[Vision2020] The Deadly Fantasy of Assault Weapons

[Art Deco]

  [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>

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December 28, 2012
The Deadly Fantasy of Assault Weapons

Adam Lanza shot 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School
in Newtown, Conn., using a semiautomatic, military-style assault rifle made
by Bushmaster. William Spengler Jr. used the same type of Bushmaster rifle
to kill two firefighters last week in Webster, N.Y. The Washington snipers,
John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, also used a Bushmaster in a spree
that killed 10 people in 2002.

Bushmasters are by no means the only assault weapons of choice among mass
killers (the Aurora shooter used a Smith & Wesson), but the brand’s
repeated presence in murderous incidents reflects Bushmaster’s enormous
popularity in the gun world, the result of a successful marketing campaign
aimed at putting military firepower and machismo in the hands of civilians.
Gun owners once talked about the need for personal protection and sport
hunting, but out-of-control ad campaigns like Bushmaster’s have replaced
revolvers and shotguns with highly lethal paramilitary fantasies.

The guns, some of which come in camouflage and desert khaki, bristle with
features useful only to an infantry soldier or a special-forces operative.
A flash suppressor on the end of a barrel makes it possible to shoot at
night without a blinding flare. Quick-change magazines let troops reload
easily. Barrel shrouds allow precise control without fear of burns from a
muzzle that grows hot after multiple rounds are fired. But now anyone can
own these guns, and millions are in civilian hands.

“There is an allure to this weapon that makes it unusually attractive,”
Scott Knight, former chairman of the International Chiefs of Police
Firearms Committee, told USA
Today<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/17/bushmaster-assault-rifle-in-newtown-shootings/1772825/>,
speaking of the Bushmaster rifles. “The way it looks, the way it handles —
it screams assault weapon.”

The company’s catalog<http://www.digitaleditiononline.com/publication/?i=89427&pre=1>and
ads show soldiers moving on patrol through jungles, Bushmasters at the
ready. “When you need to perform under pressure, Bushmaster delivers,” says
the advertising copy, superimposed over the silhouette of a soldier holding
his helmet against the backdrop of an American flag. “Forces of opposition,
bow down. You are single-handedly outnumbered,” said a 2010 catalog,
peddling an assault rifle billed as “the ultimate military combat weapons
system.” (Available to anyone for $2,500.)

In case that message was too subtle, the company appealed directly to the
male egos of its most likely customers. “Consider your man card reissued,”
said one Bushmaster
campaign<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/emma-gray/bushmaster-rifle-ad-masculinity-gun-violence-newtown-adam-lanza_b_2317924.html>(pulled
off the Web after the Newtown shooting), next to a photo of a
carbine. “If it’s good enough for the professional, it’s good enough for
you.”

The effect of these marketing campaigns on fragile minds is all too
obvious, allowing deadly power in the wrong hands. But given their
financial success, gun makers have apparently decided that the risk of an
occasional massacre is part of the cost of doing business.




-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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