For many Americans, Easter is not only a religious holiday, but also a time for family gatherings, often marked by traditions like Easter egg hunts, baskets, and time spent with loved ones. But like Valentine’s Day, the holiday has become another opportunity for gun makers to market firearms — including assault weapons, the guns used in the country’s deadliest mass shootings — ammunition, and silencers on social media, as illustrated by the examples below.
These posts gloss over the risks of gun ownership and instead draw on child-centric Easter traditions to sell products that are the leading cause of death for children and teens in the United States.
promoting assault weapons
Sons of Liberty Gun Works, a Texas-based AR-15 manufacturer, shared an image of an AR-15 — complete with a sight, laser, flashlight, silencer, and high-capacity magazine — made entirely of chocolate. To round it out, the chocolate “handguard” is filled with pastel-colored chocolate eggs. Surrounding the AR-15 is traditional Easter imagery, including tulips, chocolate eggs, and a chocolate bunny. At the base of the AR-15, a sign reads “He Is Risen,” directly invoking the religious significance of the holiday.
Osight, an optics manufacturer, posted an image of an AR-15 painted like a pink donut with sprinkles and surrounded by Easter eggs, jelly beans, a stuffed bunny, flowers, and 1,000 rounds of 9mm ammunition.
An Instagram post by KelTec shows a high-capacity, pump-action KSG shotgun resting against the base of a tree with Easter eggs scattered around it and rabbits looking on in the background.
Capitalizing on Silencers
Several companies also used Easter to market silencers, or sound suppressors, on social media. For example, Rugged Suppressors posted an image of the Easter bunny armed with an MP5-style assault weapon with a silencer installed.
Another silencer manufacturer, Banish Suppressors, posted an image of black Easter eggs styled like the company’s products. Other examples are shown below.
Silencer sales have surged following the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s repeal of the $200 tax required by the National Firearms Act to purchase or make suppressors, eliminating a long-standing barrier to entry and driving demand. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) states that it has processed over 500,000 Form 4 applications — the kind used for silencer and short-barreled rifle sales — from January through March of this year.
From easter baskets to ammo boxes
Several gun companies leaned heavily into one of the most recognizable symbols of the holiday: the Easter basket. In one post, Remington showed a truck-shaped basket filled with shotgun ammunition instead of candy and toys, which the company called “the ultimate find.”
CZ, a Czech gun manufacturer with an American subsidiary in Kansas, posted a photo on Instagram of a handgun on top of the shredded paper typically found in children’s Easter baskets. Surrounding the pistol are Easter eggs and a pomlázka, a traditional Czech Easter symbol tied to children.
Hornady Manufacturing posted an image of an ammunition can styled to resemble an Easter basket, mixing rifle and pistol rounds with Easter eggs.
More examples from this past Easter are below. To learn more about the gun industry’s toxic marketing tactics, click here.
