re: #112 Political Atheist

The ad is clearly designed to show, therefore promote rifle shooting as a family sport that calls for safety gear. It shows the gear. And says be responsible.

The ad is designed to get people to buy Remington products. They are doing so by marketing to a certain segment of gun owners. I do not think that showing the gear and saying ‘be responsible’ works, because in general, such simple pedagogy doesn’t actually work.

I’m not expert on gun stuff, but I did quite a bit of work on safety in another industry and area, and in that case, simple instruction on safety and depiction of it was never found to have more than a tiny result even with adults— it can actually backfire. Safety is hard, and familiarity is the enemy of safety.

It’s really easy to arrange that photo safely. Like with a bluetooth or cable remote shutter release. From the front we can see the gear and the faces of the participants. If I were a hired photog for a gun or range ad it might look a lot like that ad.

Of course it’s easy to arrange that photo safely. The bullets are almost certainly blanks too. But if you’re saying that the depiction is what matters, then a moment’s thought as to the implication of where the gaze is would be nice.