Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Sunday that the federal government should investigate how rifles are “madly marketed to children.”
He called the Wee 1 Tactical its “JR-15 weapon similar to the infamous AR-15 style assault rifle seen in mass shootings across the country.”
The .22-caliber gun’s “small, lightweight, rugged polymer construction and ergonomics are for smaller hobbyists,” Wee 1 boasts on its website.
“The last thing we have to do is start a deadly war,” Schumer said in a statement as the country reeled from the latest mass shooting that killed 10 people on Saturday night to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Downsizing the arsenal and marketing it to young children,” he said at a ballroom near Los Angeles.
“We must stop the rain of bullets at our children and curb this terrifyingly crude marketing campaign so that others do not pop out as well. We have the authority and the evidence to scrutinize dangerous ‘JR-15’ marketing activities,” said a New York Democrat.
Emphasizing that “no one under the age of 18 can own a gun,” he asked, “Why is this company so aggressively marketing to children?”
The JR-15 was shown at the Gun Show in Las Vegas last week.
Over the summer, California Democrat Rep. Nancy Pelosi spoke on the House floor next to a JR-15 ad that included a graphic of a skull in a ponytail with a green and pink pacifier. Pelosi, who was Speaker of the House at the time, called marketing “boring.”
Gun manufacturers appear to have cut back on some of their promotional efforts. But the company’s website shows a child aiming a rifle while an adult stares at it.
In a letter to FTC Chairman Rina Kern, Schumer said, “It is very clear that the company is making a clear effort to appeal to children in order to facilitate the sale of this deadly weapon. am.
“While Wee 1 Tactical’s marketing attempts to make the weapon appear safe for use by children, the deadly AR-15 has already caused enormous harm and unimaginable trauma to children in this country. is no different.”
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