by The big news according to the mainstream media and the White House was the trade of Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout for professional women’s basketball player Brittney Griner. Bout was serving a 25 year sentence for conspiring to kill Americans while Griner had been sentenced to 9 years on drug charges. Left out in the prisoner exchange was former Marine Paul Whelan who has been sitting in a Russian prison since 2018 on trumped-up espionage charges. At least Secretary of State Antony Blinken had the decency to acknowledge Whelan was left behind.
Bout is reputed to be the inspiration for the Nicholas Cage character in the movie “Lord of War”.
Missouri-based retailer Tactical Shit took the notoriety associated with this prisoner exchange and the resulting criticism to set up a 24-hour sale called the “Lord of War” sale. They are offering 10% off all gun and ammo sales with few exceptions. I got an email about it by mid-afternoon today. I will note that I am neither a customer nor an affiliate.
A screen capture from the email is below.
Was this in good taste? Well….. Was it a great example of marketing agility? Damn right it was. They used a current event that is being reported ad nauseum to reach out to their potential customers who are not thrilled with Paul Whelan being left behind. I would be real interested in finding out what sort of response they have gotten to this promotion.
One final note – the company refers to its customers as “Local Warlords” so this fits right into that theme.
According to information readily available on the web, the world’s biggest arms dealer is the US government and associated defense contractors. Why the outrage about this small fry private business type?
Bad taste, yes. Smart marketing, ALSO yes!
I have read that Paul Whelan was indeed a spy for the U.S. But it really makes no difference. We had the most notorious arms dealer, and unless there was a much more valuable prisoner to exchange for him, a woman’s professional basketball player, who broke the Russian law, did not qualify to exchange for the person responsible for so much devastation around the world, including in the United States.
Politics should only go so far, and in this case, Biden stretched it much too far, to trade a member of the leftist wing for someone who should never have seen daylight. It would have been a stretch to trade him for Paul Whelan, but we should have probably done that, just because of the courage and dedication of what Whelan did. And to reward him for doing such a thing, and to let others know that they would also not be forgotten, if they so chose to follow in his footsteps. Try and recruit another spy from the military again. Did I mention that Biden and his administration are incompetent?
It doesn’t take much to be considered a “spy”. I am intrigued by “mechanical”. When “touring”, I tend to meet a lot of police and security around canals, bridges, ports, etc. I recently spent some time reading about shipping on the Volga River and the Volga-Don Canal. I’d better staybaway.
Griner was an arrogant druggie who had been to Russia before. She knew the rules. She (and Slo Joe) wasted an opportunity to free a useful human from the Gulag.