – Salon, and its cooption and abuse of First Amendment Rights, is an ugly extension of POS communism, and should be treated like an enemy within.

  18. >racism is deeply embedded in the history of that particular clause

    Written by someone who hasn’t actually studied the subject she’s writing about.

    First of all, the police and Islam are not races. Whether one agrees with being for or against them, by definition it can’t be “racism.”

    Second of all, the role of racism and racial/ethnic oppression in the generation of gun control laws is well known, from slave codes to Jim Crow to the Sullivan Act.

    Gun control is about control, not guns. Whenever one group of people seeks to dominate another group of people, to keep them weak and dependent on the existing power structure, be it for race, ethnicity, or politics, the former will always seek to disarm the latter.

  19. I just don’t see how these white guiltists manage to live with themselves each day. Must be a hell of a burden living with all that self hatred.

  20. Interestingly, she shows her true colors when commenting about the use of the word “infidel.” Infidel simply means unfaithful or unbeliever; it has the same lexical root as infidelity, to be unfaithful to a relationship. All atheists are infidels to all religions. And yet she interprets it in the Islamic context, where to be unfaithful to Islam (and Islam specifically), to be an unbeliever, is to be an enemy to be fought.

    • Interesting reversal, eh? Militant Islamist define anyone who refuses to submit to Islam as an enemy, so Posner decides that anyone who unapologetically identifies as refusing to submit therefore sees themselves as enemies of Islam and, through the magic of conflating religion and race, racist.

  22. It’s Black Lives Matter’s job to appeal to racists.

    Blue Lives Matter appeals to cops and and the pro-cop public. Funny how even facts which are that obvious fly right over the collective heads of Salon’s editorial staff. Maybe they should hire a 7 year old of normal intelligence to be managing editor in charge of all the mental defectives who write for them. Just think of how much that would improve their writing if the 7 year old took his or her job seriously.

    • Black Lies Matter and Blue Lies Matter are perfect mirror images of each other.

      Both exist to create unaccountable classes of violent felons. Only their respective constituencies differ.

      Black Lies Matter wants to make young, Black, male felons untouchable by the law.

      Blue Lies Matter wants to make corrupt, violent sociopathic cops untouchable by the law.

      They’re both pathologically lying groups of sociopaths.

  24. She should meet my wife, an Asian chick with an affinity for guns almost as strong as her affinity for telling people like the author to FOD.

    Also, they make a white cover for the AR platform as part of winter camo. That makes your rifle all white. Is that all right or is it racist? Is it live or is it Memorex!?

  25. People like Liz are going to label something racist that doesn’t tow the line of all blacks are victims all the time no matter what. People like her are so predictable its laughable. Go look at the FBI uniform crime report and look at who commits the crimes in this country.

  26. “The Gun maker’s strategy: marketing products to men’s basest instincts”

    Yeah! Who can forget the gun, and ammunition, makers cashing in on anti-zombie bigotry a few years ago. Oh, the humanity!

  28. 1. I don’t particularly like or trust cops. I have the freedom not to buy a “Blue Lives Matter” charging handle, or to buy a “Black Li[v]es Matter” charging handle.
    2. Gee Liz, are you demanding that I stop calling myself an infidel and swear the Shahada? What if I don’t? Will you try to behead me? I’m your huckleberry.

  30. You won’t see much of anything except racism in a COMMENTS section on guns.com.e. (Of course, I am not criticizing this one when I say so.) You could be reading an article about butterflies or peanut butter sandwiches on guns.com and you’d find its COMMENTS section filled with poison.
    I wrote to them and they wrote back to me. The bottom line: When you cut through all the smoke, guns.com takes no responsibility for preventing, treating, or removing that cancer.
    And guns.com is not the only guilty, greedy party. I’ve seen racists turn COMMENTS sections into overflowing toilet bowl on many other firearm websites, too. So no, this article’s topic is not a myth, and it’s not fake news. Not at all.
    Well, on that cheery note, I owe, I owe, so back to work I go.

    • You’re right, it’s not fake news. It’s not news at all. It’s an opinion piece from a leftist suffering from mental illness. So there are gun owners who are racists, but obviously not all gun owners are racist, as the author of the quote said. She then goes on to claim that “Infidel” type gear and even more bizarrely “Blue Lives Matter” gear is being sold to capitalize on racism. That’s where she goes off the rails into liberal insanity. The Infidel gear is a middle finger to Islam, which is a religion, not a race. The Blue Lives Matter gear is pro law enforcement (again, not a race) and is a play on the name of the ultra-racist group Black Lives Matter. It’s funny she speaks of tribalism, while I don’t know her, I can guarantee that anyone writing for Salon likely doesn’t have any Conservatives or gun owners they associate with on a regular basis, at least on friendly terms.

    • You can find racist comments on all sorts of websites, especially if they’re not consistently moderated. Next time I see racist comments on a news article, should I start claiming that CNN is itself racist?

    • blacks kill far more people with guns per capita than whites do.

      I know, I know. “racist” comments by whites are far worse crimes than actual murders committed by nonwhites, right?

      what a load of bulls***. Baltimore, south Chicago, Newark, etc. are awash with murders that have no white perpetrators. But the important thing is “comments”.

        • According to the FBI- 51% of all US murders are committed by blacks. But, blacks only comprise 13% of the total US population. Blacks males between the ages of 15-25 comprise of 3% of the entire US population and are responsible for more than half of ALL MURDERS IN THE US. those are the facts. Google the FBI stats. It’s common knowledge and is NOT bs.

  31. Ah yes, an article from Salon, a website that has legitimately defended pedophiles.

    The whole “you’re a racist!” thing isn’t working anymore. These deranged leftists are preaching the choir. It might get page hits from coastal IP addresses, but to people who aren’t insane, the writers at Salon are more a morbid curiosity.

  32. “Blue lives” and “Second Amendment advocates” both comprehend all races, creeds, religions, and national origins. Damned few categories are more inclusive and diverse.

  33. The most debased philosophy spewing the greatest levels of of naked hatred and outright evil is the tribalism of the Liberal Progressive.

  34. so, what is the marketing strategy of the people selling guns to black and hispanic gang members?

    let me guess: somehow it is also whitey’s fault.

  35. It is frustrating to read words from a racist claiming people who value the 2nd Amendment are racist. Liz, do you not realize that your hate shows in every word you write? Or, do you just don’t care?

  36. Last time I took a Police test it was open to all races and creeds, they actually extend extra help to all minorities to attract as many as possible! I think they have even removed the height and weight requirements. If you feel your race or creed is being left out get up off your ass, take less money than your probably earning now, work 24 X 7, be willing to put your life on the line every time you take a call and help any and all fellow men women and children, go take the test! If that’s being racist I must have missed something! If you can’t be bothered running anything but your mouth you probably also forgot or were too lazy to go vote last time, but were right there to complain about the results!

  37. I once replied to an editor and writer of an article that claimed that the ‘thin blue line’ flag is a racist reaction to ‘Black Lives Matter.’ The guy responded snarkily about how he knows all the history of both symbols despite the fact that he apparently doesn’t understand the flow of time because a thin blue line predates ‘black lives matter’ by decades.

    And these are the people that decry ‘fake news.’

  38. I see black actors in gun advertising all the time now. Liz Posner is just another white female liberal racist thinking blacks don’t need guns. They just need welfare instead.

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