Anti-Gun Group Opens Fake Gun Store To Shame Prospective Firearms Customers
By Brian Anderson, March 17, 2015.
This may be a new low in the anti-gun movement. New Yorkers Against Gun Violence opened a bogus gun store in Manhattan with the expressed purpose of making unsuspecting customers feel like dicks.
The Washington Post reports about the fake store that was open for a few days last week:
The store — which was not operational — opened for two days last week in an art gallery that was transformed for the occasion. The shop was outfitted with about 100 unloaded, authentic-looking prop weapons (like those used in movies) and the words “Gun Store” were added above an entrance advertising “pistols,” “rifles,” “shotguns” and “used guns.” A tag was attached to each gun detailing historical instances in which similar types of weapons had been used in killings.
An actor manned the front counter; camouflage vests and an American flag were added for atmosphere; and an NYPD official was on scene.
The basic premise of this ruse was to lure people into the fake gun store and then shame them for wanting to own a firearm. When a duped customer would enquire about a particular gun, the actor manning the display case would give them a story about how that gun was used in a horrific crime.
Had you ventured inside and asked the gruff-sounding owner whether you could take a closer look at, say, a revolver, you probably would have encountered the following sales pitch:
“…this revolver, it’s the easiest gun we have to use. It’s our most popular one. It’s a 22-caliber, six-inch revolver,” the clerk begins. “It’s also a gun that a five-year-old found in his parents’ bedroom, went down and shot his nine-month-old baby brother with it.”
Or:
“Collectors love this one,” the clerk tells one customer as he grips the weapon. “Adam Lanza’s mom had this in her collection, too, until he took this and several other guns and killed her and and went down to Sandy Hook and killed six teachers and 20 innocent children. Twenty little kids, gone, like that.”
NYAGV Executive Director Leah Barrett explained the reason behind this elaborate hoax:
“The people who came in were actually seriously considering buying a gun,” Barrett said. “We thought that showing the guns and their histories and getting people to think twice about owning a firearm would be an instructive thing to experience.”
Let’s stop right here. This group is called New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, yet this silly deceptive move doesn’t come close to addressing gun violence in the Big Apple. NYC already has some of the most, if not the most, restrictive gun laws in the nation. It is virtually impossible for a New Yorker to own or possess a firearm. Legal gun owners are not the problem, the criminals are.
Despite the indisputable evidence that crime and violence is committed almost exclusively by people that illegally posses firearms, these misguided fools spent all of this time and money going after law-abiding citizens. This is a common practice for the gun control movement. Moms Demand Action puts all of their energy into stopping lawful gun possession, as does their puppet master Michael Bloomberg. Every new law presented by anti-gun democrats targets legal gun ownership and ignores the criminal element responsible for the problem.
You can’t tell me that gun control measures are “commonsense” when all they seek to do is make it harder for law-abiding Americans to exercise their 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Commonsense would be enforcing existing laws and getting the bad guys off the street. Commonsense would be focusing efforts on the people who are the problem. It doesn’t make any sense at all to make lawful citizens into lawbreakers by eroding their rights with legislation that criminalizes legal gun ownership.
So did this gun store hoax actually work in turning people away from firearms? According to the WaPo, not really:
Geez, man. We get the idea. Did it work? In some cases, at least, it appeared to.
“It made me think, ‘I’m not going to buy that gun,’” one man says, leaving the store.
Congratulations NYAGV, you’ve really made an impact with this stupid plan. One guy who probably isn’t allowed to own a gun because of New York City’s unconstitutional gun laws may or may not buy a gun in the future.
http://downtrend.com/71superb/anti-gun-group-opens-fake-gun-store-to-shame-prospective-firearms-customers
