by I get lots of press releases. Some are interesting, most are irrelevant, and the last one received was just plain weird. It was from Gary Ramey who is the CEO of Liberty Ammunition located in Bradenton, Florida. It appears that Liberty Ammunition is the manufacturer of lead-free, self-defense ammunition. Their ammo is available in most standard handgun calibers plus .223 and .300 Blackout.
The headline of this press release read: “Liberty Ammunition offers free ammo for Idaho firing squad”.
Umm, OK. I guess this is a nice gesture to lower expenses for the the State of Idaho which has adopted the firing squad as an alternative method of execution when lethal injection is not available. It appears Mr. Ramey was motivated by the murder of the four students last year at the University of Idaho.
The press release also contained a number of phrases describing their ammo. They include “most lethal ammunition available”, “ruptures in soft tissue”, and “Hits Harder”.
My concern is with the first two phrases and how they will be used by prosecutors, plaintiffs’ attorneys, and the anti-rights lobby. It is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. You can just imagine an assistant DA trying to make his or her bones asking a homeowner in a self-defense case, “Your pistol was loaded with Liberty Civil Defense ammunition. Did you choose it because it was the “most lethal ammunition” and you wanted to kill the intruder?”
Likewise, you can imagine a plaintiff’s attorney in a civil case asking the defendant who just wanted to save his own life, “When you shot my client’s husband, did you use this ammo because it would rupture his soft tissue and kill him?”
I have nothing against Mr. Ramey, Liberty Ammunition, or their products. However, the use of these descriptive phrases would seem to me to put both the company and any potential user of that ammunition at possible legal risk. When you have so many other viable alternatives why would you risk it.
Rather than embed the full press release as a PDF, you can find it here.
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess he didn’t run that release by an experienced advertiser or attorney before he sent it out.
Nor the claims on his company’s website. sigh.