I dunno. Maybe back in '54, guns hadn't been vilified so much. Maybe they hadn't been painted as dangerous vehicles of murder like they have now... you know, by all those murders people used them for.
Right after the surprise of seeing the ad, I had to scan the copy to see if it's a pellet gun or some realistic but non-functional collectible. Nope. Line one: "This is not an air or CO2 gun." It's also not a Luger. Luger was a German company that made the pistol by the same name. Lots of American soldiers came home (the ones that DID come home) with Lugers taken from German soldiers or by other means. The gun was famous and has a bit of a following. Looking up the name Luger now shows that they're now based in Connecticut, and have been since 1949. I wonder if they bought the name from the German company? I dunno. For more information, ask your local World War Two nut.
Misspell the name, and you're what we call "lawyer-safe". You can do whatever you like with the resulting name and you can't be sued by the non-"Kr" company. Ever see cheap electronics by the name "Coby" in a font that looks a LOT like "Sony". Same thing. The look alike trick is something my friend calls the "grandma store version", meaning that there's a store somewhere where grandmas buy gifts for grandchildren. Grandma can't keep all the names straight and will buy anything that sort of looks like the right name. She may come home with "Space Wars" figures or some other not-even-close approximation of the thing you actually want. The grandma store is a fiction used to explain a real world phenomena: cheap knockoff products.
But three dollars for a real gun! That's $24 in today's money. Talk about your cheap murder! Of course, you could be buying the thing to shoot imitation clay pigeons or empty cans from "Bambell's Soup". Who was the market for a dirt-cheap gun? The recently unemployed? Children? The recent gun hobbyist who's not sure if "this whole gun thing" is for him? The ad was run in Popular Science, so I guess the market was disappointed technology fans who wish they could be real scientists. Guilty as charged, but I don't want an imitation Luger. If ever I actually DID want a gun, I think I'd want a really good, proper gun. When you're buying a thing that sends bullets whizzing around, you definintely want one that's reliable, so the bullets whiz in the right direction. I'd imagine that a poorly made gun would stand an even chance of just exploding your fingers off or missing the intended target by a country mile.
Look at the smaller picture in the ad. It's a serving suggestion showing you how the gun goes in your hand. It'd be great if they had a picture of a doofus using the Kruger to itch inside his nostril, with a big "NO" sign across it. In any case, the Kruger company seems to be aiming at the velcro-closure shoes types who need tips on how to point a gun. Maybe the picture is intended to show that the gun is full size, and not a miniature model? Naw... the hand could be miniature too. The photo proves nothing.
* * * * * * * * * *
Articles in this month's Angry Drifter magazine:
-Kruger Pistol Review: Felony on a Budget
-The "Report" Report: How Loud is Too Loud?
-Murder: Know When to Say When
-Anger Management: Keep the Fires Burning
-Planning Your Next Multi-State Crime Spree
-Eyebrow Management: Going for that "normal" look.
-"Am I Unstable Enough?": Our fifty question quiz will tell you!
-Silencers Roundup: Sometimes Death Whispers
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2 comments:
Nothing says "quality" like knurled styrene.
(Oh, and before you take shit from a gun nut, a "Luger" is the German pistol Grandpa came home with after he busted some Kraut's head open in dubya-dubya eye eye.
Grandpa liked German products so much after that, that Grandma surprised him one year and bought him a GMW.)
Dammit. I knew that sounded funny. Tried to edit the post to fix the name, but now the post is blocked by my work's web filter. Hah! I'll fix it by tonight. Thanks Craig!
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