The Gun Industry's Nine Most Outrageous Marketing Ploys

As I write about in my latest Rolling Stone feature, "The Gun Industry's Deadly Addiction," the firearms industry is in trouble. Its best customers are old Southern white men who are already armed to the teeth. To prop up sales, gunmakers today are marketing military-bred weaponry to civilians – guns which the industry touts for their high-tech precision and "stopping power." The firearms industry is also working feverishly to broaden its customer base, seeking to put these deadly weapons in the hands of kids, women of all ages, and a generation of young men raised on the virtual firepower of video games like Call of Duty.

Read on for a gallery documenting how the most dangerous industry in America markets its wares.

By Tim Dickinson