AR-15 | Be a Seed for Change

Guns & Alcohol Don’t Mix

If there’s one thing Americans don’t need a coupon for, it’s an outing mixing guns and alcohol. Unfortunately, LivingSocial seems to think otherwise.

A new report out today from CREDO Action and the Gun Truth Project calls out the daily deal and experience company for offering booze and bullet-fueled experiences from coast to coast. The wide variety of deals even sometimes feature AR-15s, the same assault rifle used to kill 20 children and 6 educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Other experiences include AK-47s, semi-automatic pistols, and rifles.

Beyond perhaps being in poor taste, the experiences suggest that guns and alcohol go together. They don’t.

CREDO didn’t mince words when it came to calling out LivingSocial:

“In the wake of Newtown, I’d like to know how the people who own or work for LivingSocial can justify profiting from the packaging of AK-47 shooting sprees with an evening of bourbon shots,” Becky Bond, CREDO’s political director, said in a statement.

The company, she added, “is endangering the public health by suggesting pairing assault weapons with alcohol binges is just good clean fun.”

Data shows just how dangerous guns and alcohol can be when combined:

Mixing guns and alcohol is unfortunately common among those attracted to risky behaviors. As the report notes, 86 percent of homicide offenders were drinking at the time of the homicide. Gun owners also have far higher binge-drinking and chronic alcohol abuse rates than people who don’t own guns. People who carry concealed weapons or have confronted someone with a gun are more than twice as likely to drink heavily than non-owners.

In contrast to LivingSocial, its main competitor, Groupon, cancelled all gun-related deals in North America after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

LivingSocial, which lost $650 MILLION last year and $50 MILLION so far this year, has received more than $30 MILLION in tax credits from the District of Columbia, which, ironically, has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation.

To find out more, check out the entire report HERE. If you think that guns and alcohol shouldn’t mix, you can contact LivingSocial using this form and tell them so.

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U.S. Guns: The Awful, Shocking Truth

We Need You: Sign the Petition Right Now!

The tragedy in Aurora, Colorado demonstrated the devastating lethality of AR-15 type guns, and has caused many to question whether it makes sense to allow the purchase of this type of military-style assault rifles. What a lot of people don’t know is that this type of rifle is also the weapon of choice among Mexican drug cartels. In the last 5 years, over 60,000 people have lost their lives in Mexico’s wave of violence.
Click here to WATCH this powerful video and SIGN the petition demanding that President Obama enforce the authority he has to stop this tragic warfare.
Here is the brutal truth: 70 percent of the AR-15s and other guns used by drug lords, gangs, and kidnappers in Mexico come from the United States. Right now, President Obama has the authority to:
1) Enforce the existing ban on the importation of military-style assault weapons. 2) Require gun dealers to report bulk sales of military-style assault weapons. 3) Tighten enforcement of sales in U.S. border towns.
He has the authority, now it’s time to make him ENFORCE it!
Cuéntame has partnered with WOLA (Washington Office For Latin America), and a powerful coalition of partners*, to produce a short animated video exposing how these guns get into the U.S. and are trafficked to Mexico, who profits from their sale, and empower people to tell President Obama to enforce the ban of this kind of trafficking.
Add your signature NOW. It is the most important action you can take to demand President Obama to act now. We need thousands of signatures and it starts with YOURS.
Together we can make an everlasting impact.

Yours, Axel Caballero and the Cuéntame team.

*Coalition partners: Latin America Working Group, Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Global Exchange, Propuesta Civica, Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity, Violence Policy Center, and Alianza Civica.