Real shotgun weddings: Marketing pitch combines love and guns

Some might have viewed it as an odd way to mark Valentine’s Day, but some found it the perfect Feb. 14 combo: Love and guns.

At a gun range in Minnesota, people who showed up with their sweethearts by their side got to shoot a machine gun for free. In Mississippi, cars zoomed by a billboard making a sales pitch: “Buy her a diamond, get a hunting shotgun.�

And at a Las Vegas shooting range that also performs “shotgun weddings,� a couple renewed their vows Thursday.

For the Gun Store, located a few miles east of the Strip in Las Vegas, the improbable combo has been profitable.

Since the company started offering shotgun weddings last spring -- couples get married, pose for pictures with an arsenal and then head to the range with their bridal parties -- they’ve performed more than three dozen ceremonies, the shop’s marketing manager, Emily Miller, told the Los Angeles Times.

“It’s an interesting spin on Vegas,� Miller said. “People come here to do crazy things. It’s a cute ceremony.�

To Josh Sugarmann, a native of Newtown, Conn., where a man gunned down 20 first-graders in December, gun-themed marketing strikes him as “insensitive.�

“I think there’s always someone somewhere who’s trying to find a new gimmick to market firearms,� said Sugarmann, who is also the executive director of the Washington-based Violence Policy Center. “The gun industry will do anything to try to create an opportunity to sell the next gun. They often try to put a happy face on firearms.�

For Chris Thompson, who owns Carter’s Diamond Jewelers in Picayune, Miss., his buy-a-diamond-get-a-gun deal was about knowing his clientele, not about making a statement.

He had heard about another jewelry store offering a similar sale and decided to try it out during Christmas. The billboard is still up -- the river is too high to take it down, Thompson said, through a laugh -- but the sale is over. Before it ended, nine people spent more than $1,500 at his shop and got certificates to claim hunting shotguns from a local gun shop.

Thompson said the sale got positive buzz around town and that he’s considering doing another one.

“I wouldn’t say anybody looked at it negatively,� Thompson said. “It’s a hunting shotgun. It’s not like it’s an assault rifle or anything.�

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