Gun Christmas bauble under fire
When you think of the festive season, your mind turns to happy images of joyful families decorating a Christmas tree in all manner of sparkling and prettily coloured items, like baubles and streamers and handguns.
Okay, maybe not handguns.
Predictably, they claim that it puts an ‘ironic twist’ on the holidays.
It’s not the first time Urban Outfitters have courted controversy. They were criticised in the past for t-shirts with slogans like ‘Everyone Loves a Jewish Girl’ (juxtaposed with a dollar sign) and ‘New Mexico, Cleaner Than Regular Mexico’, while they attracted the most impotent rage when they sold a spoof board game called Ghettopoly, in which players competed to buy crack houses.
Leading the grumpiness over the bauble were anti-gun groups.
‘Once again, you see someone trying to profit off of the violent nature of our society, and if that’s the case, they should withdraw the ornament from their catalog right away and submit an apology to the community,’ said Darryl Coates, executive director of the Philadelphia Anti-Drug/Anti-Violence Network – Philadelphia being the city Urban Outfitters is based in.
A statement from Urban Outfitters said: ‘This specific ‘Glitter Gun Ornament’ is by no means condoning the violence that we face in our city, or any city, for that matter, and is not meant to celebrate guns or gun violence.’
But that’s what the determinedly edgy shop Urban Outfitters would quite like you to do. In America, the chain has unveiled a 5-inch long glittering handgun ornament as part of its Christmas offerings.
‘Bust a cap in your tree with this superglittery ornament in the shape of a handgun, complete with a satin ribbon for hanging,’ says the classy description of the ‘Glitter Gun Ornament’ in the retailer’s online catalogue.
