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.