A gun control advocate and Virginia Tech shooting survivor is not amused that he appears in an image created by Zombie Industries, the maker of “life-sized tactical mannequin” targets painted to look like “zombies.”
“Hey @ZombieInd would u remove pic w/me off your ad 4 ‘Gun Control Lobbyist’ shooing (sic) targets pls? Already been shot…,” Colin Goddard wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.
Goddard was shot four times during the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, and currently works at Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. The image he referred to on Twitter appears on Zombie Industries’ Facebook page. He appears in an image set behind the company’s new “Gun Control Lobbyist” target, which, as the company likes to brag, “bleeds when shot.”
Goddard also wrote about the image on Facebook, according to Buzzfeed.
“While I advocate for criminal background checks on all gun sales (which +90% of America supports), I really don’t appreciate this marketing strategy by a few seeking to profit off our efforts to reduce a public health crisis that affects all of us,” Goddard wrote. “‘Bleeds when shot’… been there already, no thanks assholes.”
The criticism from Goddard may not have much of an impact. Zombie Industries has relished the media attention it has received since it was asked to take down an Obama-esque target mannequin from a sales booth during the National Rifle Association’s convention in Houston in May. It has since debuted two new attention-seeking mannequins: one is the gun control lobbyist, the other appears to refer to Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights activist and current MSNBC host.