Right there from January 6th, you can see the fall
not right there on this gentleman's chest.
Mr. Daniel yes or no, are you aware that your advertising department uses
imagery affiliated with white supremacist movements in its marketing materials?
>> Yes.
You've heard that, right?
Symbols associated with white supremacists are apparently showing up in ads for
gun manufacturers.
And that was the topic of discussion during a house oversight committee
hearing on gun violence, mass shootings and the type of advertisements that
are used by gun manufacturers to lure in some of these buyers.
Now, the hearing included testimony from Daniel defense,
CEO Marty Daniel and also Ruger CEO Christopher Killoy.
And in this next clip, AOC decided to specifically confront the CEO of
Daniel defense about the type of symbols used in their advertising.
Let's watch.
>> So, this is featured prominently in your advertisement.
That tattoo, you've indicated that you don't know what it is, but Miss Sampson
as an expert in this area, can you briefly tell us what that tattoo is?
>> That's a fall not.
And it's a symbol that has been increasingly embraced by white
supremacist.
>> So, Mr Daniel, you may or may not know.
But your company's advertisement prominently displays iconography
associated with white supremacist movements.
I'd also you,
can also find it in this other photo that I will be pulling up right now.
Right there from January 6th, you can see the fall
not right there on this gentleman's chest.
Mr. Daniel, yes or no, are you aware that your advertising department uses
imagery affiliated with white supremacist movements in its marketing materials?
>> [INAUDIBLE] >> Reclaiming my time, Thank you.
>> So look, there are a lot of issues.
Even if you're skeptical of the claim that these types of symbols
are prominently featured in the ads by these gun manufacturers.
There are other advertising methods or
tactics used by these manufacturers that tend to attract or
target certain individuals who probably shouldn't have guns.
So for instance, making guns more appealing to a far younger demographic,
potentially, kids who probably shouldn't want guns or have guns.
We've seen examples of that or
these pink handguns to attract women and female buyers.
And just to go back to the wall not that was mentioned by AOC in those clips.
Well, it's Knot of the slain.
It's an old Norse symbol that often represented the afterlife in carvings and
designs.
It's often considered a symbol of the Norse god of Odin.
Some white supremacist, particularly racist Odinists have
appropriated the symbol to use as a racist symbol.
Often they use it as a sign that they are willing to give their life to Odin
generally in battle.
So, fun stuff.
>> Losers, losers like just go to Comic Con.
I mean, I just stop with this cosplay, it's so ridiculous.
But they're always trying to find some like mythological reason that the whites
are the best and and here let me put on my costume and I feel like a big man.
But she also in that hearing, I'm not sure if you have the clip but pointed out that
that same gun manufacturer I believe was selling weapons with the floral
print that the boogaloo boys where as a symbol of their fealty to one another.
Hey, let's all well wear flowers and
will be a white supremacist group together, yipe.
Again, the amount of dress up that is involved with these white
supremacists will never fails to amuse me.
But it just goes to show these companies,
these corporations manufacturing these guns.
You know they have market research in house that says, this is your key demo.
These are all intersectional issues, all of the people that want to.
And I'm sure me even using that term would trigger these very people.
But all of these people who want to dress up and pretend and
be a big man and be a white supremacist, who kicks down at other groups,
they also want to feel empowered by buying something as a consumer.
As an extension of their genitalia.
So they feel like big men in a society that
is not necessarily entirely geared toward them at this point.
No, they see a black couple in an ad that's in the front towards me.
Let me go buy a gun so
I can feel powerful in the world, that doesn't make sense to me anymore.
So, these gun manufacturers know exactly what they're doing.
And I think she did an excellent job of highlighting those points,
because that's the reality.
They're complicit in the fact that these mass shootings are disproportionately
done by right wing extremists.
They understand that this is their key demo, and that's why targeting
the manufacturing of these weapons is the way to go with gun control.
Not empowering law enforcement with more background checkability or
more red flag law ability.
Because we already know law enforcement discretion is very questionable.
Target the manufacturing and sale of these get them out of circulation,
that's the only way to actually change things in this area.
>> Right, and I know that there might be
differences on where we stand on gun control.
I'm sure we agree on most of it, but I'm of the mind that, I think
law abiding responsible adults should be able to purchase certain guns, right?
I think certain assault weapons, more importantly,
high capacity magazines are an issue and we should look at it.
But I'm not in the camp of we should ban guns,
we should do away with the Second Amendment.
I think that there are plenty of people in this country who are responsible gun
owners for whatever reason, whether it's for self defense and
they keep it in their own home and some sort of say for a lock box.
Or it's a hobby of theirs, they like to go hunting in their rural community.
I don't wanna take that away from people.
But the problem that I have overall when it comes to the advertising that
I've seen from gun manufacturers, and this is separate from the appeal to white
supremacists, which is an even worse issue if you ask me.
Is just like this effort to provide cover or just kind of like help people
forget the fact that we're dealing with a lethal weapon here, right?
It's not a toy.
So, even if you were to take what gun manufacturers and
they're advertisements have to say at face value,
the floral design has nothing to do with the boogaloo boys, we swear.
Okay, why does a gun a lethal weapon get a floral print?
It's not a 1950s vintage dress.
It's a freaking gun.
You know what I'm saying?
It just, it doesn't, and it sends this message,
that it's totally fine to not be responsible with your gun, right?
