A Houston-area gun store and shooting range has been criticized for advertising a “back to school” firearms sale — less than two weeks after back-to-back mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.
“Back to school sale August 13 through 18,” the Boyert Shooting Center in Katy recently posted on its marquee sign. “Up to 50 percent off firearms.”
Local resident Michelle Simons, who sent a photograph of the sign to KTRK-TV, said she was shocked by the store’s choice of words.
“It was so jarring like, ‘Did I really see that?’” Simons, whose husband is an educator, told the station. “What does back to school have anything to do with getting guns? I hope it was just some kind of glaring oversight.”
The Boyert Shooting Center, which has also been advertising its “HUGE SUMMER SALE” on Facebook, told KTRK in a statement that the promotion was meant to celebrate and thank educators.
“We have friends and family who are teachers and our way of reaching out and saying thank you is by offering a summer long promotion of discounted training courses, firearms, and accessories,” the store said.
But some customers have lambasted the ad as inappropriate.
“It’s tasteless and tone deaf,” said one Twitter user, who said he’d visited the store in the past. “Yes, I have been to the store. Never again.”
The Boyert Shooting Center is no stranger to controversy. Last year, the store made headlines after it took a jab at Dick’s Sporting Goods in one of its ads.
“We’re not all Dicks. We still sell ARs,” the store wrote on its marquee sign after the retail company announced its decision to stop selling assault-style rifles in the wake of a shooting massacre in a Florida high school.
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