Last week, Florida-based gun maker KelTec debuted a new commercial on YouTube that pushes boundaries and takes gun industry marketing to a new low. Styled after modern action movies, the commercial shows three men infiltrating a San Francisco nightclub, shooting their way into a warehouse, and gunning down anyone who stands in their way with fully automatic fire, all to steal a briefcase and deliver it to a client.
The gunmen are armed with KelTec’s new MP50, a select-fire submachine gun that can fire 5.7x28mm rounds — high-velocity ammunition designed to travel twice as fast as a typical 9mm round to penetrate body armor — in semi-automatic and fully automatic modes. The MP50 also uses 50-round magazines that are installed along the bottom of the barrel “for faster reloads and improved ergonomics.”
Federal law prohibits civilians from owning fully automatic weapons like the MP50, and text at the end of the video notes that the MP50 was “designed exclusively for law enforcement and military personnel.” But the video’s title and caption also advertise a semi-automatic version, called the KP50, that KelTec is now selling to civilians in pistol and short-barreled rifle configurations.
Questions Raised by the KelTec Video
It’s become a common practice for gun manufacturers to use fully automatic, military-style weapons to market semi-automatic clones to civilians. Gun makers and influencers have also produced videos where men cosplay as soldiers with military-style weapons. But the KelTec video is unique because the gunmen are not identifiable as military or law enforcement personnel. Instead, they could be contract killers or mercenaries. The video also offers no clues as to what is inside the briefcase, or who it is delivered to, raising questions about the intended purpose of the MP50 and KP50.
Several people who commented on the video expressed similar concerns.
Other commenters suggested that the video portrayed a cocaine heist.
KelTec’s Deadly Innovations
KelTec is known for pushing the envelope, both in product design and marketing tactics. The company’s founder, George Kellgren, is credited with inventing the TEC-9, an assault pistol that gained notoriety after being used in several high-profile shootings. KelTec has also produced the SUB2000, a rifle that folds for easy concealment. The SUB2000 is one of the guns used by the perpetrator of the mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, and the gunman who carried out the Highland Park mass shooting was arrested with a SUB2000 stashed in a backpack. In 2020, KelTec debuted a version of the rifle with a built-in silencer, or sound suppressor.
The following year, KelTec introduced the P50, a large pistol that, like the MP50 and KP50, uses 5.7x28mm ammunition and 50-round magazines. The difference is that the P50’s magazines are installed on top of the barrel. KelTec has also marketed the P50 as a gun used by mercenaries and security professionals, as the examples below illustrate.
More recently, in 2023, KelTec unveiled a rifle variant called the R50 with a side-folding stock. KelTec says it “sits nicely in the security and home defense role,” despite its high capacity, and notes that R50 owners can “[b]e a force multiplier for safety” by adding a silencer.
The MP50 and KP50 can also be seen as an attempt to take advantage of the Trump administration’s rollbacks of federal gun laws. For example, KelTec offers both guns with side-folding stocks, making them short-barreled rifles that must be registered in accordance with the National Firearms Act (NFA). Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” removed the $200 taxes required for making or purchasing silencers and short-barreled rifles and shotguns.
For those who would rather skip the NFA registration process, KelTec offers a “pistol” variant of the KP50 with a side-folding “arm brace” that looks and can operate like a shoulder stock. While the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) previously held that such guns were short-barreled rifles, the Trump administration stopped defending that position in court.
More KelTEC MARKETING EXAMPLES
KelTec’s MP50 commercial is the latest in a long line of questionable marketing tactics. More examples of KelTec’s social media posts and ads can be found below.
