For many Americans, early May is packed with celebrations centered around family, culture, and shared traditions. “May the 4th” has become an unofficial holiday for Star Wars fans. Cinco de Mayo is often marked by food and gatherings. And Mother’s Day, of course, is meant to honor and celebrate moms everywhere.
But as with Valentine’s Day and Easter, the gun industry used all three of these May holidays as another opportunity to market its products on social media, pairing guns — and assault weapons in particular — with stormtroopers, tacos, and family imagery to make them feel less like dangerous products and more like a part of everyday life, all while ignoring the serious risks of owning a gun and the families torn apart by gun violence.
star wars day
On May 4, better known to millions of fans as “Star Wars Day,” the gun industry once again used one of the most popular franchises in history to market firearms and tactical gear. For example, Century Arms, which used stormtrooper imagery to promote one of its assault weapons on Instagram.
Century Arms is just one example of a gun manufacturer that chose to side with the Empire on Star Wars Day. Smith & Wesson posted an image of three assault weapons with stormtrooper-white finishes, making them look like toys. The caption, “May the M&P be with you,” is a reference to the company’s “Military & Police”-branded weapons. Smith & Wesson’s M&P-branded AR-15s have been used in several mass shootings, including in Aurora, San Bernardino, Parkland, Poway, and Highland Park.
Yankee Hill Machine (YHM) used stormtrooper imagery to market silencers, or sound suppressors, joking that even the Empire’s famously inaccurate soldiers might shoot better with their products.
In an Instagram video, GrabAGun, an online retailer backed by Donald Trump Jr., announced that it had partnered with gun maker CMMG to offer AR-15s designed to look like Han Solo’s blaster. As the examples below illustrate, such guns have become commonplace in the industry.
More social media posts from this past Star Wars Day are shown below. While the visuals change, they all lean into humor and nostalgia, suggesting the guns are harmless collectibles rather than dangerous weapons.
Cinco de Mayo
Several gun companies celebrated Cinco de Mayo primarily by combining Mexican food with firearms. Gun retailer Primary Arms posted perhaps one of the most ridiculous examples, showing a Glock pistol inside a tortilla and covered with guacamole, pico de gallo, and 9mm rounds. The caption wishes followers a “Happy Cinco De Mayo” on “Glocko Tuesday.”
Franklin Armory posted a photo on Instagram of an AR-15 equipped with a binary trigger alongside chips and salsa with the caption “What goes good with chips and salsa? Freedom fries of course!”
In another post, accessory manufacturer EOTech showcased some of its products with a lever-action rifle, revolver, and taco ingredients, all to “Spice things up for Cinco de Mayo.”
Barrett Firearms, which produces .50-caliber sniper rifles for military and civilian customers that are powerful enough to down helicopters, disable vehicle engines, and penetrate armor at great distances, posted a flashing graphic on Instagram showcasing three such rifles with the text “viva la fiesta.”
Mother’s Day
This Mother’s Day, many gun makers suggested that guns are better gifts for moms than flowers. For example, in an Instagram post, Franklin Armory told followers that “Badass moms don’t want chocolates or flowers… they want the finest firearms on the market!” The gun shown is a .22-caliber “pistol” with a built-in silencer.
Some gun makers, like Henry Repeating Arms, posted photos of mothers teaching their children how to shoot, explicitly framing gun ownership as a family tradition and rite of passage.
Other companies used the holiday to market assault weapons. For example, Taurus posted a photo on Instagram of a woman firing a short-barreled 9mm AR with an arm brace as an ode to the “moms who can do it all.”
Diamondback Firearms announced a Mother’s Day sale on AR parts and accessories on Facebook with an image of a woman holding an AR-15.
Meanwhile, US Night Vision decided to post an image of a mom firing an AR-15 in combat to advertise its night-vision gear, lasers, and other firearm-related accessories as well as financing options.
CMMG, one of the many companies that recently started selling silencers to take advantage of Trump administration rollbacks, depicted the devices as a cheerful cartoon family and urged followers to “Treat your mom to a little silence(r) – it’s probably what she actually wants this year.”
Like the other examples shown below, these Mother’s Day posts ignored the reality of gun violence. They failed to mention that more than 70 women are shot and killed by intimate partners every month on average, and that firearms are the leading cause of death among children and teens.
To learn more about the gun industry’s toxic marketing tactics, click here.
