Would gun marketing control be more effective than gun control?

[BrightKnight]

The gun manufacturers, NRA, and GOP are selling gun culture. Guns are marketed as an easy solution to real world problems. There will always be a pool people that respond to the in a dangerous way. The empirical evidence for this is overwhelming.

An “assault weapons” is all about functional cosmetic features like flash suppressors. The more functional cosmetic features the greater the sense of empowerment that they are actually selling.

There are regulations to how cigarettes can be marketed. The gun product design is related to the marketing but it might be more effective to go after that. I would switch to gun marketing control.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

1. Irresponsible marketing and sales are one of the ways...

...that the Protection in Lawful Commerce in Arms Act does not apply. The PLCAA stops victims and families law suits over liability against manufacturers and sellers.

[AndyS]

2. Repealing the PLCAA would do it . . .

[krispos42]

3. Gun advertising is almost exclusivly done in gun magazines and gun stores

It's not like Smith & Wesson it advertising during the Super Bowl.



Guns are far less deadly per capita then tobacco. Even including homicides and suicides, there are about 30,000 deaths a year out of population of 330 million Tobacco is maybe 12 times the body count and only about a 80(?) million people use tobacco.

Rough estimates.

[BrightKnight]

4. More doctors smoke Camels.

It is the leading cause of death among children. That is not true in other parts of the world.

30k deaths per year is an outrageous number

Greg Abott was speaking as a Gun industry apologist when he said that long guns have been available forever and the spike in assault weapon violence has only been an issue for 10 or 20 years.


My deer rifle is nothing like an AR with various furniture kits. A lot of the cosmetic marketing features are actually functional. It is like the different between beer and Everclear. A lot of people buy the false sense of empowerment that they are selling. They would not be doing it if they were not making a ton of money. They would not be spending a ton of money buying deregulation if everything they were doing was perfectly fine. The politicians they bought don’t give a damn about any constitutional rights. It is no different than coal or any othe special interest deregulation.

I am sure the industry is spending a fortune selling guns and gun culture.

[krispos42]

9. I think the hysteria about them sells them far more than marketing does

California Democrats in 1989 decided to declare war on "assault weapon". National Democrats quickly followed, with a Federal ban in 1993.

Just like the War on Drugs, it worked like a charm. AR-15s became more common, higher quality, and cheaper.

Turns out that hysterically screaming about the need to ban "assault weapons" to all the major media outlets tends to make AR-15s and the like household names, and to drive interest and then sales of them up.

The rifle industry didn't triple because Bushmaster was advertising in "Maxim" magazine. No, the media attention brought far more public attention to them than Smith&Wesson could buy in a century.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

10. re: hysteria

I also remember hysteria over having airliners shot down with .50 Barretts.

[krispos42]

11. Oh, yeah... because a .50 BMG sniper rifle is exactly the same as a...

...quad .50 BMG machine guns in a turret mounted on a truck.

California has banned them. California gun-control people seem to be good at generating hysteria they can then "solve" with bans.

Much like my T-rex -repelling garden gnome and my Critical Race Theory-deflecting birdbath, it's solving imaginary problems.

[melm00se]

5. I was going to post that too

Firearm manufacturers advertise in channels that are outside the regulatory powers of the federal government:

Magazines
Internet ads
and the like.

The bulk (if not all) firearm advertising is more a case of narrowcasting leveraging magazines specifically targeting gun owners.

When was the last time anyone saw a print firearm advertising in a mainstream magazine? an electronic ad on TV? radio?

Tobacco ads on TV and radio were banned under the FCC's airwave regulatory powers. The tobacco industry, under the settlement agreement stemming from civil actions, voluntarily accepted bans on transit and billboard advertisements, paid brand product placement, cartoons, tobacco brand sponsorships of sporting events and concerts. While not specifically spelled out in the settlement agreement, magazines and other print tobacco ads, magazines, for the most part, do not accept tobacco ads.

Government regulation banning firearm ads using non-governmentally regulated media would rapidly run into 1st Amendment issues and would get bounced by the 1st trial court a lawsuit would hit.

[yagotme]

6. I've seen ads on the Sportsman's Channel,

but, there it is, it's preaching to the choir.

[melm00se]

7. the Sportsman Channel

is not a broadcast outlet (IOW no broadcasting license) thus outside the FCC's regulatory powers.

[yagotme]

8. The question was, "Have you seen an electronic ad on TV."

The Sportsman Channel is on TV, powered by electricity, observed on Dish Satellite, therefore my response was correct. Mainstream/FCC controlled wasn't in that particular question.