How many people just willy-nilly leave their
gun out within reach of their own children?
I mean, how many people forget the fact that they're dealing with
lethal weapon and they co-sign on their son?
Like the Yuval, the shooter being able to purchase certain guns.
It's a huge problem in terms of messing with the way
people perceive guns and how lethal they are.
Now, I wanna get back to the hearing because there's more to get to.
Now, Daniel, who's the CEO of one of these gun manufacturers said, he was not aware
of the iconography and that he did not directly participate in the advertising.
He's just the CEO, I mean he's just the CEO, but
he has no idea what they're doing what they're advertising.
I mean, that's, >> [INAUDIBLE]
>> CEO that,
just has no idea what they're putting in their ads.
>> Kicking it down to his subordinates, pure conservatism per usual.
>> Exactly.
He decried the recent wave of massacres across America but
said they were a local problem that should be addressed locally.
Okay, we don't live on an island.
If you're in a particular state,
you don't have closed borders with the rest of the country.
So the idea that this is a local problem is laughable to say the least.
But we're talking about people who have a massive profit motive here, right?
So that's worth discussing as well.
That's something that AOC focused on and addressed a little bit.
So, let's get right to that.
So let's talk about what the profits have been for
these two gun manufacturers in particular.
Daniel defense, the manufacturer of the AR-15-style rifle that you've
all day gunmen used to kill 19 children and two teachers, offers its firearm for
sale through a buy now pay later financing system advertised on its website.
The company's revenue from AR-15-style rifles tripled,
it tripled from 2019 to last year from just a mere $4 million to 120 million.
Meanwhile, Ruger's gross earnings from the same style rifles nearly
tripled from 2019 to 2021 from 39 million to over 103 million.
Ruger's rifles and pistols were used by mass shooters in
Sutherland Springs Texas in 2017 and Boulder Colorado in 2021.
And AOC wanted to draw attention to the correlation between record gun profits and
the increase of these massacres across the country.
Let's watch.
>> In 2020 again, more than 45,000 Americans died by gunfire,
reflecting in almost threefold increase from 2015.
Are those statistics correct?
>> That's accurate.
>> So in your view, are you seeing a correlation between gun profits and
gun deaths in the United States?
>> Yes.
>> This is about blood money.
Between 2019 and 2021, 2 years, leading gun manufacturer Sturm and
Ruger saw gross profits double to almost $280 million.
In fact, during an earnings call their CEO called the sales boom quote
historic ferocious and that the future was bright.
A month after that an AR-556 pistol murdered 10
people at a supermarket in Boulder Colorado.
>> Now, I share that with you because it always goes back to what I think the best
analysis is in regard to where we are in this country and why we are, where we are.
It's not because people are good or people are bad.
The profits matter corporations,
capitalism indicates, you gotta maximize your profit.
You have a fiduciary responsibility to your shareholders
to return on whatever investment they made in your company, right?
To return a profit to them.
That is their fiduciary responsibility.
So, when you have a system with lawmakers who get legalized bribes from
these corporations, who have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits,
those profits will always take priority over human lives.
Do a systemic analysis of why we're experiencing what we're experiencing.
I think too much of the analysis just focuses on, well, Manchin, a bad guy or
gun manufacturers are bad people.
And look, that might be true, but whether or not they're good or bad is really
irrelevant when you take a step back and you see how this system is set up and
how the system incentivizes profits over human lives.
>> Yeah, it's a facile analysis when it's only focused on individual actors and
even guns in general.
Now, look, I might differ from, I think on the left,
there's a broad spectrum of how people wanna approach gun control.
I do think that there is a troubling managerial liberal impulse from
the coast when it comes to gun control.
There's a reason that Michael Bloomberg is, this is his only issue, right?
This is the only corporate greed that he feels emboldened to actually challenge.
And there are a lot of types like him as well.
Where overall, this is a problem of profits being unrestrained,
unfettered capitalism.
Because when you hear good guys with a gun, and that kind of rhetoric,
that's because they want more people to buy their weapons.
It is a problem of unfettered capitalism and
there are deadly results when it comes to climate change on that front.
And there are deadly results when it comes to the flood of weaponry on that front.
But the latter is one that can be exploited in terms of fear.
So when people are constantly fearful that they're gonna get gunned down, it
increases the purchase of these weaponry, has been borne out in those statistics.
And so, they are exploiting people's fears to that degree.
There's, it's interesting too by the way that AOC is on the oversight committee,
I'm always reminded when she's in these hearings.
Cuz I think Pelosi placed her there because she'll be the attack dog for
gun manufacturers or Republicans and oversight.
But keep her off the energy committee, keep her off the financial committees
naturally where it might be a little bit more substantive.
But regardless, this is still does have value.
There are three things that we could do that I think are great common sense gun
reforms.
One, we have to target the manufacturing of these weapons of war.
They should not be on our streets.
Other weapons, you get a license, you can own it, I believe in that.
Also, we need to do a lucrative gun buyback program
because there are just too many out there.
It doesn't need to be mandatory, does not, and I don't think it could be mandatory in
this country, but you make it lucrative, three times the price of the gun.
The government can buy it back from you.
And then thirdly, as I mentioned, licensure,
if you can need more steps to drive a car, to become a hairstylist,
all of these things than to buy a weapon, that is a problem in this country.
And then I think we can actually get serious about gun control.
But as always, I'm appreciative of her well researched attacks on that committee.