This past July, Daniel Defense, a Georgia-based gun manufacturer known for producing the AR-15-style rifle used in the Uvalde mass shooting, published a commercial on YouTube juxtaposing footage of men firing AR-15s at the range with them playing baseball, fishing, grilling, and enjoying a pool party with children. While the commercial is packed with shooting scenes, it was apparently meant to advertise Daniel Defense’s “Home Run Collection” hats and T-shirts.
But as Everytown Senior Firearms Analyst and Smoking Gun contributor Greg Lickenbrock explains in a new video, the commercial is also a not-so-subtle attempt to normalize assault weapons like AR-15s — the guns used in the country’s highest-casualty mass shootings — and make them seem like any other summer pastime. The video is part of a new series in which Lickenbrock, a former gun magazine editor, breaks down toxic gun ads.
“Greg’s Got Notes”
As Lickenbrock points out in the new video, Daniel Defense’s commercial starts with a man firing a fully automatic AR-15 equipped with a holographic sight, a flashlight, a laser, and one of the company’s own silencers, or sound suppressors. The rifle and accessory prices appear on screen, tallying up to $4,999 — highlighting the enormous revenue stream assault weapons provide for the gun industry.
The commercial cuts to a baseball game with men wearing the Home Run hats and T-shirts adorned with AR-15s, then returns to the range, where the men are shown firing different Daniel Defense rifles. Lickenbrock’s confusion is palpable: “What the f*** do AR-15s have to do with baseball?”
Lickenbrock notes that the commercial includes first-person firing footage similar to video games like Call of Duty, and that one of the AR-15s is equipped with a grenade launcher. He calls out the absurdity of the military cosplay, reminding viewers that the men “aren’t fighting overseas” but are “in the backwoods of Georgia with [their] khakis.”
Selling An Identity
The commercial then switches gears to show one of the men fishing with his young sons — in a Home Run hoodie that doesn’t have an AR-15 on it — and hosting a cookout and pool party where all of the adults are wearing more Home Run attire. The idea, according to Lickenbrock, is to depict AR-15s as a harmless pastime engrained in Georgia’s culture: “They’re selling an identity” and “taking guns that have done so much harm to so many communities and just pretending that they’re an everyday part of life.”
Normalizing assault weapons in this way, Lickenbrock notes, ignores “all the history, all the headlines, and most importantly, all the people who can’t enjoy a baseball game or pool party because of the gun industry’s need to turn a profit.”