the times | Wednesday June 8 2022 2GM 31
Rapper ‘boasted of putting
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Page 34Little Picasso takes
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Page 33school destroyed by the Russians returned to the ruins to celebrate graduation
‘Trump of guns’ caught
in the crosshairs after
teenager’s killing spree
United States
David Charter Washington
Eight days before the Uvalde school
massacre, the company that made the
high-powered rifle used by the gunman
tweeted an image of a young boy sitting
with an assault weapon in his lap.
“Train up a child in the way he should
go,” the caption stated, quoting a bibli-
cal proverb, “and when he is old, he will
not depart from it.”
It was the latest provocative market-
ing ploy by Daniel Defense. The firm,
led by Marty Daniel, a brash garage-
door manufacturer turned darling of
the firearms industry, made its tweets
private shortly after 19 children and two
teachers were killed at Robb Elemen-
tary School in Texas.
Salvador Ramos turned 18 on the day
of the toddler tweet and became legally
able to buy one of the company’s $1,870
DDM4 semi-automatic rifles online. A
week later he used it to kill.
As Congress prepares for its first
hearing on Uvalde today, with testi-
mony expected from bereaved parents
and a girl who survived by smearing
herself with her friend’s blood and play-
ing dead, President Biden has several
targets in his cross hairs, including gun
manufacturers.
In a primetime speech at the White
House last week Biden urged Congress
to remove immunity from liability for
damage caused by their products and
called for the renewal of the 1994 ban
on semi-automatic weapons and high-
capacity magazines. Researchers say
limiting magazines to ten rounds would
reduce the death toll in mass shootings.
The ban was allowed to expire under
President Bush in 2004. Daniel was at
the vanguard of the subsequent move-
ment that popularised civilian owner-
ship of military-style weapons.
“Marty Daniel burst in the door, a lot
louder and more brazen than other
gunmakers, much like Donald Trump
did on the political scene,” said Ryan
Busse, a former gun company executive
who changed his views and wrote
Gunfight: My Battle Against the IndustryThat Radicalized America. “Daniel
Defense is quite emblematic of the
takeover of the industry by the AR15
[semi-automatic rifle] culture.”
Busse argues that the average gun-
owner at the end of the last century was
ageing rapidly and the market shrink-
ing. Then along came Daniel, 59, who
says on his company website that he
was looking for another recreational
activity because he “sucked” at golf.
“A friend invited him to shoot his
AR,” the company history states.
“Every shot he fired filled him with a
satisfaction he’d never before experi-enced. Marty would purchase his first
AR this same year.”
Today his company has more than
200 employees at a
state-of-the-art fact-
ory in Savannah. It
sold 52,549 pistols and
rifles in 2020, and its
turnover in 2016 was
$73 million.
Among its bestselling
products are its assault
rifles, which are semi-
automatic, meaning they
fire a bullet every time the trig-
ger is pulled without a new
round having to be manually
loaded.
Critics accuse Daniel of
targeting younger custom-
ers with references inmarketing material to Star Wars and
the video game Call of Duty.
“The mass shooting at Sandy Hook
Elementary in 2012 drove a lot of sales,”
Daniel told Forbes in 2017. “That was a
horrible event, and we don’t use those
kinds of terrible things to drive sales,
but when people see politicians start
talking about gun control, they have
this fear and they go out and buy guns.”
Busse said Daniel’s company had
“adopted this cutting-edge sales tech-
nique where it sells directly to consum-
ers” and offered financing. Daniel
Defense did not answer questions
about whether the Uvalde gunman was
paying for his weapon in instalments.
The firm has been sent a list of written
questions about its marketing tech-
niques by the House of Representatives
oversight committee that will hold to-
day’s hearing.
Daniel has been a staunch defender
of the Second Amendment, the right to
bear arms, explaining in his Forbes
interview that he was “more interested
in preserving our gun rights than mak-
ing a dollar”.
He and his wife, Cindy Daniel, the
chief operating officer of Daniel
Defense, contributed more
than $300,000 to
Trump’s 2020 re-
election campaign, and
their company
gave $100,000 to
the Gun Owners
Action Fund,
which funded the
Republicans in
Georgia.
Daniel De-
fense did not re-
spond to a
request for com-
ment. A state-
ment about the
Uvalde school
massacre on its
website reads: “Our
thoughts and prayers
go out to the families
and community devas-
tated by this evil act.”Arms race
Do you feel that the laws covering
the sale of firearms should be made
more or less strict?
100%
75
50
2595200005 10 1520200More strict Less strict
Kept as isSource: GallupPolice watched homeless man drown
Three police officers in Arizona who let
a homeless man drown in a lake despite
his pleas have been placed on leave.
Sean Bickings, 34, jumped into the
water in Tempe to evade officers after
they carried out a background check
and found three outstanding arrest
warrants. After he said that he was
struggling, one officer replied: “OK, I’m
not jumping in after you.”
The New York Post reported that at
least one officer tried to get a boat to
rescue Bickings but that it was too late.
The police had been called to the
Centre for the Arts at 5am on May 28
after a report of a disturbance between
Bickings and a female companion, thecity said. When officers told the pair
that their names were being checked,
Bickings climbed over a fence and
jumped into the lake. A police bodycam
video released by the city authorities
showed him asking: “I’m gonna go for a
swim, I’m free to go, right?”
One of the officers replied: “You can’t
swim in the lake, man.” The police
remained on the other side of the fence.
Bickings swam a few strokes and one
officer asked the others “How far do
you think he is going to be able to
swim?” before the video ended.
A transcript released by the police
showed that Bickings then told officers:
“I’m going to drown, I’m going to
drown.” One officer replied: “Come
back over to the pylon.” When Bickingsresponded, “I can’t, I can’t,” he was told,
“OK, I’m not jumping in after you.”
Bickings replied: “Please help me.
Please, please, please.”
The woman also pleaded with the
officers, saying: “He’s drowning right in
front of you and you won’t help.”
It was not clear how long Bickings
was in the water before he died. His
body was recovered at 11.20am.
The city’s police union said that offi-
cers had not been trained to carry out
water rescues. The city said on
Monday: “The three Tempe police offi-
cers who responded to the call and wit-
nessed the drowning have been placed
on non-disciplinary paid administra-
tive leave pending the investigations, as
is customary in critical incidents.”Debbie WhiteMarty and Cindy Daniel’s firm
sold the weapon used at Uvalde