gunsamerica fails at marketing

Oh, for Heaven’s sake…

A little over a week ago, Paul Helinski of GunsAmerica decided to pull out all the stops and be a complete dick about small-time webloggers (who he referred to as "nobodies") daring to attend the NSSF’s SHOT Show, and then he doubled down on his dickery and dig himself even deeper into his hole. In the interim, I tried to show Paul how the internet works, but, apparently, all of that attempted education was in vain.

By way of life in 3D, I discovered that GunsAmerica appears to be staffed by a crowd of chauvinistic pricks:

Robert Leatham: Making things short doesn’t make anything concealable, it’s flat and thin, that’s where all the emphasis is on this gun. When you hold the thing in your hand, it is just narrow as can be.
George Whebby, GunsAmerica Prick: So this is really for CCW, Y’know, to have a man’s gun, or manly gun, or something with some punching power that you can actually conceal and use and it’s actually fun to shoot.

(Emphasis added.)

Yes, because women would never have an appreciation for a slim, easily-concealable firearm that spits out a proven, effective round. *sigh* I know what George was trying to say – that the Springfield XDs is built around the .45ACP, which is, as I said, one of the more-effective, and arguably more powerful, semi-automatic pistol rounds out there – but there is literally a plethora of different, better ways to phrase that than describing it as a "manly" gun. I shudder to think what George thinks a "womanly" gun is… or maybe he calls them "girly"?

Unfortunately, this parade of faragosis only continues with the title of another of their videos: "Savage Arms Rascal .22LR Boys Rifle", which, coincidentally, is the same title as the post GunsAmerica author Scott Mayer wrote about the rifle in question (link intentionally omitted).

ORLY?

‘Tis a strange thing indeed, since Savage Arms clearly indicates the Rascal is a youth rifle, though I have never heard any rifle referred to as "micro-sized" before… And that was a good decision on Savage’s part, because little girls are definitely a market segment that should not be ignored. Why? Because they grow up to be women who buy guns.

Apparently GunsAmerica kind of forgot about that growing market segment, hm?

Amusingly, at least to me, this post could not have come at a more coincident time – Better Half and I were discussing the marked lack of appropriate gender-neutral pronouns in the English language and how it not only is a product of a millennium’s worth of paradigms, but also may unintentionally perpetuate those paradigms into the present day and future. I have no idea what the solution for that particular problem should be, given that you either are forced with crafting a neologism or adopting the "’he’ and ‘she’ both have gender-neutral capabilities… but someone will be offended if you use either" mentality, but referring to firearms as "manly" when you can just as easily say "beefy", or calling it a "boy’s rifle" when "youth rifle" is even what the manufacturer is referring to it as… well, those are simple things that even simple-minded folks can manage.

I guess that says something about the staff at GunsAmerica, but it does not surprise me that Paul Helinski either surrounded himself with people like him, or taught them to be like him.

As I have said before, I firmly believe your money could be better-spent than at GunsAmerica, and if you are as disappointed by their current behavior as I am, I strongly suggest you taking that money elsewhere – voting with your dollars is the best way to get a company’s attention, and I cannot say as though I want to encourage this kind of behavior.

(Although, speaking of encouraging behavior, apparently Life in 3D now produces custom grips. Iiiinteresting…)