A gun store in Royal Oak, Mich., is being praised by the local chapter of a Muslim rights group after agreeing to stop selling targets that depict an AK-47-wielding skeleton in a turban and robe.
The Detroit Free Press reports that Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI), voiced his concern to Target Sports about the gun-range targets, fearing they may cause gun owners to view any Muslim in traditional garb as an enemy.
After "an extremely non-hostile meeting" with the store owner, the owner promised to stop selling the item, Walid told the Free Press. But Thompson Target -- the Ohio-based manufacturer of the life-sized target called "Crazy Bones" -- appears less willing to give in to Walid's pleas.
Walid told the Macomb Daily that he called Thompson Target, which also manufactures targets called "Redneck Zombie" and "Wall Street Zombie," and asked them to stop making the product altogether.
“I had a spirited conversation with a family member of the owner,” Walid told the paper. “He told me we’re at war and we were trying to kill Osama bin Laden. I told him there are people here who may dress that way and they aren’t like Osama bin Laden."
Although Walid told the Macomb Daily that the "Crazy Bones" target appeared to have been removed from the Thompson Target website, the item appears on the site available for purchase as of Feb. 9.
But whatever Thompson Target decides to do, Target Sports has itself proved open to the concerns of its community. Just this past week, the store agreed to make a change to their rental policy at their shooting range after two people committed suicide and one person deliberately shot himself in the last five months, both using guns rented at the store's shooting range.
At the Royal Oak City Commission meeting on Feb. 6, Police Chief Corrigan O'Donohue explained that the store's policy now states that they won't rent a gun to anyone that comes in by themselves if they don't already have a gun in their possession, as "every one of the suicides or attempts involved an individual coming in by themself without a gun."