I recently paid a visit to a friend who lost her son to gun violence in March. It’s the first time I’ve seen her since then and I was curious how she’s coping. It took all of 3 seconds to see she wasn’t coping well. Sympathy cards were stacked in three tall piles on the coffee table and other remnants and reminders of her son surrounded the living room.
After watching a little pre-season football and catching up on each other’s lives, she picked up a Daily Times from the table and told me what set her back today. It was the Cabela’s weekly advertising circular inserted in the paper.
She had never heard of Cabela’s so I told her who they were and why they’re so popular among the outdoorsy type. She flipped a few pages and asked if advertising five pages of guns is appropriate. With all the gun violence in the area, how is Cabela’s permitted to put these ads in a paper widely distributed in Chester?
Then she turned the page to the handguns and I understood her concern. 'SELECT YOUR SIDEKICK'. They really make those handguns look sexy in the ad. Raspberry and aqua colored handguns? Really?
Should Cabela’s show some discretion when advertising handguns? Should the Daily Times refuse to run their circular in papers that reach the Chester zone?
What’s your thoughts?
I wholeheartedly agree. Glamorizing guns adds to a very serious problem in our community and in communities all over the United States. I spent a summer serving as chaplain in the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania's trauma center. This was 16 years ago and I still turn off murder mysteries on TV. Killing is not entertainment, and the ultimate purpose of guns is to kill something. I would like to take the Cabela ad manager and every other person who sees guns as galmorous or sexy into the trauma bay at HUP to witness first hand what gunshot wounds do to a person, and to the family and the community. We would have fewer people interested in owning guns if they actually saw the human toll instead of some sanitized, fictionalized version on TV or in video games. -BL
ReplyDeleteI think that's exactly why it is being advertised here because of the gun violence in this area....this was no mistake it was deliberate
ReplyDeleteI think it's business as usual for Cabela's. They don't consider inner city crime when they build their ads. Their target is the hunters. Now, if inner city folks get together and bring it to their attention that they're making a mistake, things may change. But, then again, inner city folks don't shop at Cabela's and they won't lose any money from inner city folks. I expect Cabela's to keep advertising guns and folks around here will not make a peep.
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