"We order by the tractor-trailer"
Local business commercials are so awesome and this one is a shining example in Atlanta Metro. What got my attention and made it memorable for me, besides being so raw, is its call to action and the reasoning behind it: Police respond slowly and home alarms are not effective, so come here and buy yourself some guns.
The production value here is about as solid as many YouTube videos you might see. Also, the actors are probably family, friends or possibly even regular store employees. There’s even a seen with someone’s dog walking through their warehouse. The only thing this is missing is the owner’s grandkids waving at the camera or holding up guns. Maybe they can add that to their future ads.
Your home alarm can’t protect you
It starts really well, with a parody of popular home alarm system TV ads. A woman prowler lurks outside a home’s door, dressed all in black with a black ski cap. She kicks open the door, jumps into the house and moves around cartoonishly in front of the door. The home alarm is wailing away. Cut to a man jumping off a treadmill in what looks like a basement den. He jumps over to a phone that’s ringing and answers it. The voice on the other end alerts him to the break in and asks if he’s okay and he shouts back “No, I’m not okay, someone’s in my house!”
My darker sense of humor envisions a break in where the man gets attacked on his way to answer the phone or even soon after he does.
The police won’t save you
Next, the boss appeals directly to the viewer from the store’s counter. He tells us Atlanta Metro had more than 57,000 break-ins last year and that police might take up to an hour to respond to your 911 call. According to the Atlanta Journal Constitiution, even though over all crime is on the decline for our area it is still high compared to similar metro areas around the country and home break-ins have increased over previous years. So he’s probably on target with the statistics he quotes and it is probably appropriate to assume they are significant.
Lots of guns and ammo for sale
Man, it looks like they have literally tons of guns in there. They boast over 8,000 weapons on premises and that they are the distributor for about 3 different ammo manufacturers. The voice over tells you “we order by the truckload,” as the camera pans around a cavernous warehouse packed full of rifle-sized boxes.
My personal views on gun control is a bit conflicted in that I am not in favor of most gun control laws, but I don’t think most people should own guns. I always tell people I don’t own a gun because I’d want to shoot it and I think most folks would face the same temptation.
