Shootings put ads under new scrutiny

ATLANTA» The ads leap out from the pages of almost any gun magazine: Soldiers wearing greasepaint and camouflage wield militarystyle rifles depicted as essential to the American way of life. A promotional spot by the Mossberg brand boasts of weapons “engineered to the specs of freedom and independence.”

The ad campaigns by major gun makers did not pause after mass shootings at a Las Vegas country music concert and a Texas church, and the slick messages are big drivers of sales before Black Friday, by far the heaviest shopping day each year for firearms.

But the marketing tactics for the semi-automatic rifles known as AR are under new scrutiny after the recent attacks. Gun-control activists say the ads risk inspiring the next shooter, while gun-rights advocates insist the weapons are being blamed for the works of deranged individuals.

“Guns are not sold on the basis of being just tools,” said gun industry expert Adam Winkler, a professor at the University of California-Los Angeles School of Law and author of a book about the Second Amendment. “They’re being sold as an embodiment of American values.”

The advertisements have become a focal point in the court case against a gun company over the 2012 massacre at a Connecticut elementary school where gunman Adam Lanza used a Bushmaster AR-15style rifle to kill 20 children and six adults. Bushmaster has advertised its AR weapons with the slogan “consider your man card reissued.”

Relatives of the Sandy Hook victims alleged in a lawsuit that the maker of the Bushmaster was negligent by marketing military-style weapons to young people who may be unstable and intent on inflicting mass casualties. The lawsuit against Remington Arms was dismissed because of broad immunity granted to the gun industry, but the Connecticut Supreme Court is weighing whether to reinstate it.

“They used images of soldiers in combat. They used slogans invoking battle and high-pressure missions,” Joshua Koskoff, a lawyer for the families, told justices at a hearing. “Remington may never have known Adam Lanza, but they had been courting him for years.”

Most mass shootings are carried out with handguns. But this year, gunmen have used AR-style firearms in mass shootings in Las Vegas, Texas and Northern California. They were also used in the 2016 Orlando, Fla., nightclub shooting and in 2015 in San Bernardino, Calif.