The Daily Caller Is Giving Away Guns

Right-wing news site The Daily Caller has come up with an innovative new method of attracting people to sign up for their email updates: Each week through Election Day new registrants will be eligible to win a free handgun. And not just any handgun; the weapon in question is “engraved with the Bill of Rights.”

The gun's manufacturer, Jim Pontillo, has attacked American progressives for supposedly seeking to promote communism in America and claimed that “people calling for secession” are not “fanatics who hate America” but are instead acting “in the Founding tradition.”

This ad is currently running on the website's NRA-sponsored “Guns and Gear” page:

Clicking on the image diverts readers to the landing page for “The Daily Caller Gun Giveaway,” which states:

The Daily Caller will be giving away one gun per week until Election Day -- November 6, 2012.

The FMK9C1 is an American-made high capacity 9mm designed by Jim Pontillo and manufactured in California. Each gun is engraved with the Bill of Rights and comes in one of three colors.

To enter this week's contest, simply sign up below to receive updates from The Daily Caller. Our DC Morning emails are an informative and amusing way to keep up with the latest news.

The FMK9C1 is produced by FMK Firearms. On the About FMK Firearms page on their website, founder Pontillo writes:

For many American citizens who embrace a political philosophy which swings left, collectivism, socialism, and ultimately communism is the idealist utopia they aspire to capture and promulgate across America. For these people, For My Kountry, means to ridicule excellence, to fear prosperity, and to blame others for individual failures.

It is an ideology which springs from mankind's weakest tenets...jealousy and envy. It is an ideology which attempts to tear all down to one low and “equal” or “fair” level. It is an ideology incapable of raising anyone or anything upward. Most of all, it is an ideology without any understanding of American culture or our American Founders' dream of creating a country free from government tyranny, open to individual initiative, and most important, insuring to all citizens those inalienable rights guaranteed to mankind by God.

In a page on the website labeled “Our Charter,” Pontillo claims that “Liberalism is changing America for the worse,” claiming that progressive policies “have burdened Americans to depend on government instead of Church, God and community” and stating that “Separation of Church and State is a perversion of the 1st Amendment to take religious influence out of all government business when it was designed only to keep government influence out of religion.”

Pontillo continues:

Firearm ownership magnifies and encourages all these admirable qualities of man. Firearm ownership also threatens the liberal philosophies which demand a dependent, despondent and surrendered people; explanation for the creative and far-fetched calisthenics endorsed by opponents of the 2nd Amendment.

Pontillo's extreme right-wing rhetoric is not limited to his company's website. In columns posted at Human Events, Pontillo has written:

  • “The simple fact of the matter is, the people calling for secession are not fanatics who hate America, they are middle classed working people who don't get benefits like food stamps and free health care, but are the ones paying for someone else's food stamps and someone else's health care. They say 'secede' because they are Americans in the Founding tradition.” [Link]
  • “For the Left, Founding principles aren't about Freedom or Liberty, Founding principles are about keeping slaves and maintaining an environment where minorities cannot rise in society; in the Left's convoluted thinking, patriotism is racism, and private gun ownership somehow threatens the minority's upward mobility.” [Link]
  • “I can't imagine how much more insult the American people are willing to endure under the 'enterprises of ambition' by our politicians, but I do know, gun ownership and an understanding of our American Founders' vision will have positive and deliberate effect on the psyche of our populace and can subdue the overzealous and prejudicial effect of this ambition. When law is abused to achieve political ends where do the gallant citizens turn? Quite possibly to their guns.” [Link]

The Caller launched their “Guns and Gear” section in December, stating that gun owners “are currently without the sort of daily news coverage that is allotted to most other American interests.” The site largely reprints and repackages news releases, articles, and op-eds from National Rifle Association sources. The Caller has also followed the NRA in their relentless promotion of attacks on Attorney General Eric Holder regarding the failed ATF Operation Fast and Furious.