One Las Vegas gun shop advertised a “Pre-Hillary Sale” over the weekend, playing on fears that, in Donald Trump’s words, “the Second Amendment is on the ballot in November.”
“Don’t wait! Prices will skyrocket after Crooked Hillary gets in,” the ad from Westside Armory, a gun store in Southwest Las Vegas, read, as reported by the Washington Post.
Jon Ralston, a political analyst at KTNV in Las Vegas, posted a picture of the advertisement on Twitter on Sunday afternoon. “Vegas armory ad in Adelson News,” he wrote, referring to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which conservative donor and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson bought in December of last year.
“Pre-Hillary sale. Don’t wait! Prices will skyrocket after Crooked Hillary gets in.” Vegas armory ad in Adelson News. Wow! And…surrender? pic.twitter.com/c24FWw99L0
— Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) October 16, 2016
The ad features the image and specifications of a Smith & Wesson M&P Sport II, a semiautomatic rifle, priced at $699.99.
Rifles like the M&P Sport II are in the crosshairs of gun control activists who advocate for the restoration of the assault weapons ban. Clinton advocated for reinstating the assault weapons ban after this summer’s mass shooting at an Orlando nightclub, and she also has argued forcefully for expanded and more thorough background checks and holding gun dealers liable for crimes committed with their products.
As the Post noted in their report, gun sales spiked after Barack Obama’s 2008 election, and again when he was re-elected in 2012.
