Dying Social?

Guns & Alcohol Don’t Mix

If there’s one thing Americans don’t need a coupon for, it’s an outing mixing guns and alcohol. Unfortunately, LivingSocial seems to think otherwise.

new report out today from CREDO Action and the Gun Truth Project calls out the daily deal and experience company for offering booze and bullet-fueled experiences from coast to coast. The wide variety of deals even sometimes feature AR-15s, the same assault rifle used to kill 20 children and 6 educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Other experiences include AK-47s, semi-automatic pistols, and rifles.

Beyond perhaps being in poor taste, the experiences suggest that guns and alcohol go together. They don’t.

CREDO didn’t mince words when it came to calling out LivingSocial:

“In the wake of Newtown, I’d like to know how the people who own or work for LivingSocial can justify profiting from the packaging of AK-47 shooting sprees with an evening of bourbon shots,” Becky Bond, CREDO’s political director, said in a statement.

The company, she added, “is endangering the public health by suggesting pairing assault weapons with alcohol binges is just good clean fun.”

Data shows just how dangerous guns and alcohol can be when combined:

Mixing guns and alcohol is unfortunately common among those attracted to risky behaviors. As the report notes, 86 percent of homicide offenders were drinking at the time of the homicide. Gun owners also have far higher binge-drinking and chronic alcohol abuse rates than people who don’t own guns. People who carry concealed weapons or have confronted someone with a gun are more than twice as likely to drink heavily than non-owners.

In contrast to LivingSocial, its main competitor, Groupon, cancelled all gun-related deals in North America after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

LivingSocial, which lost $650 MILLION last year and $50 MILLION so far this year, has received more than $30 MILLION in tax credits from the District of Columbia, which, ironically, has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation.

To find out more, check out the entire report HERE. If you think that guns and alcohol shouldn’t mix, you can contact LivingSocial using this form and tell them so.

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Advocacy Team