Gun-Control Exec Says Attempts to Sell Guns to Minorities, Women ‘Incredibly Dangerous’

The leader of a gun-control group decried efforts to sell firearms to minorities and women as "incredibly dangerous" on Monday.

"Gun makers are softening their image to ‘put a better face in front of people' & ‘ramp up its appeal to women, children and members of minority groups,'" Igor Volsky, executive director of gun-control activist group Guns Down America, said in a tweet. Volsky, who is also a former vice president of the Center for American Progress, was commenting on a New York Times story about firearms marketing.

"That's right," Volsky continued. "Gun makers are increasingly advertising to WOMEN, CHILDREN & MINORITY COMMUNITIES. Firearm industry realizes that to survive into the future it must ‘broaden its reach beyond the aging white men who have been its core customers'—and so they're now trying to sell their products to other demographics. This is incredibly dangerous."

The comments caused a backlash among female and minority gun-rights advocates who said Volsky's rhetoric harks back to the racist history of gun control in America. Maj Toure, head of the Black Guns Matter Tour that provides firearms training to African Americans in urban areas, told the Washington Free Beacon Volsky was "uninformed" about past attempts to deny black Americans their Second Amendment rights.