To: Tim O'Shaughnessy, President, LivingSocial
LivingSocial must stop mixing assault weapons and alcohol
Profiting from the packaging of AK47 shooting sprees with an evening of bourbon shots is not only dangerous, it’s repugnant. Your competitors have already dropped these dangerous offers. Remove them from your site immediately and promise not to offer them again.
Why is this important?
Since the massacre at Sandy Hook, many corporations have distanced themselves from the extremist, right-wing gun culture promoted by the NRA.
But the daily deals web site LivingSocial has refused to take action in the wake of Newtown.
LivingSocial continues to offer deals that encourage buyers to engage in a dangerous mix of alcohol and guns. In some cases, customers are even sold packages combining the shooting of assault weapons like the ones used in the Virginia Tech and Aurora, Colorado massacres, and a night of drinking beer or bourbon.
Tell LivingSocial: End your gun and gun range deals that glorify drinking and shooting assault weapons.
Some of LivingSocial’s deals, which are created by gun range proprietors, and then edited and solicited by paid LivingSocial staff, would make even the NRA blush -- and with good reason: 86% of gun murders are committed by people who were drinking before they opened fire.
Most of the deals are careful to say that the shooting comes first, and then the drinking. But many of the deals include transportation on a party bus, and some have a meet-up point at restaurants that offer beer and burgers, giving buyers the chance to drink before the event begins.
LivingSocial’s flip hucksterism buys into the gun manufacturers’ marketing strategy that seeks to bring new customers to shooting ranges in the hopes of pushing them toward gun ownership. But the evidence is clear that when more people own guns, more violence and death occurs.
Competitors to LivingSocial, like Groupon, have already dropped their gun deals and have agreed not to offer them on their site in the future. Now LivingSocial must do the same.
Tell LivingSocial: Enough is enough with your dangerous alcohol and shooting package deals. Remove gun deals from your site and promise not to offer them again.
SOURCES:
1. [PDF] Page 3, "Deals to Die For." CREDO Action and the Gun Truth Project, May 12, 2013. https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.credoaction.com/images/dyingsocial-05-12.pdf
2. "Shootin' + Drinkin': AK47, AR15, Pistols, Food + Beer." LivingSocial. https://www.livingsocial.com/adventures/352064-shootin-drinkin
3. Shareen Pathak, "Salespeople Fuel Growth at Groupon, Living Social" Fins, April 5, 2011. http://sales-jobs.fins.com/Articles/SB130090099092197185/Salespeople-Fuel-Growth-at-Groupon-Living-Social
4. Andy Sullivan, "NRA Membership: For U.S. Gun Clubs, Joining Has Its Privileges." HuffingtonPost/Reuters, February 3, 2013. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/03/nra-membership_n_2610006.html
5. “Homicide.” Harvard Injury Control Research Center. http://act.credoaction.com/sign/livingsocial_guns/%E2%80%9Dhttp://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/%E2%80%9D