Pinkwashing Turns on Itself with Breast Cancer Awareness Gun

Submitted by Anne Landman on

Smith & Wesson Breast Cancer Awareness PistolOctober was Breast Cancer Awareness month, and the group Breast Cancer Action seized on the opportunity to promote its Think Before you Pink campaign to raise awareness of how companies are increasingly exploiting breast cancer as a marketing device to sell products -- some of which are actually harmful to women's health. Pink ribbon campaigns are offering up some bizarre, albeit benign products like a breast cancer awareness toaster and a breast cancer awareness floating Beer Pong table. But the most bizarre item yet to have a pink ribbon slapped on it must be Smith & Wesson's Pink Breast Cancer Awareness 9 mm Pistol, promoted by a woman named Julie Goloski, Smith and Wesson's Consumer Program Manager and a sharpshooter herself. Goloski is promoting S&W's breast cancer awareness pistol on her Facebook page, saying "October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Breast Cancer Awareness M&P’s are shipping to dealers. I am thrilled to have my name associated with such a worthy cause and one of my favorite firearms." According to a 2008 report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, firearms are the second most common cause of violent deaths of women, accounting for 29.2% of all violent deaths among females in the U.S. in 2008.

Main Source: 
GunBroker.com, November 3, 2009
Topics: 
Corporate Campaigns
Ethics
Health

Comments

Anonymous replied on

Firearms don't cause death, you fool. It takes a human being with an intent to harm to cause a violent death. Why don't you look at the statistics on how many women save their own lives with a gun? I think it's very appropriate for a company that makes a product with the intention of helping women (and men) to protect their lives to also use their products to spread awareness of breast cancer.

My mother is a breast cancer survivor and she'd love what S&W is doing.

Anonymous replied on

I love the gun and think that it is a great way to get the pink ribbon out there! Women have the right to protect themselves and why not feel comfortable and safe doing it. I have lost family members due to breast cancer and I would be proud to carry that gun on my side. What is the difference between a hat, cup, beer mug, or magnet you stick on your car?

Anonymous replied on

Wesson oil is what you put on your salad and what S&W people clean their gun with. So they might as well put pink ribbons on their guns. For a real gun you need a Golck or Sturm Ruger. The three baddest dogs in my town are named Ruger.

Anonymous replied on

Thank You!!! My mother was a breast cancer survivor..she died in July after breaking her hip....I just bough a Walther p22 Pink gun today, not for breast cancer but everytime I shoot at the range I can think of my mom...I am so sick of these people turning something like this into a big deal when it's not....if the gun companies want to promote breast cancer awareness it's THEIR RIGHT just like anyone elses!!!!!

chemiconscious replied on

Ok, how about *fighting* breast cancer with actual *awareness*. I understand that the issue of breast cancer strikes a chord with many of us. We all have mothers, sisters, wives, daughters, and since this is a growing epidemic, many of us have experienced its effects up close. I think this debate has gone off topic. The issue at hand here is not gun safety. It's not about statistics of the ways in which women die. It is about the *breast cancer awareness* campaign itself.

We're all so caught up in the hype of finding a cure, that we're forgetting to resort to the most important tool in this fight - knowledge. It's not about money. It's not about seeing pink and thinking about your Aunt Mildred who died the year before last from breast cancer. It's about educating ourselves and our children about the hazardous chemicals in everyday products that may one day become cancer.

The fact that *awareness* still means pouring money into a cure is just a way of passing off responsibility, instead of taking control and actually being aware of where this cancer, and others, are coming from. The fact that there's a pink handle on a gun is just as ironic as cosmetic companies jumping on the pink bandwagon even though their products contain known carcinogens. It's marketing. It's about money. And it promotes the wrong kind of awareness. It's a distraction: a way for citizens to turn a blind eye from the real problem because they feel they've done their part in contributing to the eradication of this disease.

It needs to be about intention; about staying true to one's own values; about taking responsibility for one's own awareness; about learning the facts, the causes. The best way to avoid dying from cancer, is to never have it in the first place. There are over 80,000 chemicals registered for use in the US, of which less than 7% have been tested for effects on human health. That's scary. We are obviously not being protected, so we need to save ourselves. Let's wake up before it's too late.

DrTCH replied on

I appreciate this comment about cancer and AWARENESS.

What is truly sad is that so many people--including celebrities---are woefully ignorant of the facts about cancer. There are alternative theory and treatment modalities available that are frequently successful, and certainly superior to the "Stone-age Medicine" junk that oncology has to offer

The Susan G. Komen organization (associated with the American Cancer Society and Revlon) is a terribly corrupt one, with a high percentage of their donations going to administrative costs, and with a strenuous refusal to consider alternative, cutting-edge cancer theory, research, and treatment. Please educate yourself by consulting the Cancer Control Society, and books such as:

• Alternative Medicine Definitive Guide to Cancer by W. John Diamond and W. Lee Cowden
• The Gerson Therapy: The Proven Nutritional Program for Cancer and Other Illnesses by Charlotte Gerson and D.P.M., Morton Walker
• Breast Cancer: Beyond Convention: The World's Foremost Authorities on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Offer Advice on Healing by Isaac, O.M.D., L.A.c. Cohen, Debu, M.D. Tripathy and Mary, M.D., L.A.c Tagliaferri
• Treatable and Beatable: Healing Cancer without Surgery by Carolyn Gross
• AntiCancer: A New Way of Life by David Servan Schreiber, M.D., PhD.

Timothy replied on

So now the go to source for firearms statistics is the CDC? Yeah, guns are diseases. Sure. If you want me to believe your statistics why not find a real source?

Anne Landman replied on

CDC considers the steep rise in firearm injuries over the decades to be a public health problem. The agency tracks the the trend epidemiologically, with an eye towards developing prevention strategies. Here is CDC's report on firearm deaths in the U.S. available online: http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/pub-res/firarmsu.htm

Anonymous replied on

The CDC summary says that firearms deaths have increased a lot in 33 years. But they do not take note of the fact that a similar increase has taken place in Great Britain, even though "over there" gun laws have become so increasingly strict there is today a total ban on private firearms. Yet firearms deaths are twice as high (per capita) than they were in the '60s. Obviously, gun control isn't really a factor. We need to move past spurious gun debates and try to find out WHY violence is on the rise in Western civilization. But guns aren't the source of the problem.

(search the Home Office for source data)

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