This image arrived in my in-box via pof-usa.com, part of their attempt to sell me a $1,899.99 Renegade + AR-15. I reckon the riflemaker’s targeting well-heeled reliability-oriented pre-apocalyptic purchasers. Good luck with that. Meanwhile, the enemies of firearms freedom will have a field day with this one . . .
For one thing, the caption suggests that gun owners will wreak revenge on corrupt politicians, ballistically speaking. The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (hey, Josh!) and its ilk will use this image to illustrate their endlessly repeated contention that gun owners are paranoid proto-insurrectionists, itching to off Ladd Everitt’s elected enablers.
I know: you could just as easily interpret the caption to mean that POF-USA’s guns are suitable for good, decent, honest American folks trying to survive after the politicians screw up and leave the populace to their own devices (in this case a modern sporting rifle). But that’s you.
And then there’s the race card . . .
The city hovering in the gloom is Detroit. The cowled dude running the Renegade + is white. (The fact he’s got a tacticool beard and a WWF-friendly physique is neither here nor there, unless you’re into that sort of thing.) In case you didn’t know, African-Americans make up more than 80 percent of Detroit’s population. The cowled dude running the Renegade + is white. Who’s he gonna shoot now, eh?
I know: the implications of the model’s ethnicity — as compared to the demographics of the “ruined” city behind him — are entirely in the eye of the beholder. You’re not a racist. You don’t go looking for “hidden” racist messages in advertisements — or anywhere else. But again, that’s you.
In the image’s defense, great trigger discipline! And as theater impresario George M. Cohan famously observed, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Right?